Sonny Tan is currently an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Real Estate & Urban Studies, National University of Singapore. He has also been an adjunct lecturer at the Singapore Management University teaching its Master of Applied Finance programme since 2013. His other appointment includes being an Associate Trainer at the Civil Service College (CSC) where he lectures on subjects in economic development, trade facilitation, industrial policy and investment promotion strategies to senior government officials from foreign countries. He is Senior Advisor to a corporate finance company and also sits on the board of a listed company as a lead independent director.
Sonny has a balanced exposure and experience in the public and private sectors over his 39-year career span. In the first 12 years of his career, he served at the various divisions of the Economic Development Board (EDB), rising to the senior management position with oversight for strategic planning for the long-term growth of the manufacturing sector, competitive positioning and strategy, investment promotion strategy, policy and incentives. His operational experience at the EDB includes the promotion and ground-breaking of advanced technologies (AI, biotechnology, robotics etc) and Research & Development capabilities.
From the EDB, he joined the private sector (Visa International and Deutsche Morgan-Grenfell Securities) for 3 years where he honed his commercial acumen with established multi-nationals in the areas of marketing, payment transactions, business analytics and securities research. He spent the next 12 years with the public-listed Fraser & Neave Group (with businesses in food & beverage, brewery, properties, service residences and publishing/printing). At F&N, his responsibilities included strategic planning, business development and mergers & acquisitions (M&A) where he completed more than 25 M&A transactions for the Group.
Sonny left to start his M&A and management consulting business in 2009 where his firm Wysdom Advisory focused on helping clients to raise funds and to grow through M&A.
He became the first CEO of the Real Estate Investment Trust Association of Singapore in 2014. The Association has the charter to grow and strengthen its member REITs which had a combined market capitalization exceeding S$85 billion then. Sonny established the Association on solid foundation before retiring in Aug 2017.
Sonny developed and conducted a comprehensive training programme for the Punjab Bureau of Investment Promotion in Investment Promotion Strategy and Skills in 2020. The programme was sponsored and coordinated by the Chandler Institute.
Sonny has a degree in Bachelor of Technology (Honours) in Industrial Engineering and an MBA from Massey University in New Zealand. He is multi-lingual in English, Mandarin and Bahasa Malaysia/Indonesia.
