- Home
- Asia Pacific Connect 2025: The Renewal Tour
- ESOMAR Connect | Singapore 2025
Local Time: 14:30 - 18:00
The organisers of the event will send out invites to ESOMAR members directly.
This year, ESOMAR is uniting the market research and insights community across 12 countries for the Asia Pacific Connect 2025 Renewal Tour. Join us in Singapore on 19 June 2025 to discover how the industry is evolving and renewing in this vibrant, forward-thinking region, from innovative methodologies to emerging trends like AI-driven insights.
Each ESOMAR Connect event will provide a space to exchange best practices, strengthen networks, and engage in thought-provoking discussions. It’s an opportunity to reconnect, gain fresh perspectives, and help shape the future of market research - one connect at a time.
Event Agenda
2:30pm:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Registration & Networking
3:00pm:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Opening Speech
3:10pm:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Presentation 1: Revealing Asia's Top Brands and the latest research tools brands can use to power their insights by Candice Siu (Client Solutions Director, Pureprofile)
3:25pm:           Presentation 2:  Putting the NEW in ReNEWal – Driving new-age insights for new times by Lyn Lim (Senior Director, Kantar Consulting) & Andrew Ridsdale-Smith (Head of APAC Analytics Practice)Â
3:50pm:           Presentation 3:  Price of Emotion: Understanding the Impact of Rising Cost of Living by Rara Naval (Human Insights Director, Coca-Cola TM ASEAN) & Lester Sualog (Head of APAC, Bolt Insight)
4:15pm: Tea Break - Sponsored by Global Lingo
4:30pm:           Presentation 4:  Unlocking Marketing Insights with AI Agents: A New Paradigm by Peking Tan (Vice President of Mininglamp Technology Group, Dean of Miaozhen Academy of Marketing Science)
4:45pm:           Presentation 5:   Future of Payment by Marilyne Chew (Director of Project Management, Mastercard)
5:10pm:           Presentation 6:   Bringing Meaningful Difference to Renew Interest & Drive Growth: The Edelweiss Story by MC Lai (Head of Consumer Strategy, Insights & Innovation, Heineken Malaysia)
5:35pm:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Networking Drinks - Sponsored by GMO
Speakers
Baxter Tan
ESOMAR Representative, Executive Director at Global LingoGlobal Lingo empowers global organizations by delivering tailored language solutions. As Executive Director of Asia Pacific, Baxter focuses on driving business growth, operational excellence, and multilingual innovation across the region. With over 25 years of expertise in market research and business development, Baxter specializes in helping companies navigate complex multilingual environments to support their market research, marketing, and customer engagement strategies.
 He has been active in the marketing research industry since 2001, working across Malaysia, Australia, and currently based in Singapore, a regional hub for Asia Pacific.
 For the past 17 years, his passion has been building profitable businesses in Asia Pacific from the ground up. He has had the opportunity to do just that for Research Now (now known as Dynata), FocusVision, THG Fluently (formerly Language Connect), and currently, Global Lingo.
In 2011, he was headhunted to lead FocusVision in Asia Pacific when the business was newly established and generating low 6-digit revenue with a small client base in Singapore. By 2013, he had driven the business to a 7-digit turnover and expanded the client base across Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, Thailand, the Philippines, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
In 2015, he co-founded Language Connect Singapore, where he was responsible for setting up the Asia Pacific business from scratch, overseeing new business development, managing P&L, and leading overall business operations. The business became profitable within a year and achieved 7-digit USD revenue from 2017 onwards. In 2018, the company was acquired by THG and rebranded as THG Fluently.
He is fluent in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien, and Bahasa (Malaysia and Indonesia).
In addition to his current role, Baxter actively volunteers with the market research community as an ESOMAR Representative for Singapore.
Marilyne Chew
Regional Lead, Mastercard Experience Center at MastercardMarilyne hails from Mastercard Foundry, the Innovations arm at Mastercard. She is responsible for the Experience Center (MEC) in Singapore and serves as the regional lead for the Asia Pacific region.
She looks to actively share Mastercard’s evolving story as one of the leading technologies and innovation brands with both customers and employees. In her global capacity, she also contributes thought leadership pieces published by the Foundry at Mastercard.
Her 18+ years of Market research experience prior to joining Mastercard enables her to deep dive into the customer psyche and better explain the motivations that drive response to new products and solutions.
MC Lai
Head of Consumer Strategy, Insights and Innovation at HeinekenMC Lai specialises in solving key business challenges and driving growth through insights and strategic planning. With a strong grasp of consumer behavior and market dynamics, he designs forward-thinking strategies aligned with both short- and long-term goals.
In today’s fast-paced business world, MC provides strong leadership to navigate change and disruption, ensuring smooth transitions during uncertainty, mergers, and acquisitions while maintaining growth momentum.
With a start-up mentality and focus on agility, MC fosters a growth mindset within teams, seeing challenges as opportunities for innovation and success. He empowers teams, builds resilience, and delivers impactful results.
Lyn Lim
Head of Commercial Growth at KantarLyn is Head of Commercial Growth from Kantar Consulting, based in Singapore. She has more than a decade experience in marketing and management consulting experience across Southeast Asia and China.
Lyn has worked with many of the top-10 consumer product companies, across F&B, personal and oral care, and OTC pharmaceuticals. She has also done significant client work in Financial Services, Travel & Retail.
Her work primarily surrounds linking insights to actionable business strategies, and measuring commercial uplift. She is also an expert on brand acceleration, digital transformation, marketing strategy and acceleration.
Rara Naval
Human Insights Director at The Coca-Cola CompanyRara Naval has two decades of expertise in insights and strategy, specializing in the food and drink, personal care and home care sectors. Her expertise is on brand turnaround, category transformation and insights program evolution to accommodate new technologies in consumer understanding. She is a proponent of the use of AI in consumer insighting. Currently serving as Coca-Cola TM ASEAN and South Pacific Human Insights Director, she has worked in regional and global roles utilizing agile methodologies and cultural insights to drive business growth and market success. Rara honed her insights generation skills with stints at research giants, KANTAR, and Nielsen, and leading MNCs, such as McDonald’s and Unilever. She has a degree in Psychology and an Executive MBA. She is an Insight250 awardee, organizing committee member for Women in Research (WIRe) Singapore and a member of female leadership networks, Uncommon and Women of the World (WoW).
Lester Sualog
Head of APAC, AI Research at Bolt InsightLester Sualog is a strategic leader in research technology and insight innovation, with over 25 years of experience driving business growth across the Asia-Pacific region. He currently serves as Head of APAC at BoltChatAI, an AI-powered research platform, where he leads market expansion in the region from being based in Singapore.
Lester is also a prominent advocate for research innovation and sustainability. He served as the 2024 ESOMAR APAC Programme Committee Chair and speaker at the ESOMAR Congress in Athens.
Andy Ridsdale-Smith
Head, APAC Analytics Practice Singapore at KantarAndy has been with Kantar for almost 25 years and is based in Singapore. For the last 20+ years he has worked in a variety of regional APAC roles and across a broad mix of industries and clients.
He currently leads Kantar’s Analytics Practice in APAC. A division which focusses on developing and bringing to market AI-based analytics that help brands understand how and where they can drive more profitable growth.
His specific focus is on marketing effectiveness, search/social analytics, and data management and consulting
Tan Peking
Vice President at Mininglamp Technology GroupSponsors
Global Lingo provides professional transcription, minute-taking, translation and interpreting services. We're one of the fastest growing language agencies in the UK, and one of the only agencies to specialise in minute-taking and transcription, as well as translation and interpreting services of the highest quality.
With offices in London, Chicago, Singapore, Cluj-Napoca - Romania and Guatemala City we are growing rapidly, helping to ensure that we are always flexible enough to accommodate our clients’ requirements. We focus on providing our clients with accurate language services, which deliver value-for-money to their organisations.
Our clients include three former prime ministers, two of the world's leading oil companies, three of the world's largest banks and one of the top three Premier League football clubs.