André Ahchak Email & Phone Number

Develop strategic business alliances with public and private sector partners. Nurture investment interests and partnerships and facilitate strategic business development - for the expansion of the company as a whole. Provide direction to the AzVOX media group in the application of new media and new media strategies to generate content for use on various media channels that serve the company’s own brands; the most successful being VOXSPORTS which has a presence in Australia, Malaysia and Singapore. André has been the Founding and Chief Editor of VOXSPORTS.

Provide consultancy in the areas of corporate and integrated marketing communications, business development and vertical integration of businesses to start-ups, small and medium enterprises. The VOX Group also operates our own media channels to provide coverage of sports events in Singapore. My role is to develop and produce content, provide editorial policy and supervision. Develop strategic business alliances with public and private sector partners.

o Lead and direct the Division made up of the Public Relations & Editorial, Student and Internal Communications and Outreach and Media Programming departments with 13 staff memberso Set-up the Internal Communications Department headed by a manager o Introduced (Social) Media Programming to reach out to existing and potential students of the Polytechnico Won the Singapore Innovation Excellence Award 2009 for Nanyang Polytechnic, the first education institution to ever win this accolade with the successful implementation and execution of an internal and external communications campaign planned over several months o Increased NYP’s media coverage and mentions: For the period January 09 to 31st December 09, the number of stories that received coverage (print or broadcast or both) was 242. This compares to 201 stories for all of 2008 and 192 stories that received media coverage for 2007. Unsolicited positive mentions NYP garnered at the end of December 2009, was 187, compared to just 66 for all of 2008 o Visible publicity gained helped increase the number of first choice student applicants to the Polytechnic in 2009 by four percent compared to 2007/08. In less than a year – more O level students chose Nanyang Polytechnic as their tertiary institution of first choice o Increased the number of unique visitors by 3,900 to the annual Open House event to nearly 20,000 visitors in 2009, from 2008o Conceptualised, introduced and successfully publicised, the First Ever in Singapore – Polytechnic NIGHT Open House and Parents’ Seminar 2009.

o Adapted University’s curriculum to suit local context and culture o Developed rigorous methods of student testing and auditing o Adopted new methods of instruction and competency-based training for studentso Provided reinforced understanding of the differences in local and cross-cultural issues in society and sportso Successful implementation and use of team-building methods to communicate lessonso Provide AUT with relevant feedback and recommendations for changes in testing and grading of subjects

• Provide PR Counsel and execution of Crisis and Scenario Planning, Crisis Communications, Reputation Management, Corporate Imaging, Crisis Media situations, Media Handling, Presentation Skills and Personal Imaging• Develop communications campaigns and customised training programmes o Clientele included Government Statutory boards, regulatory bodies and MNC clientso Provided specific diagnostics, strategies and tactics to mitigate damaging corporate issues o Trained Energy Conglomerate’s regional call-centre to handle disaster and crisis situations efficiently, manage and disseminate information to the media, public and its stakeholders in a timely mannero Conducted desk-top Crisis Exercises for Energy conglomerate’s shipping concerns making recommendations to consolidate Internal Communications processes o Crisis and media trained several energy conglomerate’s regional and local senior management o Provided direction and clarity to a US Power company to map and define their key mission statements to complete their global corporate profile o Trained Singapore’s 2008 Beijing Olympic Athletes to be in control of media interviews. Athletes' success was measured in the positive media encounters with local and international media agencies especially the women’s table-tennis teamo Strategised a mindset change through internal comms for engineers of a MNC technology company to accept a corporate decision to take the lead in sales and accept KPIs for promotion and increment o Work with Government and CDC PR staff on handling difficult customers and to disseminate information concerning public services o Trained grassroots and CCC officials on issues management and accessing the media o Direct issues and reputation management for an international bank and a communications technology company o Plan, strategise and execute Business Continuity Plans (BCP) for MNC IT companyo Provide pro-bono communications and PR work to Government and Grassroots agencies

• Provide strategic counsel in Corporate Profiling and Image Branding of the (then) 167 year old historic institution supervising 12 staff members • Assist Director to provide counsel to CEO TTSH on Corporate Issues Management, direct Media Relations, consolidate Internal Communications and implement corporate projects• Crisis Management and Scenario Planningo Planned and executed implementation of the TTSH Mass Casualty Information Centre as directed by the Ministry of Health, working with members of the Singapore Police Force, Civil Defense Force, MINDEF and major local healthcare agencies o Coordinated and implemented Internal Communications strategies and Internal Crisis Communications strategies for the entire Hospital o Organised and facilitated meetings and exchange of ideas and thought leadership in Healthcare Management with delegates and business groups from the World Health Organisation (WHO), Australia, China, Hong Kong, Mongolia, India, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea and Japan o Organised and coordinated international and local visitor programmes for post-SARS education o Conceptualised, implemented and conducted Community Out-reach Programmes to share the values and experiences of Tan Tock Seng Hospital staff in their fight against SARS. The Programme was used by Secondary schools, Junior Colleges, Polytechnics and ITE campuses as part of their compulsory National Education (NE) curriculum as set out by the Ministry of Education (MOE) o Drafted detailed plans to manage revamp of the Hospital’s Heritage Museum o Established plans for management of the hospital’s institutional archives o Successful in sourcing corporate sponsorship to celebrate the Hospital’s 160th Anniversary and Nurses’ Dayo Member of the 160th Anniversary Celebrations Organising Committee

Cmpb Tower 2, Depot Road Singapore

As NEWS DIRECTOR• Manage a Deputy Editor, broadcast journalists and support staff totaling 10 department members • Manage programme development, output and production of the News Department• Liaise with sponsors, agencies and advertisers to market the station’s editorial support, coverage of events and post-production capabilities• Craft and programme public-confidence building messages for MINDEF and the Republic of Singapore Navy when its patrol craft RSS Courageous sank after a collision with a merchant vessel, killing four crew members in January 2003.o Implement total revamp of the News Department’s editorial processes and policies, news archival processes and operating systems o Introduced new and progressive Editorial News Policieso Directed coverage of SARS epidemic and Jemaah Islamiyah threat to Singapore o Attended weekly SARS updates at the Istana for Senior Media Management conducted by then Prime Minister Goh Chok TongAs HEAD CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS / PUBLIC AFFAIRS • Spokesperson and liaison between the Stations and members of the public, Media, MINDEF and Government agencies • Edit and approve all media releases, company collateral, year- end reports and public correspondences• Provide direction and input to stations’ marketing and promotional campaigns.o Established Internal Communications processes within News Department and over-arching communications processes company-wide o Raised Corporate Image and Branding of the company through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmeso Raised $250,000 for MINDS Tampines Home, as Chairman of SAFRA Radio’s fund raising committee.

o Won new business and retainer MNC client, Seagate Technology for Hill & Knowlton o Consultant member of the Global Team that coordinated the Internal and External Communications strategies for the Chevron-Texaco takeover of Caltex worldwide o Consultant and trainer to various C-suite and senior management clients of major multi-national and local clients as company spokespersonso Developed new training programmes and scenario planning manuals o Established alliances with industry partners

Singapore

o Award winning Senior Editor of MediaCorp Radio Prize for Outstanding Investigative Journalism. The ‘Scoop and Breaking Story’ - came from André’s tracking down of fleeing Oceania FIFA delegate Charles Dempsey to a hotel in Singapore and interviewing him exclusively on the telephone - after Dempsey was threatened with his life before the FIFA vote which handed the 2006 World Cup to Germany over South Africa. o Trained at the British Broadcasting Corporation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, American Broadcasting Corporation (Washington DC), Voice of America (VOA Washington DC), Public Radio (USA), Associated Press (Washington DC) o Pioneer founding member of NewsRadio 938 (June 1998), 938Live now CNA 938 (radio station)o Co-creator, Editor, Producer-Presenter of SportsZone – Singapore’s sports talk-show on Radio since August 1998. o Provide Editorial Policy and management of the Sports Desk and direct total sports output for all stations of Mediacorp Radio o TV News-Anchor for Channel NewsAsia and Channel 5 News Bulletins and for NewsRadio 938, then 938Live o TV Anchor for World of Sports Programme o As a journalist, covered stories in South East Asia, parts of Europe and the United Stateso Interviewed foreign and local politicians, including top government officialso First journalist to interview Coach Douglas Moore ‘live’ on Radio after Singapore won the Malaysia Cup double in 1994 at the Shah Alam Stadium in KLo Interviewed football legend Sir Bobby Charlton before the World Cup in 1994o Conduct and analyse market research to understand audience preferences o Assess and assign programme development and productiono Provide Public Relations and Marketing Communications strategies and tactics for Marketing and Air-time Sales o Liaise with government agencies, clients, sponsors and members of the public o Conduct training for presenters and broadcast journalists.

o Provide leadership and decision making for daily operations of the Standing Instructions (SI) Sectiono Conduct market research and analysis of client preferences for new financial services o Monitor and implement clients’ response and feedback on use of new financial services providedo Increased number of clients/customers opting to use the Bank’s SI services directly contributing to improved revenue of the Section, for the Bank.

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