Latest from Kandyce:
Kandyce Ong leads APCO’s health and geo-commerce practices across Southeast Asia, specializing in government relations, public policy and advocacy. She has more than 14 years’ experience working with multinationals, research institutions, associations, academia and government stakeholders, supporting policy and advocacy, awareness and literacy and capacity building efforts across Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. She currently serves as a senior associate director based in APCO’s Singapore office.
In the face of isolationism, protectionism, racism — the simple concept of looking outwardly and beyond ourselves, of kindness and collectivism, might just be as good a starting point as any.
Kandyce has helped brokered closed-door meetings and collaborations between private and public stakeholders across the entire healthcare ecosystem, from pushing for budgetary concessions for underserved communities or needs, to brokering closed-door dialogues with senior ministerial advisors, to leading community-led policy dialogues on public health issues and initiatives. Just in 2023 alone, she has led the team to engage across multiple ministries for varying issues in the region across four business missions, nine closed-door business-to-government workshops, provided five policy and political landscape briefings, conducted three capacity-building workshops for senior executives, published seven policy reports and facilitated more than 20 closed-door meetings with high-impact government stakeholders.
Kandyce has worked with many of the leading health companies including Gilead, Bayer, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Siemens Healthiness, Intuitive Surgical, Pfizer, Reckitt, GSK, MSD, Merck KGgA, Sanofi and Roche Diagnostics amongst others, covering salient issues such as sustainable health financing, women’s health, infectious diseases, stigma and discrimination and inclusive healthcare.
Prior to joining APCO, Kandyce was the scientific affairs manager at a Fortune 500 multinational company. Her role translated high impact scientific engagement across the whole-of-healthcare universe in the Southeast Asia region to meaningful policy dialogues and shifted the needle in advocacy objectives, sub-specializing on public health issues and policies with regards to management of non-communicable diseases and preventative care.