The CEO Magazine Asia — January 2018

such as China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

“I worked with PepsiCo for eight years.

There was a lot of learning involved and

a great deal of excitement around competing

with Coca-Cola. But my passion remained

with the multi-property hotel sector, so

I rejoined ITT Sheraton,” Miguel confides.

“At the time, it had merged with Starwood

Hotels & Resorts, so I joined Starwood

as chairman and president for Asia–Pacific.

That was an exciting period for the Group;

we had quadrupled our footprint and

become the largest upscale hotel company

in Asia–Pacific by far.”

After another 13 years at Starwood,

Miguel stepped down from his role but

continued as non-executive chairman. While

he was still very active on the board, Miguel

took the opportunity to join other boards

he was interested in, all related to tourism,

construction and property. He joined the

Formula One Group in the UK, Luxembourg

travel and tourism company Samsonite

Luggage, and Merlin Entertainments, the

world’s second-largest amusement park

company after Disney, which owns sea-life

parks, Madame Tussauds, and the London

Eye. In Singapore, he joined Changi Airport

board, as well as Surbana Jurong, one of

Asia’s largest consultancy firms for

infrastructure development.

ASCENDAS-SINGBRIDGE

IS BORN

In 2014, Singapore government-owned

investment company Temasek and property

development firm JTC were in talks to

combine JTC’s Ascendas with Temasek’s

Singbridge Group – to take advantage of

the city-state’s urbanisation.

In 2015, this culminated in a merged

group owned by both JTC and Temasek

through a 49:51 partnership.

Then, as a standalone company, JTC

subsidiary Ascendas had expertise developing

business spaces – particularly science and

industrial parks – and had a strong presence

in real estate fund management. Some of its

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