theceomagazine.com | 41notable projects included Singapore Science
Park and the International Tech Park in
Bangalore. Similarly, Temasek-owned
Singbridge was well equipped in the urban
development sector, creating smart cities
mainly in China, such as the Guangzhou
Knowledge City and the Chengdu Hi-tech
Innovation Park.
At the time, the merged group’s aggregate
value was around S$5 billion, and Miguel
was recruited to take up the top position.
“The rest is history,” he proudly proclaims.
“I joined a very exciting platform. We
constructed several things: business spaces,
industrial parks, and large-scale urbanisation
developments. It is a diverse company that
has opened up a lot of infrastructure and
Tier 1 and Tier 2 urban development. We
undertook larger projects that required
long-term planning, so I think it was just a
natural evolution of my career and extends
my interests in the property sector.”
When Ascendas-Singbridge came together,
Miguel says, the first thing it had to do was
“pick a battleground”. “There’s never enough
capital for everything, so we had to get the
entire team to focus on a well-articulated
strategy,” he explains. “We had some projects
within the merger that were considered very
attractive and others that were not,” he adds.
“So we streamlined our business to focus on
projects we’d done well and exit all the
undesirable ones. It made our business base
ready to move into the next stage of our
corporate development.”
As with all mergers, the challenge is to
ensure the employees are aligned with the
business objectives, which was the next phase
for Ascendas-Singbridge. Miguel believes
that this has been done well so far and is
something he takes the most pride in.
“We looked at some key changes in the
organisation. I spent a fair amount of my
time, especially right after the merger, on
how to unleash the vision of this organisation
through the people we have,” he says.
“Internally, we have a ‘one team, one culture,
one future’ corporate structure. The whole
team is motivated to perform and put in
their best. Building the team and forming the
right culture were very defining moments in
terms of how we wanted to build a long-
lasting and successful company, and I’m quite
confident that, after three years, we have an
organisation with people who are aligned to
lead the team going forward.”
With its employees on the right path, the
next step for the company was to expand, »Interview | INSPIRE