Richard Hoon is a Board Chair, Independent Director and Mentor & Advisor to C-Suite Executives. He was the Founder and former CEO of I Search Worldwide, an international executive search practice with 10 offices in the region and over 100 associates around the world. He has almost 30 years of experience in managing and fulfilling search mandates around the world. He was the former managing director of Asia for an international search group.

As a corporate professional, he was the former general manager at International SOS, the largest medical emergency assistance company in the world. Prior to that, he was the Asia regional director for tourism for the Australian States of Victoria & Tasmania.

He started his career as a product engineer with Dynatech & Pall Corporation. Thereafter, he joined financial giant American Express where he helmed various marketing & sales leadership positions in the card, travelers’ cheque and their travel divisions. His varied work experience has led him across a broad range of industries such as energy, pharmaceuticals, tourism, financial services & healthcare services.

Richard has a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree and an MBA degree in finance and marketing. He was awarded the Most Outstanding MBA of the Year at the Florida State University in 1989. He is listed in the Who’s Who amongst students in American Universities and Colleges and Who’s Who in Singapore.

He was inducted into the Omicron Delta Kappa National Leadership Honour Society and the Beta Gamma Sigma National Business Scholastic Honour Society in the USA and was a Gold Key Hall of Fame Awardee at his university. He is listed as a prominent Victorian from his high school alma mater.

Richard was the former Chairman of the Young President’s Organisation (YPO) Singapore and the former Regional Chairman of YPO for South East Asia and a member of the YPO International Board of Director. He was a co-founder and past President of the Entrepreneur’s Organisation in Singapore and the former President of the MBA Association at the Florida State University.

Richard is the Honorary Chairman of the Centre for Fathering & Dads-for-Life, a charity and an Institute of Public Character (IPC) in Singapore.

He is the current Chairman of Cru Asia Ltd which helms the ministries of Cru Singapore, Cru Media and the East Asia School of Theology (EAST) and is the Chairman of the Board of Presidency for the Chinese Annual Conferene of the Methodist Church in Singapore.

Richard co-founded and was the former Chairman of the Board of Validus Capital, a fintech company with presence in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam and has received up to series C funding from Vertex of Temasek Holdings and other international financial institutions.

He was the Immediate Past President of the Palm Island Club and the Past President of the Circumnavigators’ Club and is the former Chancellor of a French culinary society called the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs. He is also a member of the Board of Advisors of Kemin Asia Pacific, a global biotechnology company from the US.

Richard is Fellow with the Singapore Institute of Directors.