Melissa is a cross-cultural and cross-sector bridge-builder who enjoys raising leaders and catalysing partnerships for the greater good. An anthropologist by training, a possibilist by nature and a product of two entrepreneurial families, she is a serial ideator and catalyst enabling and co-founding numerous initiatives and championing their leaders and communities. She was a student activist and helped to spearhead various youth leadership and advocacy initiatives in the 90s with the first youth HIV-AIDS outreach and collaboration between NGOs, influencers and night clubs, a service-learning based girls leadership programme Project Access and network for young professional women, and was the first local Chairperson of Halogen Foundation which pioneered youth-led, values-based leadership education in schools.
Melissa served a two-term Presidency of the UNIFEM National Committee which hosted the first global Anti-Child Sex Tourism and Trafficking Conference in Singapore which helped advance the Anti Trafficking cooperation and also birthed the nonprofit aidha which equips foreign domestic helpers with financial education and entrepreneurship skills.
She served as Chair/Co-Chair of various public committees and boards in the arts, youth, mature workers, criminal justice and hospitality space always seeking to redefine boundaries and increase inclusion and opportunities. Melissa was recognised as one of Forbes Heroes of Philanthropy for her work in re-shaping the recruitment processes for migrant workers amongst others, one of World Business 30 Under 30 and was conferred the ASEAN Youth Award, Singapore Youth Award and Public Service Medal (COVID-19) and is currently a Justice of Peace under the Prime Minister’s Office serving with Singapore Prison Service. She was educated at Harvard College where she received a Fulbright Scholarship and was subsequently a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley.
She most recently served as CEO of the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre which birthed the national vision: Singapore – City of Good, a whole of society initiative to design and co-create the giving ecosystem: creating the national giving platform giving.sg, amplifying giving stories and history, introducing a structured “business for good” platform Company of Good and strengthening community partnerships to tackle complex social challenges.
Melissa believes that genuine friendships are the purpose of life and is passionate about building communities where people can become their best selves. She is a resident of Singapore’s first planned neighbourhood Queenstown and serves on the board of her family enterprise, Pontiac Land Group.
For a detailed list of organisations and initiatives, please see full CV.
IG: @mmkwee LinkedIN: Melissa Aratani Kwee