Corporate leader Madanjit Singh shares his motivations and aspirations to contribute to the nonprofit sector as a board member and board committee member.
“You come for two years and stay for twenty years,” Madanjit Singh quipped as he recounted his move from India to Singapore in 1999, just before the turn of the millennium. At the age of thirty-five, Madanjit decided to move to Singapore with his wife and two children for career advancement as Singapore stood out as a hub for internationalisation in the region. The opportunity came from Hewlett-Packard Company (HP). Since then, he has moved through the new worlds of technology such as fintech, data and cloud, taking on business leadership roles and leading organizational change in multinational organisations such as Citigroup, Teradata, Concur.
After decades of climbing the corporate ladder, Madanjit stepped down from his role as Concur’s Managing Director of Southeast Asia in late 2019. It became a period of self-reflection, where he realised he would like purpose and gratitude to be a hallmark in his next step. While studying the International Company Directors Course (ICDC) at the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Madanjit grew curious about how he can contribute to Singapore’s non-profit sector. “There was a section on non-profit work. This was new to me!” Madanjit excitedly shared, so he proceeded to check out the Centre of Nonprofit Leadership (CNPL) after hearing about it from a friend.
Joining Non-Profit Boards
Madanjit is grateful for CNPL as a single point of contact. “I had an intention, but I did not know what to do with it. It was great to have CNPL that acted as an advisor and connector,” Madanjit commented. In early 2020, Madanjit applied to be a BoardMatch volunteer. By mid-year, Madanjit was matched to two non-profits. One was Love, Nils, a small charity which is founded by Lesli Berggren. Inspired by the founder’s true story of losing her son Nils, Love, Nils serves to reach out and support families fighting cancer.
The other was Samaritans of Singapore, a suicide prevention charity that was established in Singapore in 1969. Madanjit accepted both roles, appreciating how the contrasting nature of both charities could offer him two uniquely different experiences in Singapore’s nonprofit sector.
Whilst he serves as a Board Member in Innovation at Love, Nils, he is introduced to board leadership culture in Samaritans of Singapore (SOS) as a Committee Member in Strategic Planning. A board tenure is a minimum of 3 years, while committee roles are 1 year long. Madanjit explained, “The Board is like an APEX body which supervises the CEO and his team, then there are various committees such as HR, Strategic Planning, Digital Transformation which help to deliver Samaritans of Singapore’s goals.”
As part of the Strategic Planning Committee of SOS, Madanjit supports the team in putting a technology roadmap and helping them build a tech stack. Through his experience thus far, Madanjit stresses that the relationship between a board committee member and leadership team member resembles a coach and a player. “There is a golden line which a board member should not cross. Do not tell the working team what they should do. Do not tell them off. What you can do is help the team bounce off the right solutions,” Madanjit advised. He believes that what a board member does is offer good tips, then let the employees make the decisions. In the case of SOS, it is allowing their CEO, Gasper Tan, to lead the decisions.
Using His Expertise And Skills For Good
With SOS focusing on digital transformation to improve their operations, Madanjit’s work experience across digital applications, websites and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems is key. For SOS, the Covid-19 period has magnified the issue of less and less volunteers responding to more and more calls. As a result, SOS is looking beyond their existence as a hotline and reconsidering the best ways to operate, taking into consideration that people now use phones in different ways. Moreover, SOS is reviewing how to make app-oriented, bite-sized training courses to train up volunteers step by step in place of their structured months-long onboarding course which volunteers typically take before they start volunteering at SOS.
For Love, Nils, digital transformation is required in the form of building CRM systems for donor management and volunteer management. “Tech is 10% the problem, 90% is how it’s rolled out,” Madanjit advised. As Love, Nils consists of a lean team, having an effective and data-driven team can meaningfully facilitate their capability to reach their goals and impact.
Although Madanjit is most interested in issues concerning aged care, community health and child education, he is open to any opportunity as long as it is to support someone with a genuine cause. “If I can make a 1% difference in someone’s life, it is worth it,” Madanjit shared. This has been Madanjit’s philosophy since young. During his free time in college, Madanjit would volunteer in a range of activities as long as there were people who needed help. During his time at Concur, Madanjit further became a corporate volunteer for Habitat For Humanity where he helped to clean the houses of low-income families.
Learning New Lessons In The Non-Profit Sector
During Madanjit’s time as a corporate volunteer, he had the chance to meet like-minded corporate professionals who gave up their weekends to help others in Singapore. Now as a senior level volunteer, he has the chance to meet new friends who are serving on the board with him. Madanjit appreciates how each person comes with a different set of skills and accomplishments, yet with a common wish to make a difference.
Ultimately after being in Singapore for so long, Madanjit is keen to pay it forward. Being Sikh, he also hopes to bring more diversity to boards.
I’ve found Singapore and its people to be warm, caring and compassionate, so I wish to balance a good career with doing good in society.
Madanjit further hopes for a purpose-driven world, where purpose and profit are not perceived as two opposite spectrums. As a specialist in enterprise software, Madanjit sees similarities between serving businesses and serving societies. Still, he sees that it is important to learn about the nonprofit sector instead of assuming that one can replicate what works in a corporate setting. He recommends BoardMatch as a great start to peers around him!
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