Dr Beng Cheah
Deputy Executive Director
S&A+ Impact Creation and Corporate Services, SIMTech & ARTC
Dr Beng Cheah is currently the Deputy Executive Director of S&A+ Impact Creation and Corporate Services at SIMTech and ARTC. He oversees the operational support services and helps to facilitate greater synergy between the two organisations. He also serves in Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s Engineering Advisory Committee.
He came from the ICT industry and has diverse experiences: from running a business to systems engineering, project management, collaboration shaping, contract negotiation, consultancy and customer service operations.
Previously, he was the Director of Strategic Operations at the Data Storage Institute (DSI), A*STAR, and concurrently, the Senior Director of Corporate Operations at the Institute of Microelectronics (IME). Earlier, he was the Industry Development Director at the National Metrology Center (NMC). Prior to this, he was the Industry Development Director and concurrently, the Corporate Services Director at the Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R). His teams supported the external customer interface and internal operations of the institute of some 600 staff. He led the Human Factors Engineering R&D Programme for two years and he was the first Programme Director for FusionWorld—an A*STAR technology showcase featured by CNN and visited by dignitaries from around the world.
Beng enjoyed managing multi-disciplinary, large-scale projects involving advanced communications technologies and had many successful projects with partners like STMicroelectronics, Ericsson, Panasonic, IBM, Infineon, Huawei, Baidu and others.
When he was the Engineering Manager at a Singtel subsidiary, Beng won customer service praises from many customers including Singapore Press Holdings, Morgan Stanley and the CPF Board. He repositioned the Systems Integration business and doubled the revenue in two years. His team won and implemented several sophisticated networking projects and won three major awards from their principal suppliers.
While working on a railway electrification project, he computerised several engineering design processes. He also designed and implemented various communications protocols, applications as well as hardware modules for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems for power stations, traffic lights and oil pipelines in New Zealand and Indonesia.
Beng received his BE (First-class Honours) in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from the University of Auckland, NZ. He gained an executive MBA from California State University, Hayward (now East Bay) and completed the Program for Global Leadership at the Harvard Business School. He earned a Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) from the University of South Australia for his research in the diffusion of innovations. He is a senior member of IEEE and a certified PMP.