At the annual CEO Summit and Award Ceremony organised by Influential Brands, more than 450 executives gathered to honour the region’s most forward-thinking organisations
Something has changed in the way Asia’s corporate leaders think about their work. The old imperative—grow the business, return value to shareholders, repeat—no longer tells the whole story. Across the region, a growing cohort of companies is demonstrating that purpose and performance need not compete. Rather, the most enduring enterprises are those that invest in people, communities, and the natural world alongside their balance sheets.
That conviction found its fullest expression on 6 April at the Fullerton Hotel, where Influential Brands convened its annual CEO Summit and Award Ceremony. The evening brought together senior leaders from Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and China to recognise organisations across three distinct award categories: Top Sustainability Companies, Top Employers, and Top Influential Brands.
Guest of Honour Heng Swee Keat, Chairman of the National Research Foundation and former Deputy Prime Minister, set the tone. True excellence, he noted, extends well beyond profit, requiring leaders to focus on value creation that benefits not only shareholders but also employees, communities, and the environment — a sentiment that shaped the entire evening.
Five companies were honoured under the Top Sustainability Companies category, including Singtel, SBS Transit, UOL Group, FairPrice Group, and City Developments Limited. The accolade recognised organisations that have demonstrated transparency and rigour in environmental, social, and governance reporting. CDL’s Chief Sustainability Officer Esther An spoke of the award as an affirmation of three decades of work, noting that sustainability, for CDL, is about delivering a positive impact for people, the planet, and prosperity.
Twenty-one organisations were named Asia’s Top Employers, a distinction backed by an anonymous employee survey drawing responses from more than 25,000 workers and conducted in partnership with aAdvantage Consulting. Awardees spanned a wide range of industries, from healthcare and education to heavy industry and fintech.
The Top Influential Brands category was the most expansive of the three, with 44 companies across Asia receiving recognition based on a consumer survey involving 10,000 respondents. FairPrice Group took home multiple awards, and Popular Singapore—a retail institution now more than a century old—was celebrated for its enduring role in Singapore’s reading and learning culture.
Three senior executives were also named Top CEOs: Jeffrey Sim of SBS Transit, Harpreet Bindra of HSBC Life Singapore, and Terry Tan of Country Foods. Each was assessed on business growth, financial stewardship, capacity for innovation, and personal integrity—a quartet of criteria that reflects how comprehensively the definition of good leadership has broadened.
