Regional Snapshot I

Yvonne Tham is the Chief Executive Officer of Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, Singapore’s national performing arts centre. With daily performances and a slate of year-round festivals and development programmes, Esplanade supports artistic talent and new work development in Singapore with partners in Asia and beyond. Tham is also invested in Esplanade’s efforts for arts and well-being, arts in education, and Esplanade Academy’s technical training programmes.

Prior to joining Esplanade, Tham was Deputy CEO at Singapore’s National Arts Council and led the Arts and Heritage Policy division at what was then known as the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts. She currently serves on boards of arts organisations in Singapore, the board of the International Society of Performing Arts (ISPA), and is Chairperson of the Association of Asia Pacific Performing Arts Centres (AAPPAC).

Louis Siu is a Hong Kong-born artist–curator, artistic planner, and cultural executive whose practice spans arts innovation, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and cultural diplomacy. Siu is the founder of Toolbox Percussion, a Hong Kong music collective that pursues artistic experimentation and international exchange, where he provides strategic guidance on interdisciplinary and site-specific contemporary music projects.

Siu was a 2024–2025 Clore Leadership Fellow at the Southbank Centre in London, funded by the Hong Kong SAR Government. During his fellowship, he contributed to delivering Multitudes, a new arts festival powered by orchestral music, where he developed global collaborations under Artistic Director Mark Ball. He currently serves as International Partnerships Consultant for the Southbank Centre, building bridges between cultures and institutions worldwide.

Siu has previously served as a Teaching Artist with the San Francisco Symphony and as Principal Percussionist with the Macao Orchestra. His curatorial work includes A Double Listen: Yama no Oto at the Echigio-Tsumari Art Field in Japan, Classical:NEXT Hong Kong / Takeoff with the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and the Asia premiere of Ryoji Ikeda's 100 Cymbals at West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong.

Siu's boundary-pushing performance works and installation pieces blend music, visual art, and community engagement. His projects have appeared at internationally renowned venues like the Asian Art Museum (San Francisco), National Asian Culture Center (Gwangju, Korea), Adelaide Fringe Festival, Shipyard 1862 (Shanghai), Tianjin Juilliard School, MPavilion by Tadao Ando in Melbourne, and the Western Salt Water Service Reservoir in Hong Kong.

He holds a Bachelor of Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, a Master's in Arts and Cultural Enterprise from Central Saint Martins (with distinction), and a diploma from Stanford Graduate School of Business's Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders. He teaches at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. An Asian Cultural Council Fellow (2005), Siu is also an ISPA International Society for Performing Arts Fellow (2023–2025), currently serving on its Advancement Committee.

Wen Wen is a cross-cultural arts specialist and founder of Hermark Culture. She has seventeen years of experience connecting global artists with China's leading cultural institutions, having produced close to 700 performances and 400 community arts initiatives in more than 100 Chinese towns and cities. In all, her productions have reached an audience of over half a million peopleand featured over 600 artists and companies from across Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East. Notable past collaborators include the Ballet National de Marseille, the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, Pilobolus Dance Theater, and Igudesman & Joo.

Wen has played a key role in major state-level cultural events, including the anniversary “Years of Culture” celebrating bilateral relations between China–France (50th anniversary), China–Qatar, and China–Brazil. She has served as a cultural consultant to the Embassies of France, Norway, and the Netherlands in China, and was received by the King of Norway during his state visit to China.

Wen maintains long-standing partnerships with cultural institutions and fosters cross-sector collaboration between arts institutions, commercial brands, and public cultural programmes. She has collaborated with Mercedes-Benz, Aranya, Swire Group, and Qatar Airways.

Wen holds an MA in Cultural Management from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 2024, she completed an MA in International Arts Management jointly delivered by HEC Montréal (Canada), Southern Methodist University (USA), and Bocconi University (Italy). She works trilingually in Mandarin, English, and French, between China and Canada.

For more than 20 years, Cindy Hwang has served the performing arts industry across the United States, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East. She is the Founder and President of InPulse Creatives, an agency established in 2018 to provide creative solutions for artists, producers, and cultural organisations seeking to build partnerships and touring opportunities across the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Key initiatives include the Artist Career Development Residency for the Stauffer Center for Strings (Cremona, Italy) and “Close Encounters”, an online talk series on the evolving global performing arts landscape.

Hwang began her career at BMG International A&R, facilitating collaborations between the company's Asian and US offices. She later joined CAMI (Columbia Artists Management), where she worked with internationally acclaimed artists including Tan Dun, Howard Shore, John Mauceri, and Cirque Éloize. From 2004 to 2015, Hwang worked at Concert Artists Guild, mentoring and managing emerging classical artists throughout the Asia Pacific. She later served as Director of Booking and Business Development for the Middle East and Far East at Cadenza Artists.From 2022 to 2026, Hwang served as Music Programmer at Ithra (King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture) in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Hwang served on the Board of the International Society for the Performing Arts through 2025 and recently joined the Executive Committee of the Federation of Asian Cultural Promotion (FACP). She also served seven years on the Board of the Western Arts Alliance, including her final term as Secretary/Treasurer.

Hwang holds a BA in Music Business and an MA in Music Ecology from New York University.

Jennifer Dautermann is an arts consultant, strategist, facilitator, coach, and project architect working internationally across the performing arts. She collaborates with cultural organisations, creative leaders, and emerging professionals to design and deliver conferences, strategic processes, and capacity-building initiatives.

Dautermann is an International Advisor to the Hong Kong Performing Arts Expo. She was the Founding Director of Classical:NEXT and later conceived and led Art In Action (ArIA), a “glocal” initiative to empower art music as a force for positive social change. Earlier in her career, Dautermann founded the C3 Festival at Berlin’s Berghain club, following a seven-year tenure in the Arts and Creative Industries department at the British Council in Berlin.

Dautermann studied teacher training at the University of Cambridge and has many years of hands-on teaching experience. She is also a graduate of the Global Leaders Institute for Arts Innovation Executive MBA programme. Dautermann divides her time between Canada and Germany.