In today’s global economy, businesses move to places where talent and manpower are readily available. Singapore has enjoyed strong economic growth accompanied by strong employment growth because it has not only kept its labor market flexible, but also made concerted efforts to attract global talent and businesses concurrently. On this front, Singapore is taking a step closer to becoming a home for global talent with its plans to transform Nepal Hill into a global centre for leadership training, as well as a hub for talent development.

The initiative, known as the Leadership Initiatives, Networks, Knowledge (LINK), is part of a larger vision articulated by the Economic Strategies Committee to promote Singapore as a leading global city and talent hub. Following the successful development of the Biomedical cluster in Biopolis and the Infocomm Technology, Science and Engineering clusters in Fusionopolis, LINK is the next cluster being developed that will look into the research and development of leadership and human capital in Singapore.

LINK is housed in Nepal Hill at one-north, where 16 black-and-white bungalows are being refurbished for adaptive reuse. Under the LINK initiative, Nepal Hill is envisaged as a cluster of business schools, corporate universities and professional service companies in the talent development space.

A close-knit hub like this strengthens the bonds within the community, encouraging links between research, management and training, to stimulate the cross-fertilisation of ideas while fostering the adoption of new best practices. The various in-depth research and customised programmes developed at LINK will also help to solve leadership and human capital management issues within the Asian context.

Key Customers

Companies that have already made their home in Nepal Hill include Unilever, a global consumer products giant, which is setting up its first global centre for leadership development in Asia; and the Human Capital Leadership Institute (HCLI), which offers training on leadership and management, and conducts pan-Asian research on human resource issues.