2025 Singapore Practical Workshop

George Cyriac

Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius

George Cyriac has more than two decades of experience advising on complex cross-border corporate, private equity, and restructuring transactions across Asia (including Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, the Philippines, and Thailand) and in New York. He represents leading multinational and Asian companies, private equity funds, sovereign wealth funds, state-owned enterprises, and banks in transactions throughout the investment cycle, including investments, disposals, complex restructurings, and joint ventures. Highly regarded as a private equity lawyer, George acts for leading global and Asian private equity sponsors in acquisitions, divestments, restructurings, and fundraisings in Asia and New York. He leads the firm’s private equity practice in Southeast Asia.

Prior to joining Morgan Lewis, George worked in the Singapore and New York offices of other global law firms and in the India office of an affiliate of a US law firm.

Thomas Deinet

Executive Director, SBAI

Thomas Deinet was appointed Executive Director of the SBAI (previously known as the HFSB) in 2008. In 2007, Thomas joined the working group to project manage the development of practice standards proposed by 14 leading international alternative investment managers that led to the establishment of the SBAI.

Prior to joining the SBAI, he was a senior manager at Oliver Wyman, where he extensively worked with major financial institutions in Europe covering asset management as well as corporate and investment banking. Thomas also worked as an analyst in energy trading for a major commodities trading firm.

Thomas is a graduate of the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, with a major in industrial engineering and holds an MSc from Purdue University, USA. Thomas is a CFA charterholder.

Gita Advani

Senior ODD Analyst , Albourne Partners

Gita Advani is an Operational Due Diligence (ODD) Senior Analyst in Albourne Partners Singapore. She conducts ODD reviews on alternative asset managers across APAC. She started her career 12 years ago in audit in the Big 4.

She graduated from the University of Southern California and is a CPA and a CAIA designation holder.

George Cyriac

Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius

George Cyriac has more than two decades of experience advising on complex cross-border corporate, private equity, and restructuring transactions across Asia (including Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, the Philippines, and Thailand) and in New York. He represents leading multinational and Asian companies, private equity funds, sovereign wealth funds, state-owned enterprises, and banks in transactions throughout the investment cycle, including investments, disposals, complex restructurings, and joint ventures. Highly regarded as a private equity lawyer, George acts for leading global and Asian private equity sponsors in acquisitions, divestments, restructurings, and fundraisings in Asia and New York. He leads the firm’s private equity practice in Southeast Asia.

Prior to joining Morgan Lewis, George worked in the Singapore and New York offices of other global law firms and in the India office of an affiliate of a US law firm.

Jason Garelli

Head of Operational Due Diligence, AIA Group

Mr Garelli is the Head of the Operational Due Diligence (ODD) program at AIA. He is responsible for reviewing and analyzing the organization & governance, fund structures, core business processes and risk & compliance controls of Investment Managers and their Vehicles. Investing across all Asset Classes including Public Equity, Public Fixed Income, Private Equity, Venture Capital, Private Credit, Real Estate and Opportunistic.

Akhil Jain

Director, Private Equity, Fullerton Fund Management

Akhil is a Director in the Private Equity (directs) team at Fullerton Fund Management, which is a Singapore-based investment management firm that specializes in providing a wide range of investment solutions to institutional and retail clients.

Prior to Fullerton, he was an Executive Director and responsible for environment and sustainability sector coverage at Olympus Capital Holdings Asia which is one of Asia's longest standing private equity funds. He has also previously worked with Navis Capital, an Asia focused private equity buyout fund, as an Investment Manager, managing control investments across India, Southeast Asia and Australia; and with Argonaut Private Equity, a US based fund, as an Investment Associate, managing private and listed investments in India across multiple sectors.

He is a Computer Engineer from Delhi University, MBA from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, and a CFA Charterholder.

Benjamin Ong

Managing Director, Dymon Asia

Mr. Ong is a Managing Director at Dymon Asia Private Equity (“DAPE”), a private equity fund investing in buyout and growth capital opportunities in Southeast Asia, with more than USD 1.3 billion in assets under management and offices in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Mr. Ong is responsible for various deal origination, structuring, and portfolio monitoring functions at DAPE.

Prior to joining DAPE, Mr. Ong worked in the mergers & acquisitions group at ANZ Singapore, where he focused on cross-border M&A transactions, as well as the financial restructuring and leveraged finance groups at Chanin Capital Partners and CIBC World Markets in Los Angeles respectively.

Mr. Ong graduated with a Bachelors in Accounting and Finance from the University of Southern California.

Tuck Meng Yee

Partner, JRT Partners

Tuck Meng Yee has over 25 years’ experience in the financial markets in Asia and Australia in derivatives, funds and investment project portfolio management, development, research and marketing with global investment banks (JPMorgan, UBS) and private banks (ABN Amro and Citibank) as well as funds services (Moore Management, Allfunds) and family office (JRT Partners) giving him a keen sense of what investments suit which types of investors, and the support they typically need.

He is currently with JRT Partners, a family office which he set up for a Malaysian family and currently leads for both operations and investments.

Tuck speaks English and Mandarin, and holds degrees in Accounting, Computer Science, and Finance (Masters) from the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales.

JRT Partners is a Singapore based Family Office that invests across real estate, equities, debt and agriculture, directly and through funds including hedge funds, venture capital, and private equity funds. On occasion, the family office works with other family offices in investing, as well as advising them on family office setup, management and administration, as well as investment due diligence process.

Thomas Deinet

Executive Director, SBAI

Thomas Deinet was appointed Executive Director of the SBAI (previously known as the HFSB) in 2008. In 2007, Thomas joined the working group to project manage the development of practice standards proposed by 14 leading international alternative investment managers that led to the establishment of the SBAI.

Prior to joining the SBAI, he was a senior manager at Oliver Wyman, where he extensively worked with major financial institutions in Europe covering asset management as well as corporate and investment banking. Thomas also worked as an analyst in energy trading for a major commodities trading firm.

Thomas is a graduate of the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, with a major in industrial engineering and holds an MSc from Purdue University, USA. Thomas is a CFA charterholder.

Thomas Deinet

Executive Director, SBAI

Thomas Deinet was appointed Executive Director of the SBAI (previously known as the HFSB) in 2008. In 2007, Thomas joined the working group to project manage the development of practice standards proposed by 14 leading international alternative investment managers that led to the establishment of the SBAI.

Prior to joining the SBAI, he was a senior manager at Oliver Wyman, where he extensively worked with major financial institutions in Europe covering asset management as well as corporate and investment banking. Thomas also worked as an analyst in energy trading for a major commodities trading firm.

Thomas is a graduate of the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, with a major in industrial engineering and holds an MSc from Purdue University, USA. Thomas is a CFA charterholder.

Christine Ayako Schleppegrell

Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius

Christine Ayako Schleppegrell counsels asset managers on legal, regulatory, and compliance matters, focusing on advisers to private funds (private equity, hedge, venture capital, infrastructure, real estate, credit) and separately managed accounts. She spent several years in private practice and more recently at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including in leadership roles in the Division of Investment Management. While at the SEC, Christine led the Private Funds Branch during a time of landmark rulemaking impacting private fund advisers, she draws on this experience to advise on current and pending regulations and to guide clients through enforcement and examination proceedings.

Christine’s practice focuses on the interpretation and application of federal securities laws, primarily the Advisers Act, Investment Company Act, Exchange Act, and Securities Act. She serves as a resource for SEC-registered advisers, exempt reporting advisers, and unregistered advisers, ranging from global asset managers with diverse product offerings to startup advisers launching their first funds. Christine provides strategic advice on fund and adviser structuring and deal-related regulatory issues that arise in connection with corporate purchases and mergers and acquisitions. She also specialises in counseling on marketing rule compliance and performance advertising as well as extraterritorial matters, including participating affiliate arrangements.

William Nash

Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius

Bill Nash, managing partner of the firm’s Abu Dhabi office, co-leader of the firm’s Middle East practice, and member of the firm’s international leadership team, has been resident in Abu Dhabi since 2008 and previously lived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Bill advises regional and global clients on a variety of corporate and business law matters, focusing on the formation of and investments in private investment funds, international transactions and joint ventures, and general corporate counseling. He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and New York.

Debra Ng

MD, Asia Region Head, Albourne Partners

Debra Ng is a Partner and Shareholder of Albourne Partners. She joined Albourne as Portfolio Analyst in 2006 and heads the Albourne Singapore office.

Prior to that Debra was Regional Business Director of Strategy and business development at LFC Management Ltd (Singapore), (an Asian FoHF), for two years. Debra worked for four years at Citigroup Asset Management (Singapore) as Director, Institutional Advisory from 2000. Before that she worked at Capital International (Singapore) as Assistant Vice-President with Portfolio Management support and institutional client relationship management responsibilities from 1994 to 2000. Debra started her career as an Investment Analyst covering the Technology, EMS, Autos and small conglomerate sectors at DBS Investment Research (Singapore) from 1991 to 1994.

Debra graduated from the California State University, Los Angeles (USA) with a BSc. Business Administration in Finance with Economics in 1990. She attained the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designation in 2006.