Lennard Yong, Group CEO of Ascentium, on the cross-border playbook every expanding business needs.
A: "Our business sits within the professional services sector. We provide full suite of corporate services to corporations, things like incorporation, payroll, and tax filings etc. Essentially, we enable companies to focus on their core business while we handle the peripheral requirements that keep them compliant across multiple jurisdictions."
A: "The world is shifting from a unipolar to a multipolar model. This means the corporate agenda will no longer be led solely by New York or London. Instead, hubs like Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Dubai will play increasingly important roles. For businesses, this creates complexity. They need to comply with diverse regulations across regions. Hiring specialists for every market is cost-prohibitive and labour intensive, as companies must manage multiple vendors and coordinate across jurisdictions themselves. That’s where Ascentium comes in. Rather than juggling numerous service providers, businesses can rely on a single partner with deep expertise across multiple markets. We act as a central point of contact, helping companies navigate regulatory requirements and operational challenges seamlessly, while delivering both local relevance and global consistency."
A: "We empower our local leaders to make decisions for their markets because they
understand clients and staff better than anyone. At the same time, we maintain a group-level strategy for technology, compliance, and acquisitions. It’s a two-pronged approach: local autonomy combined with global coordination and technology enablement."
A: "Asia Pacific is where our impact is most profound. We’re headquartered in Singapore, and over 60% of our business is anchored here. I anticipate that in the next decade, Fortune 500 companies will emerge from Asia and dominate the global commercial agenda. Our role is to enable that growth, that’s why our presence is firmly rooted in this region, even as we expand globally."
Asia Pacific's complexity is real, but so is its momentum. The businesses that scale successfully across this region aren't the ones with the biggest budgets. They're the ones that stopped treating compliance and operational infrastructure as an afterthought, and started treating them as the foundation everything else is built on.