Dawn Lim
Executive Director
DesignSingapore Council
An experienced leader in business development and strategy, Dawn stepped into the leadership role at DesignSingapore as Executive Director from 1 May. Prior to this, she helmed Singapore’s global leadership ambitions in Commercial & Professional Services at the Economic Development Board – Singapore’s lead economic agency. In this role, she engaged and attracted the world’s leading organisations in the consulting, accounting, marketing and advertising, as well as engineering services and logistics sectors. She has a proven track record of working across private and public sector partners to negotiate deals and deliver major strategic initiatives and investments. She also formerly headed EDB’s European team to advance Singapore’s business engagements with Fortune 500 companies across a wide range of industries, bringing in more than US $1 billion in investments annually. Under Dawn’s stewardship, the Singapore EDB established its first office in Switzerland. Previously, she headed EDB’s logistics industry team in Singapore.
Dawn also spent several years at port operator PSA honing her skills in the shipping industry while serving as chief of staff to the CEO and global account commercial manager for top shipping lines. She holds a BSc from Georgetown University and an MSc from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. One of her proudest moments was sharing the Singapore development story as part of Stanford GSB’s Lowkeynotes speaker series. (You can catch it on her LinkedIn)
Dawn is also a Design Economy Ambassador to the UK Design Council – the only Southeast Asian and female to be represented. She is a design thinker, swing dancer, and a better baker than a cook. She is a mentor with the Halogen Foundation1 as well as an advisor to a start-up, MagicPort. Often found bobbing along to jazz, she also easily breaks out into classic oldies and boyband tunes when the occasion calls for it. If she could, she’d take her senior adopted dog, Mi Gua, everywhere.
