Melissa Aratani Kwee

Director @ Pontiac Land Group

About

"The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning" Ecclesiastes 7:4 Lead with your life each moment. That is the invitation each of us is presented with each day. May each ephemeral moment exist in its fullness. I shape spaces, conversations and communities through listening to and teasing out the substance of people's dreams and linking them to one another in a beautiful collective tapestry. I believe our cities and nations would thrive if we each dared to express and live out our highest selves - which are never lived for ourselves alone. I embrace complexity and the wilderness of intersections between sectors, cultures, theologies and ideologies. In the end, the Divine judges and not me. My role is to love as I have been loved. An anthropologist by training, entrepreneurial by heritage, a designer of transformation by passion and community builder by choice, I seek to serve and uplift lives wherever I am called. Currently stewarding the family business Pontiac Land Group, my neighbourhood Queenstown (SG) and the relationships I am entrusted with both on boards and with fellow sojourners.

Country

Singapore

City

Singapore

Industry

Real Estate

Skill

Creativity and Innovation, Cross-cultural Teams, Social Entrepreneurship, Facilitation, Stakeholder Management, Community Building, Strategy, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Nonprofits

Experience

Director

Pontiac Land Group

2010-7 - Present · 16 yrs 2 mos

Singapore

Chairman

MHPL - Pontiac Land Group

2009-11 - Present · 16 yrs 10 mos

Investor and owner of Capella Singapore

Co-founder, Volunteer

Beautiful People

2005-2 - Present · 21 yrs 7 mos

As a community-based organisation, Beautiful People’s mission is to be a platform for building mentoring relationships that changes lives. Beautiful People aims to create a family and a platform for mentors of all shapes and sizes to share skills and spend time with teen girls associated with various community organisations, including family service centres, welfare homes and youth outreach organisations. Beautiful People is a forum through which volunteers are able to positively impact lives through mentoring, skills exchange and life long friendship. Beautiful People is a volunteer movement powered by the vision to create a world in which we are “One loving family: Every dream a possibility.” www.beautifulpeople.org.sg

Catalyst

National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC)

2022-10 - 2023-5 · 8 mos

Singapore

Chief Executive Officer

National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC)

2014-9 - 2022-10 · 8 yrs 2 mos

President

International Women's Forum Singapore

2017-6 - 2021-6 · 4 yrs 1 mo

Singapore

President and Vice President (02-06)

UNIFEM Singapore

2002-6 - 2009-6 · 7 yrs 1 mo

Co-Founder

Project Access (PAX) - Expanding the Realm of the Possible

1996-3 - 2002-6 · 6 yrs 4 mos

Pioneering leadership education for youth with a focus on girls when leadership was anything but the domain of the young, the female and non Chinese. PAX created a participatory, values based leadership programme that empowered teen girls and later young women to define their values and organise ways and means to effect this with and for others. We ran the first leadership programmes in schools for the general, non-elite population, and sought to raise many servant leaders who would catalyse good throughout their lives. We created and activated the leading women in Singapore across public, private and people sectors to serve as mentors and guides to the younger generation, creating a platform for intergenerational inspiration and camaraderie.