In the rush to adopt futuristic technologies, organizations often overlook the most crucial element of digital transformation: people. While innovative tools and platforms are essential, true transformation occurs when employees acknowledge change and develop new skills.
Adopting this strategy, Marcus is leading Temus, with a mission to direct Singapore’s digital future. As a Director with 20+ years of experience at the intersection of business, technology, and marketing, he brings a wealth of insight to his role at Temus, a digital transformation services firm established by Temasek. Being the driving force behind the company’s signature career conversion program, Step IT Up, he is passionate about nurturing talent and bridging the digital skills gap in Singapore.
“Our goal is to be a digital champion for both public and private sector enterprises,” Marcus explains, emphasizing Temus’ vow to realize Singapore’s Smart Nation vision. This ambitious initiative aims to harness technology to enhance urban living, strengthen communities, and drive economic growth.
His multifaceted role at Temus extends beyond talent development. He also oversees marketing, strategic communication, and corporate affairs, ensuring that the company’s message resonates with stakeholders across the board.
As Singapore continues its digital transformation journey, Marcus and Temus are at the forefront, helping organizations manage the complex domain of developing technologies. “We’re not just implementing solutions,” he asserts. “We’re empowering people and organizations to acknowledge change and discover new possibilities.” With his strategic vision and a passion for nurturing digital literacy, Marcus is helping to write the next chapter in Singapore’s technological evolution, one transformation at a time.
Let us explore his journey:
Driving Digital Transformation and Community Empowerment at Temus
Marcus Loh is a Director at Temus, a digital transformation services firm established three years ago by Temasek, Singapore’s state-owned investment firm. He leads the firm’s practice for their signature career conversion program, Step IT Up, and oversees marketing, strategic communication, and corporate affairs for Temus.
The company’s goal is to be a digital champion for both public and private sector enterprises in Singapore, contributing to the realization of the country’s Smart Nation vision. Before joining Temus, he served as the group executive director at a Seattle-founded global public affairs and communication firm, where he offered strategic counsel to some of the world’s most prominent tech multinational enterprises.
He decided to join Temus because he wanted to help build a global tech services multinational enterprise that Singapore could call its own. After two decades of helping grow foreign enterprises in the Asia Pacific region, he found that he was driven by a deeper mission: to secure Singapore’s relevance in an increasingly complex, digital future.
His involvement in the local community has further inspired his work at Temus. As a member of Singapore’s People’s Action Party team serving around 40,000 residents in Sengkang East, he has found that digital inclusion, professional-level digital fluency, and nurturing careers in the digital economy can become centripetal forces that unify society.
While Temus has ambitious goals at a national level, he believes that these ground-up efforts can give citizens a tangible stake in the success of Singapore’s digital future.
Catalyzing Digital Transformation
Temus is a digital transformation services firm established three years ago by Temasek in partnership with UST. At the core of Temus lies a powerful purpose: unlocking economic and societal value through holistic transformation enabled by technology.
The company believes in the profound impact of digital capabilities when combined with a deep understanding of human behavior and processes. Temus’ mission is to catalyze this transformation, bridging the present with the future and creating tangible benefits for society and the economy.
Temus’ approach is distinctive, characterized by value-centricity, a long-term partnership mindset, and comprehensive end-to-end capabilities. The company starts by clearly articulating a vision and follows through by delivering value marked by speed, agility, and simplicity. This blueprint ensures that every project undertaken is not just about immediate gains but also about sustainable, long-term success.
Temus is proud to have attracted a diverse and experienced pool of talent in strategy, design, architecture, technology, data, and artificial intelligence. The company’s foundation is anchored by a strong Singapore Core, reflecting its commitment to nurturing and multiplying local digital talent. Temus aims to grow alongside Singapore’s Smart Nation vision, ensuring that its workforce and solutions remain at the forefront of the digital revolution.
Motivations and Contributions
Marcus was motivated to join Temus by a desire to help build a global tech services multinational enterprise that Singapore can call its own. After two decades of aiding the growth of foreign enterprises in the Asia Pacific region, Marcus felt driven by a deeper mission: to secure Singapore’s relevance in an increasingly complex, digital future.
He believed he could best contribute by building brands and ventures for Singapore. In his role as a Director at Temus, Marcus leverages his expertise in strategic counsel and brand building to position Temus as a leading voice in digital transformation, guiding clients through their digital journeys and ensuring the delivery of value marked by speed, agility, and simplicity.
Additionally, Marcus is committed to nurturing and expanding local digital talent through initiatives like the Step IT Up program, which helps ensure that the workforce remains at the forefront of the digital revolution.
Key Factors Contributing to Temus’s Rapid Grow
Temus’s rapid expansion from 100 to over 400 employees in just three years can be attributed to a combination of organic growth, strategic acquisitions, and talent development initiatives. The company has successfully attracted and retained a diverse range of clients, including some of Singapore’s most forward-thinking government agencies and large enterprises, necessitating a larger workforce to meet their complex digital transformation needs.
Strategic acquisitions, such as those of DreamCloud and Decision Science Agency, have expanded Temus’s capabilities and extended its operations beyond Singapore to Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Vietnam, bringing in new talent and expertise.
Additionally, the Step IT Up program, a digital career conversion initiative for Singaporean locals with no prior IT background, has placed 59 trained candidates into full-time tech roles, reinforcing Temus’s commitment to building a strong Singapore Core in their workforce.
Through these strategic thrusts, Temus has effectively scaled and positioned itself as a key player in Singapore’s digital transformation landscape.
Addressing Challenges in Singapore’s Digital Transformation Landscape
Temus is well-positioned to address the significant challenges facing the digital transformation landscape in Singapore. These challenges include the overwhelming influx of data, the need for effective data utilization, and the integration of AI into business operations.
Despite 73% of senior business executives agreeing that data reduces uncertainty and improves decision-making, 69% are not leveraging data effectively for pricing decisions, particularly in the face of economic conditions like inflation.
Investing in AI offers significant potential to enhance business transformation, customer engagement, and operational efficiency by enabling enterprises to make sense of the data. AI’s turbo-charged computing power can effectively process large volumes of data, making it accessible and further accelerating automation and productivity. Generative AI spending is projected to reach $26 billion by 2027, making AI even more accessible.
Singapore’s recent developments, such as the Digital Enterprise Blueprint, aim to address these challenges. The blueprint focuses on developing and growing Singapore’s digital talent pool, which Temus supports through initiatives like the Step IT Up Program. This program has successfully placed 59 trained candidates into full-time tech roles, expanding the talent pool and reinforcing Temus’ commitment to building a strong Singapore Core in its workforce.
Temus is also contributing to the AI revolution by developing AI-driven solutions and fostering local talent. The company’s holistic approach to digital transformation, shaped by an appreciation for the nuances and sensitivities of Singapore’s public and private sector needs, is key to its success.
Through initiatives like Step IT Up and strategic partnerships, Temus is making significant strides in unlocking economic and societal value through digital transformation, not only in Singapore but also beyond.
Balancing External Commitments to Drive Positive Change
Marcus prioritizes his involvement in various external organizations with a deep sense of purpose and dedication. He channels his passion and competencies to support several organizations whose values resonate with his own and for whom he hopes to make a difference.
He currently serves in various capacities, including as a Fellow of the National Volunteers & Philanthropy Centre’s Company of Good initiative, on the Singapore University of Social Sciences Industry Advisory Committee, on the Board of Governors for the UOB-SMU Asian Enterprise Institute, and as a Board Member of the Singapore Management University Alumni Philanthropy Council.
Additionally, he recently took on roles as an advisor to the local social enterprise Edible Garden City and as a patron for Every Child Matters, a charity dedicated to providing quality enrichment in STEAM to children from needy households.
Marcus also actively engages in ground-up efforts beyond advisory and board positions. In Sengkang East, he serves on the Community Development and Welfare Fund, mobilizing resources and community partnerships to benefit families in need.
As a member of the People’s Action Party Sengkang East team, he conducts frequent home visits, estate walkabouts, community projects, and pilot initiatives to bridge socio-economic gaps and address municipal issues faced by residents and families in the division. These efforts are driven by his understanding that the people of Sengkang aspire for better care, seamless translation of government policy into tangible outcomes for individual households, and responsible representation in the political arena.
While balancing these commitments comes with trade-offs, Marcus remains dedicated to his work, inspired by the support from his wife and family and their shared vision of creating a positive impact for Singapore.
The Qualities of a Successful Marketing Professional
Trust is the foundation that holds enterprises and their stakeholders together. A brand is an instinctual representation of the enterprise in the hearts and minds of its stakeholders, shaped by broader trends and personal aspirations, and influenced in part by public discourse. As champions of the brand, marketers are the stewards of this sense of trust.
According to Marcus, three of the most important attributes of successful marketing professionals are:
- A deep sense of curiosity at both the intellectual and emotional levels.
- capacity to situate the enterprise so that it can respond favorably to ongoing public context and intrapersonal discourse.
- An ethical inclination towards honesty and the common good.
He believes that marketers owe it to their CEOs and chairmen to be on top of these attributes, enabling them to serve as credible business partners and strategic counselors at the highest levels of the enterprise.
The remaining competencies needed to excel as a marketer, such as mastery of earned, owned, and paid media and stakeholder networks, can be acquired through experience, skills, and best practices from the marketing fraternity. Ultimately, it is about applying oneself to sharpen the craft.
Educational Journey: The Unconventional Path to Success
Marcus educational journey was not conventional, but it prepared him well for his current role and responsibilities. He discovered his calling early in life and decided to pursue it, knowing he wanted to become part of the media landscape.
He won an advertising scholarship while studying for his diploma, made it to the international students’ honor roll when he attended evening classes for his undergraduate degree, received a government-funded scholarship mid-career while pursuing his second master’s degree, and recently completed an executive program in public leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School—all while working to support himself and his family.
While making these life choices involved trade-offs, he believes that his concurrent academic and professional pursuits were mutually reinforcing and proved to be the right approach for growing his career in business, tech, and marketing over the past two decades.
This journey instilled in him a deep respect for research, rigor, and theoretical frameworks; a love for reading; a nose for identifying ideas and theories out of touch with the market and its customers; and the know-how of translating codified knowledge into real-world impact.
Pioneering Digital Transformation
Temus is committed to being a digital champion for both the private and public sectors in Singapore, unlocking economic and societal value through holistic, technology-enabled transformation.
By partnering with sector leaders and understanding human behavior and processes, Temus creates tailored strategies that enhance efficiency, productivity, and experiences. Emphasizing value-centricity and sustainable long-term partnerships, Temus focuses on developing local digital talent through initiatives like the Step IT Up program, ensuring a strong Singapore Core.
By investing in AI and emerging technologies, Temus helps clients stay competitive, driving Singapore’s Smart Nation aspirations towards a more inclusive, productive, and prosperous society.
Defining Success: Pursuit of Excellence and Meaning
Marcus defines success through the lens of Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia, which equates to true happiness and the ultimate purpose of human existence. Aristotle believed that the capacity for reason sets humans apart and that a “good” human is one who uses reason well, allowing the rational soul to guide their actions. This, he argued, is the true path to eudaimonia.
Aristotle’s idea of virtue, derived from the Greek word arete, meaning “excellence,” plays a crucial role in realizing one’s potential. Practicing virtues with excellence makes one a “good” human and leads to a flourishing, well-lived life. Loh shares this view, believing that success is defined as the continuous pursuit of excellence through the practice of virtues, guided by reason, to achieve one’s fullest potential and lead a flourishing, meaningful life.
As a Catholic, he finds Aristotle’s philosophy refreshing, especially when viewed through the lens of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas builds on Aristotle’s ideas by presenting a twofold structure of what it means to be successful and happy: the natural end, similar to Aristotle’s eudaimonia, and the supernatural end, which involves an identification of oneness with God—the highest good. Central to this understanding is the concept of virtue.
This perspective shapes his aspirations for his career, the causes he deeply believes in, and the people impacted by his pursuit of growing a movement of good, including his family. Loh’s definition of success is rooted in the continuous pursuit of excellence through the practice of virtues, guided by reason, to achieve one’s fullest potential and lead a flourishing, meaningful life.
