DHL Supply Chain appoints new CIO and COO for Asia Pacific region

August 28, 2021: DHL Supply Chain has appointed Noel Singgih as its chief information officer (CIO) and Michael Lai as the chief operating officer (COO) for Asia Pacific. Both Singgih and Lai are industry veterans who have proven track records in their respective areas of expertise and were instrumental in the success of many key initiatives implemented in the organization.

They take over from Steve Walker, who has recently been appointed chief executive officer for the division's regional cluster which includes Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar. Walker, Singgih and Lai are part of the regional management board.

"DHL Supply Chain has a strong pool of talent in Asia that makes it easy to identify from within the right fits for these roles. Noel has been with us for more than ten years now and his capabilities are evident from the digital projects that he has helped to spearhead in the region, commented Ryan.

"I'm equally convinced that Michael's experience in optimizing operations in different international markets, including Greater China, makes him the perfect choice to further enhance our standardization processes, and to derive and drive best practices."

Prior to this appointment, Noel Singgih was most recently CIO for Global Service Logistics, E-commerce and Warehousing in DHL Supply Chain. During his tenure, he contributed decisively to the global IT strategy for e-commerce and spearheaded several digital warehouse IT solutions for key customers in the region.

Singgih joined Deutsche Post DHL Group a decade ago as Senior Director for Infrastructure and Service Management. He has held several management positions including CIO for the division's Greater China team from 2016 before taking on the additional role of COO in 2017 to 2019. In this new role, Singgih will continue to report to Markus Voss, CIO & COO DHL Supply Chain and be based out of Singapore.

"The pandemic has demonstrated that it's critical to keep a keen eye on the horizon ahead, and accelerate digital transformation to future-proof our customers' supply chains. I'm honored to be given this opportunity to bring direct impact and influence on deploying the very best digital solutions and innovations for our customers," added Singgih.

Michael Lai was most recently the COO and Head of Solutions and Innovation at SF DHL Supply Chain in China, a role he assumed in 2019 after spearheading the strategic partnership between DHL Supply Chain and SF Holding in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau. He was responsible for shaping the operations culture by combining best practices and governance from DHL with local practices. He also actively pursued innovative and digital technologies, implementing various digitalization and data analytics topics to drive operations excellence.

Lai has spent 18 years with DHL where he held senior management roles based out of Taiwan, South China, Macau, Hong Kong and Germany. In 2011, he relocated to Bonn, Germany to work on developing the Deutsche Post DHL Group's global strategy where he earned his chops in managing merger and acquisition projects for the supply chain division.

Lai said, "I'm incredibly honoured and excited about this regional role and look forward to meeting with our teams to better understand our operations across the multi-cultural cities in Asia to see where I can add value to existing processes and best practices. When it comes to the pursuit of operational excellence, I'm convinced that our laser focus on delivering customer satisfaction will help lead the way in continuous improvement."