WALK THE TALK

Choo Oi-Yee, the CEO of private market investment platform ADDX. on how financial literacy is the first step on the path to gender equality

-  Jamie Nonis

One would like to think that in 2023, gender diversity in the workplace would not be as much of a hot-button issue. But the reality is that there are still too few women at the top, particularly in the more male-dominated industries such as the finance sector.

Choo Oi-Yee is one such woman at the helm, as CEO of private market exchange ADDX. With more than 20 years of capital markets experience in global banks from Morgan Stanley and Nomura Singapore to Citigroup, Choo was most recently the head of investment banking for Singapore at UBS, prior to joining ADDX as chief commercial officer in 2020. She was appointed CEO of the fast-growing digital securities exchange in March 2022.

Founded in 2017 to democratise private market investing, the fintech firm is backed by major financial institutions including the Singapore Exchange (SGX), Temasek Holdings subsidiary Heliconia Capital Management, and Japan state-backed investors JIC Venture Growth Investments and the Development Bank of Japan.

"We are building the Amazon of the private markets," says Choo, who has previously worked on notable mergers and acquisitions and initial public offering deals, including the listing of Suntec REIT (real estate investment trust) and Parkway Life REIT on SGX. To this end, the Monetary Authority of Singapore-regulated platform is on a mission to provide investors with access to private market deals that have traditionally been available only to institutional investors such as sovereign wealth funds and endowment funds.