SGInnovate hires Lim Jui to be new CEO from May 1

THE board of SGInnovate has appointed Lim Jui as chief executive officer (CEO) effective May 1.

He will take the helm from founding CEO Steve Leonard, the company announced on Friday.

SGInnovate helps entrepreneurial scientists build and scale deep-tech startups. It is a private company wholly owned by the Singapore government.

Dr Lim joins SGInnovate from NTUitive, a Nanyang Technological University subsidiary which helps take technology from the lab to the marketplace and manages the university's intellectual property assets.

He has more than two decades of experience in innovation, research commercialisation and investment.

Prior to his role at NTUitive, Dr Lim was co-founder and executive director of a medical-device accelerator, the Medical Engineering Research and Commercialisation Initiative, at the National University of Singapore.

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While he was at the accelerator, he was also the programme director of the Singapore-Stanford Biodesign Programme, a joint venture between the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) and Stanford University.

Dr Lim was a practising physician before he was appointed director of investments at Bio*One Capital, a biomedical sciences investment management firm under the EDB, and later joined medical devices company Merlin MD as CEO.

"I am fortunate to have experienced commercialisation through multiple lenses as an investor and startup CEO, and most recently, seeing through early-stage technology commercialisation," he said.

Singapore's deep-tech sector has established competitive advantage and thought leadership, but remains relatively underfunded, according to Dr Lim.

Deep-tech startups need more tangible support than others, he added.

SGInnovate chairman Yong Ying-I said: "The board and management are confident that given Jui's experience in commercialising research and bringing new technologies to international markets, under his leadership, SGInnovate will be able to continue its good work in building and strengthening the deep-tech ecosystem in Singapore." 

Since its inception in 2016, SGInnovate has been working closely with a wide range of partners and co-investors to support entrepreneurial scientists through equity-based investments, access to talent and business-building advice.