Profiles

A Legacy of Service Since 1984

Our club is a story of remarkable individuals brought together by a shared commitment to service, compassion, and community. We’ve welcomed members from Singapore and around the world, including leaders in medicine, law, travel, procurement, marketing, and many other fields. Below is a brief look at just a few of our current and past members.

Rotarians come from around the world

Posted by Tara Strunk on Dec 28, 2025

Rotarians come from around the world to share lunch at the table of Marina City Rotary Club

Ambaree shares her journey on becoming vegan

The Rotary Club of Marina City attracts members from all around the world. During its more than 30-year history, the club has welcomed Singaporeans, Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Malays, Italians, Swiss, Germans, and Americans just to name a few of the nationalities. The diverse background of the club has allowed it to grow, exchange ideas, and share cultural traditions from around the world.

Enter Ambaree, an IT Business Analyst, a new expat that moved to Singapore in 2011 with her husband, Anshu. She joined the Marina City Rotary Club in 2014 and was active in the weekly meetings and giving talks. Her first child, Ahaana was just 2 years old at that time. Her father has been a veteran member of the Rotary Club of Tawau in Malaysia since she was a child. So, the Rotary culture was not new to her.

Upfront with Kelvin Ng

Posted by Tara Strunk

Kelvin is a business professional with over 25 yrs experience working in several multinational blue-chip companies. Trained as a Mechanical Engineer specialising in Robotics and a TedEx speaker. Kelvin soon found his love for food when he worked for Yum! Brands and Singapore Airlines Catering.

In his mid 40s, he decided to return back to his roots and starting discovering the providence of food and managed several organic farms in S.E.Asia. After tasting his first Beyond Burger in 2015, it sparked his interests in the plant based agri-food tech sector.

Upfront with Bianca Polak

Posted by Tara Strunk

The philosopher

Getting to know Bianca takes time. She is a multifaceted person who has so many different abilities, experiences, and philosophies.

Each time I spoke with her, I found out something totally new and interesting and this left me with wanting to get to know more about her. Bianca has a mix of interests and experiences that usually don’t come to together in one person.

Bianca hails from Holland but has spent most of her working life in IT in Asia. She has worked in Singapore, Guangzhou and Shanghai. When Bianca was first posted to Asia, she worked for a consultancy in KL, Malaysia and handled projects in KL and Shanghai. Bianca commented, she felt so much more at home in Asia than in Holland. So when her company planned to transfer her back to Holland, she took the brave decision to quit her job and move permanently to Singapore and she has been here since.

Upfront with Dr Wai Mun

Had the chance to catch up with a family friend and fellow club member.

Dedicated, kind, patient are qualities that are used to describe Dr. Wai Mun. He has been a Rotarian for over 37 years and married to his lovely wife Dawn for over 50 ye

ars.

Dr Wai Mun had a dental practice near Orchard Road in Singapore for more than 40 years. Dr Wai Mun shared, “I enjoyed my career so much because I had the opportunity to interact with my patients over the years and many of them have since become friends.”

Dr Wai Mun first learnt about Rotary when he was working as a locum for a dental private practitioner who went away on a family holiday overseas for two weeks. In his appointment book, every Wednesday lunch time was extended for an extra hour so that he could commence his afternoon session later. “I understood from his nurse that this time was blocked specially for his Rotary meetings. That was his commitment to Rotary!"

Upfront with Dr Abraham

Posted by Tara Strunk

Dr Abraham is one of our Club’s founding members. I sat down with him to learn about his career and passion for Rotary.

I set up my ENT Private Clinic practicing at MEH in 1984. Dr Oliver Hennedige, past President of RC Singapore invited me to speak at his Rotary Club.

At the end of my talk, Mr. Russi Cooper, Club President, thanking me, said ‘In our club, the measure of the speaker’s performance is inversely proportional to the noise level dressing the speech.’ He added that I had scored well in this area. I was invited to be a member.

My contribution in the early days was having a good lunch. I met up with an old friend, Dr Kwok Wai Mun. I also got to know Sunny Bay, Roberto and the late Hector Charles, our Charter President.

Upfront with Jesu Viveganandam

Jesu was born in Singapore in 1979. He grew up enjoying homecooked sambar and tofu sambal. He played badminton, police and thief, and cycled with a tight knit group friends in Serangoon Gardens. His parents never set rules and brought him up on strong values by allowing him to make his

own choices guided by their overarching value of “do the right thing”.

It was this upbringing that instilled a sense of independence and discipline. Jesu was a curious student and shared, “I was never a bad student. I see myself as a late bloomer. I was very playful in my primary school days. I only became a serious student in my secondary school and college days. I believe I drove some of my teachers crazy, because I always had lots of questions”.

Since junior college, Jesu knew he wanted to study law. He enjoyed it because it broke down complex issues with logic and order. After completing his National Service in the Singapore Air Force, Jesu studied at Leeds University and received his Master of Laws from New York University (NYU).

Jesu’s impressive career which spans close to 2 decades, began with him working in a one of Singapore’s largest law firms, before he was appointed a District Judge. Subsequently, he joined the Singapore Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) as a criminal prosecutor and Deputy Senior State Counsel where he oversaw and led the prosecution of criminal matters and advising the Government on a variety of matters including countering non-proliferation.

Whilst at AGC, Jesu pursued and was awarded the Fulbright scholarship to do his LLM in NYU. While at NYU he explored his interest to address the increasing number of white-collar crimes and corporate scandals.

Upfront with Manish Jain

Posted by Tara Strunk

CEO of Jainesis Resources (S) Pte Ltd.

The description capable entrepreneur popped into my mind as soon as Manish started sharing his story. He has a life-long love of learning. He hails from India and is a new member of the Rotary Club of Marina City.

In addition to energy and grit, Manish’s impressive qualifications include setting up his own business, Plymex Timber Pvt Ltd with the objective of importing timber into India as the domestic availability was insufficient for a growing economy. The import business thrived under his leadership skills and the company expanded in 2017 to Singapore.