Andrew Seit

Andrew completed his Bachelor’s studies in Biomedical, Medicine and Engineering from Ohio State University. The program exposed him to human physiology and engineering, which gave him the opportunity to perform cardiovascular research work. 

He took up a full scholarship at Sydney University to pursue his PhD in Computing and Medicine. At the same time, he joined the Cardiac Technology Centre at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney. In his first job, he was heading up two research programs: 1) heart modeling, and 2) human vision modeling and neuro-network. He was “fixing broken hearts” with his colleagues. Andrew also filed a patent in the area of echocardiography, also known as cardiac ultrasound. 

Recognizing the importance of understanding business, he pursued his MBA on a part-time basis upon completing his PhD. 

After six years in the healthcare sector, Andrew wanted to move to another industry with larger project experience and exposure opportunities. He identified that there were two sectors with large projects: Defense and Telecommunications. 

A headhunter introduced Andrew to the Australian Defence Industrial (ADI), known as Thales Australia today. ADI wanted to hire a person who could commercialize advanced technology. His research in echocardiography and filing a patent opened the door for him. 

Andrew worked in the Defense sector for 6 years before making another move to the telco sector. He was introduced to Optus by his wife. At that time, Australia was starting the development of the 3G network. As Andrew has been exposed to 3G Spectrum development while working on future soldier technologies with the defense sector, he was able to bring a lot of insights to the interview. Naturally, he secured the job with Optus.

Andrew did well in the telco industry and he joined Fast Search & Transfer ASA in 2005. The Norwegian company specialized in enterprise search software and it was acquired by Microsoft in 2008. He worked at Microsoft until 2012. The seven-year stint was a highlight in his career as he worked at the edge of technology disruption. He was engaging people with real problems. He saw the results and it was very satisfying for him. He was involved in Digital Transformation, Big Data and Analytics, and Natural Language Processing (NLP). 

In contrast, when he moved to Esri Australia, it was not the best job for him. The company was selling geospatial information with the HQ and R&D center in US. The sales office in Australia was mainly driven by repeated license sales. There was very little development work and Andrew couldn’t see how he was contributing to the company. In hindsight, Andrew felt that he could have scrutinized the scope of work before joining the company. 

Since 2015, Andrew returned to Singapore to support his family business, which is in the wholesale business of traditional Chinese food ingredients. He has brought digitalization to the company by introducing e-commerce and digital marketing. 

Andrew also dabbles in AI companies and he remains a technology enthusiast. In the next 10 years, he wants to actively coach others and support local SMEs in their digitalization journeys. 

Andrew actively coaches his two children as they move into the first stage of their careers.