Back home in Singapore to work for online supermarket RedMart, Silicon Valley veteran Patrick Teo says he has another job on his hands: attracting other talent back to boost the island city/state’s expanding tech hub.
After gaining a PhD in Computer Science at Stanford University and holding senior positions at Amazon, Facebook and Shutterfly, he has been appointed chief product officer and executive VP for engineering at Lazada-owned RedMart.
“As a Singaporean, I see the exciting developments taking place at home and want to contribute to building the tech ecosystem here,” he says. He is keen to work with the industry and government “to further cultivate the talented engineers coming out of Singapore’s universities and attract many living abroad to come back”.
Teo started his Silicon Valley career at online retailer and manufacturer Shutterfly, where he led its engineering teams from start-up to its IPO.
He then went on to build Amazon’s digital music technology as head of technology and site leader of the company’s San Francisco office. Most recently, he led multiple engineering teams at Facebook.
Now he reports to RedMart president Vikram Rupani, who says Teo’s presence is “a stamp of validation for Singapore’s maturing tech ecosystem”.
Teo says that with top e-commerce companies such as Alibaba and Lazada investing in Singapore, the nation “is on the path to become a truly world-class tech hub”.