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AIA Singapore engages Singapore Airlines Academy to redefine customer experience excellence and future-proof all its staff
This pioneering collaboration also strongly supports Singapore’s national agenda on lifelong learning, directly complementing the Budget 2025 announcements that underscore the critical need for continuous upskilling and reskilling to future-proof the nation’s workforce. Through this collaboration, AIA Singapore aims to establish a new industry benchmark for customer experience and talent development within Singapore’s life insurance sector.
AIA Singapore and Singapore Airlines Academy have jointly developed this curriculum, which will roll out to all AIA Singapore employees progressively. Each class is designed for 20 to 25 participants, creating an interactive and dynamic learning atmosphere. This bespoke programme includes a series of workshops focused on customer experience culture transformation, starting with changing mindsets and enhancing our ability to create delightful customer moments.
“At the heart of our customer-centric philosophy, we believe world-class customer experience means anticipating and exceeding expectations, not just meeting them. We want to make things easy for our customers, build lasting trust, and delight them in every interaction,” said Wong Sze Keed, CEO, AIA Singapore.” This landmark collaboration with Singapore Airlines Academy is a powerful testament to that commitment. By fusing their iconic service standards with our customer-first approach, we’re set to transform AIA Singapore’s capabilities and significantly contribute to Singapore’s vision for a highly skilled and adaptable workforce.
This customised programme will equip our people to deliver unparalleled customer journeys, setting a new benchmark for AIA Singapore and across the industry, ensuring AIA Singapore remains at the forefront of service excellence.”
Marking an unprecedented leap in creating world-class customer experiences and empowering AIA staff to exceed customer expectations
This strategic collaboration marks a significant milestone, positioning AIA Singapore as the inaugural insurer to collaborate with Singapore Airlines Academy for an extensive and dedicated talent development programme. The bespoke programme, curated in collaboration with Singapore Airlines Academy, will deliver a series of immersive workshops focused on two key pillars:
- Customer Experience (CX) Transformation: This foundational, one-day workshop aims to fundamentally shift mindsets, ensuring every interaction embodies AIA’s CX North Star – whereby every customer should be able to say, “I feel cared for by AIA”. Through self-discovery, storytelling, and scenario-driven practice, participants will explore the emotional impact of everyday interactions, understand the role of belief and mindset in service delivery, and commit to actions that uplift customer trust, satisfaction and loyalty. Key modules include understanding the true meaning of customer experience, cultivating personal service beliefs and achieving compliance excellence while simultaneously delivering exceptional customer experiences.
- Customer Experience Excellence: Building on the foundational mindset, this follow-up workshop is specifically for customer-facing and servicing roles. It equips participants with practical techniques to handle real-world service interactions with empathy, clarity, and confidence. Participants will learn to identify and respond to customers’ needs, navigate perception-driven challenges, and uphold service excellence even in difficult conversations. The programme introduces actionable frameworks such as the ‘Positive No’ – teaching how to respectfully decline requests while preserving trust – and the ‘4 As of Apology’ for effective and empathetic apologies.
- These bespoke workshops are the latest in a series of significant CX initiatives that AIA Singapore has undertaken as part of its ongoing customer centricity pledge, which includes:
- AIA+ delivers on the organisation’s promise of customer centricity. This dedicated app and portal seamlessly unifies our customers’ financial, health and wellness needs, offering 24/7 access at their fingertips. Additionally, employee benefits are available on AIA+, giving our corporate customers access to both their personal and corporate insurance on one platform.
- Cutting through jargon with our plain English initiative, where we have simplified our AIA HealthShield Gold Max policy documents and ongoing refinements to our customer letters. Our goal is to help customers understand their coverage, identify protection gaps, and improve financial literacy through clear communication.
AIA Singapore’s commitment to upskilling talent
Building on AIA Singapore’s long-term strategy and commitment to its customer-centricity pledge, this initiative also aims to inculcate people development and upskilling as part of its culture. In 2025, AIA Singapore retained its position as a leader in the industry by achieving the largest number of Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) members for an unprecedented 11 years. MDRT membership is globally recognised as the gold standard in the life insurance and financial services industry, awarded for exceptional professional knowledge, strict ethical conduct, and outstanding customer service.
By embedding structured learning and continuous development into its operations, AIA Singapore is not only raising the bar for talent development, it is also profoundly reinforcing its customer-first philosophy. This ensures every customer interaction is consistently marked by professionalism, empathy, and unparalleled service quality.
Hashtag: #AIASingapore
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About AIA
AIA Group Limited and its subsidiaries (collectively “AIA” or the “Group”) comprise the largest independent publicly listed pan-Asian life insurance group. It has a presence in 18 markets – wholly-owned branches and subsidiaries in Mainland China, Hong Kong SAR[1], Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan (China), Vietnam, Brunei and Macau SAR[2], and a 49 per cent joint venture in India. In addition, AIA has a 24.99 per cent shareholding in China Post Life Insurance Co., Ltd.
The business that is now AIA was first established in Shanghai more than a century ago in 1919. It is a market leader in Asia (ex-Japan) based on life insurance premiums and holds leading positions across the majority of its markets. It had total assets of US$328 billion as of 30 June 2025.
AIA meets the long-term savings and protection needs of individuals by offering a range of products and services including life insurance, accident and health insurance and savings plans. The Group also provides employee benefits, credit life and pension services to corporate clients. Through an extensive network of agents, partners and employees across Asia, AIA serves the holders of more than 43 million individual policies and over 16 million participating members of group insurance schemes.
AIA Group Limited is listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited under the stock codes “1299” for HKD counter and “81299” for RMB counter with American Depositary Receipts (Level 1) traded on the over-the-counter market under the ticker symbol “AAGIY”.
For much of the past century, urban development followed a relatively straightforward equation: build housing, expand infrastructure and accommodate population growth. This formula is now showing its limitations. As climate risk intensifies, biodiversity declines and cities compete not only for investment but also for talent, developers around the world are now forced to redefine the very nature and purpose of what they build.
From the Gulf to Singapore, and from Scandinavia to Southeast Asia, large-scale urban projects are evolving into integrated ecosystems where mobility, green infrastructure, education, healthcare, digital services and environmental restoration are planned together. The industry paradigm has shifted from constructing buildings to designing places capable of sustaining both economic growth and quality of life over generations.
Vinhomes has initiated a comprehensive repositioning to navigate this global transition.
Known as Vietnam’s largest residential developer, the company is increasingly recognized not merely as a builder of housing projects, but as a creator of large-scale lifestyle ecosystems, communities where urban planning, technology, ecology and public services are conceived as parts of the same system.
When Nature Becomes Urban Infrastructure
For decades, environmental considerations were often introduced after a city’s masterplan had already been completed.
The emerging model reverses that sequence. Across many of its recent developments, Vinhomes operates on the principle that natural systems should become the starting point of planning. Hydrology, coastal conditions, biodiversity and existing vegetation are treated as design inputs that shape the urban layout from the earliest stages.
This philosophy marks a notable departure from conventional large-scale development, particularly in rapidly urbanising markets where natural landscapes have frequently given way to intensive construction.
With more than 30 developments across Vietnam and a land bank equivalent to roughly two-thirds the size of Singapore, Vinhomes has the unusual opportunity to test this planning approach at a metropolitan scale.
Rather than replicating identical urban formulas, each project is designed around the ecological characteristics of its location.
The company maintains that the long-term success of a city should ultimately be measured not by how much has been built, but by whether natural ecosystems continue to thrive decades after residents have moved in. That perspective aligns with an increasingly influential school of urban planning in which green infrastructure is viewed as essential public infrastructure.
Factors Compelling Cities Toward Regeneration
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) frameworks have become standard across global investment. Urban planners, however, are beginning to question whether sustainability alone is sufficient.
Maintaining today’s environmental conditions may no longer be enough if tomorrow’s cities must also respond to rising temperatures, sea-level change and growing demographic pressures.
Vinhomes’ strategic response is crystallized in its ESG++, a framework that extends beyond conventional ESG principles by introducing two additional objectives: Regeneration and resilience.
The distinction is subtle but important.
Regeneration implies restoring ecological systems rather than simply reducing environmental impact. Resilience focuses on designing cities capable of adapting to changing climatic, technological and social conditions over many decades.
Projects such as Vinhomes Green Paradise Can Gio and Vinhomes Global Gates Ha Long are intended to demonstrate how these concepts can be incorporated into large-scale urban planning, combining renewable energy, smart infrastructure and ecological restoration within a single development model.
This shift highlights a growing global consensus: the success of next-generation cities will ultimately be measured by their ability to adapt to increasingly complex environmental challenges.
Vietnam’s Urban Story Is Becoming Part of a Global Conversation
For many international audiences, Vietnam remains associated primarily with its cultural heritage and natural landscapes. Urban development may become an equally important part of that story.
Rapid urbanisation, expanding infrastructure investment and a national commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 have created conditions in which entirely new urban models can be planned without many of the legacy constraints facing older cities.
This developmental opportunity is capturing increasing global interest.
Commenting on Vinhomes Green Paradise’s participation in the global 7 Wonders of Future Cities initiative, Jean-Paul de la Fuente, Director of the New7Wonders Organisation, described Vietnam as undergoing a “transformative step change” in its national identity and global positioning. He pointed to the country’s progress in reducing the carbon footprint of urban mobility as an example of coordinated action between government and the private sector that offers valuable insights extending beyond Southeast Asia.
For Vinhomes, participation in international platforms such as 7 Wonders of Future Cities is therefore less about showcasing a single project than about contributing to a broader discussion on how rapidly developing economies might approach urban growth differently. The company’s evolution mirrors a wider shift taking place across the global property sector.
Increasingly, the core value proposition for developers is no longer anchored in how many buildings they can deliver. Instead, it centers on whether they can create cities that remain economically competitive, environmentally resilient and socially relevant long after construction has ended.
Hashtag: #Vinhomes
https://vinhomes.vn/enThe issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
CUHK’s Academic Excellence and Global Research Impact
CUHK’s academic rigour is further recognised in the 2026–27 Best Global Universities Rankings by U.S. News & World Report, where it ranks 28th globally and 5th in Asia, remaining Hong Kong’s top university for the fourth consecutive year. The University features 15 subjects in the global top 50, including five in the top 10, such as Education and Educational Research (#1), Gastroenterology and Hepatology (#2), Computer Science (#7), and Arts and Humanities and Artificial Intelligence (both ranked #9).
CUHK: Where Bold Ideas Become Impactful Research
CUHK provides an exceptional environment for impactful research, supported by approximately 300 research institutes and centres, alongside four state key laboratories approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. Reflecting on the academic environment, Zhamilya Zhirenova, a PhD student in Biomedical Science from Kazakhstan, has deepened her expertise through her involvement with the Centre for Neuromusculoskeletal Restorative Medicine (CNRM), an InnoHK research centre CUHK established with Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet.
Unlike traditional research pathways, where students are often confined to a single university laboratory, Zhamilya gained extensive experience at Hong Kong Science Park, a dynamic setting that closely resembles industry. “It feels more like an industrial company,” she reflected, “and that experience has been invaluable.” For researchers with ambitions beyond academia, such early exposure to the pace and expectations of the biotech industry provides a distinct advantage.
Nurturing the Next Generation of Scientific Innovators
Many of CUHK’s scholars are globally renowned experts who have made significant breakthroughs in their respective fields. These experts provide valuable mentorship, cultivating an intellectually stimulating environment for innovative research.
At the Centre for Novostics, an InnoHK research centre dedicated to advancing molecular diagnostics, Yasine Malki, a Chemical Pathology PhD student from Hong Kong, highlighted mentorship as a defining aspect of his experience at CUHK. Benefiting from the mentorship of Professor Dennis Lo, CUHK’s Vice-Chancellor and President, and a pioneer in molecular diagnostics, Yasine collaborates with specialists in molecular technologies, bioinformatics, and clinician-scientists, exemplifying CUHK’s dynamic, multidisciplinary approach to medical science.
Through the latest global rankings, CUHK continues to demonstrate the impact of its research and scholarship. The University offers robust financial support to attract top-tier global talent, such as the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme (HKPFS) for the 2027–28 intake, which provides over HK$1.81 million (approximately US$232,420) in funding. Applications open on 1 September 2026.
Hashtag: #CUHK
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About CUHK
Founded in 1963, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a leading comprehensive research university with a global reputation and world-leading rankings. Located in the heart of Asia, CUHK has a vision and a mission to combine tradition with modernity, and to bring together China and the West. The University has eight faculties: Arts, Business Administration, Education, Engineering, Law, Medicine, Science, and Social Science. Together with the Graduate School, the University offers over 300 undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. All faculties are actively engaged in research in a wide range of disciplines, with an array of research institutes and research centres specialising in interdisciplinary research of the highest quality.
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HKDL’s Immersive Interactive Experiences Win Guests’ Hearts Lucky Nugget Spin at Grizzly Gulch Surpasses 30,000 Participations
Immersive experiences fuel collectible merchandise craze and extend magical memories
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 11 July 2026 – In tune with the growing popularity of experiential travel and guests’ desire for participation and immersive experiences throughout their journeys, Hong Kong Disneyland Resort (HKDL) has been integrating retail with storytelling at the park through an endless flow of innovative interactive experiences and distinctive merchandise offerings. Emotional connections with guests are strengthened as merchandise is transformed into meaningful souvenirs interwoven with their Disney memories.
Launched in April this year at Grizzly Gulch, the Chip ‘n’ Dale Lucky Nugget Spin has recorded more than 30,000 participations as of the end of June, becoming one of the park’s most popular activities. Combining storytelling, live interactions, and surprises, the experience has been warmly received by guests and has further enhanced the atmosphere throughout the land.
David Koo, director of merchandise at Hong Kong Disneyland Resort, shared: ‘Today’s guests are looking for more than products; they want keepsakes that capture the stories and memories of their visit. Through interactive experiences, we hope to make merchandise a natural extension of the Disney park journey. Whether it is a plush toy, a pin or an accessory, the true value lies not only in the item itself, but in the magical moments and personal memories it represents.’
David Koo, director of merchandise at Hong Kong Disneyland Resort, is pictured in the center
This story- and interaction-driven strategy has been incorporated into various guest experiences across the resort. For example, in an engaging experience at the Popcorn Pop-Up Shop on Main Street, U.S.A., guests can reach into a giant popcorn bucket-themed installation to catch a “popcorn” and reveal the hidden Pixar pals plushie together with Disney cast members on the spot. Meanwhile, the Snow White Grotto, located beside the Castle of Magical Dreams, has introduced a new “Lock of Dreams” experience, offering guests a sense of ceremony and a souvenir to cherish.
Disney’s Classic Pin Trading Tradition Extends the Magic Beyond the Visit
Disney’s iconic Pin Trading tradition has long been an important part of how guests explore the park and connect with others. Reopened in June, Main Street Collectibles now features dedicated pin display areas designed to celebrate and elevate this beloved tradition. Guests can discover unexpected treasures while searching for favorite designs as they trade pins with Disney cast members and fellow collectors. More than just an addition to a collection, each pin carries unique memories and extends the guest journey.
More Than 3.5 Million 20th Anniversary Merchandise Items Snapped up
New Pixar and Marvel Experiences on the Way
Merchandise sales grew continuously during Hong Kong Disneyland’s 20th anniversary celebrations, which attracted a large number of local, mainland, and international visitors and concluded with fanfare in June. Since late June last year, the resort has sold more than 3.5 million 20th Anniversary-themed merchandise. Among them, about 600,000 units of the SouvenEARS collection have been snapped up. Meanwhile, the blind-box series inspired by attractions and themed lands achieved sales of more than 500,000 units during fiscal year 2025, demonstrating the continued popularity of merchandise with strong storytelling elements and collectible appeal.
Looking ahead, HKDL will continue to enrich the guest experience across the resort. New Pixar-themed and Marvel-themed experiences will be introduced, further expanding both entertainment and retail offerings. Through ongoing innovation, HKDL remains committed to meeting guests’ demand for more immersive experiences, enhancing its appeal to local, mainland, and international visitors, and strengthening its position as a leading travel destination in the region.
Hashtag: #HongKongDisneylandResort
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
