As a Li Ka Shing Foundation scholar at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP), Ankush Wagle (MPP 2021) built a strong foundation in understanding how policies shape societies and economies — expertise that he now applies in the private sector.
Today, he’s an APAC Regional Intelligence Lead at Sibylline, the world’s largest private intelligence firm advising organisations on geopolitical risk and resilience. Discover how he built a career at the intersection of policy, intelligence, and global business:
The world is a volatile place, and my job as an intelligence analyst is to collect information and make sense of it to help my client stay safe and secure.
Currently, I work for a client — a multinational tech company — to monitor and analyse risks in Asia-Pacific. These could include anything from cross border conflicts, protests, and natural disasters to travel restrictions and negative media sentiment. Part of the job also involves assessing how these risks might impact my client’s operations, people, and reputation.
Initially, I did not hear much about the risk intelligence field. It was only after graduating from LKYSPP, when I ended up entering the industry by chance. As I was job hunting around graduation period, a contact reached out to me about a corporate risk intelligence position. After hearing the job description, my interest was piqued. While I had very much enjoyed my first job in a research think tank, I wanted to try something different, and working in a corporate setting seemed like a good fit. It has been five years since making the jump, progressing in my role as a corporate risk intelligence specialist, and I never looked back.
A career milestone for me was transitioning from my first intelligence role with global risk management firm Pinkerton to my current role with Sibylline. While both roles required me to assist major tech companies, they are done very differently. My current role is significantly more challenging in how crises are dealt with. A good example would be a cross-border conflict that took place recently.
At the time, I was still new to the job, and it was the first major crisis that I had to manage. My client has an office in one of the countries involved, and even though they were relatively far from the conflict zone, we had to ensure they were informed of relevant and factually correct news in a timely and reassuring manner. My role was to monitor information about the conflict for several days, verify it, update our reporting, and distill it down for sharing with the relevant employees and senior leadership. Through team effort, we were able to efficiently share timely and important updates with company personnel while reassuring them during this uncertain period. Thisis the impact of the work that we do.
As for who is well-suited to the field, corporate risk and intelligence is a skills-focused industry that is background agnostic. You’ll find intel analysts with backgrounds in everything from political science, economics, law, and psychology to law enforcement and forensics. However, they usually have a similar set of soft skills, such as communication, critical thinking, working well within diverse teams, and managing workloads.
It was always within my plans to do a master’s degree after gaining a few years of working experience. With a background in international relations and economics, I was exploring the prospect of a career within the government.
At the same time, I wanted to pursue a master’s degree that provided wide career possibilities. Upon researching, I came across the Master's in Public Policy programme and found it to be practical and broad-based, which included both skills and knowledge development. It seemed like a perfect match for what I was looking for and thus I applied for it.
Although I was given a few school offers, I eventually chose LKYSPP as I was drawn to their reputation as a leading public policy school in Asia. Furthermore, being at LKYSPP would allow me to stay with my family in Singapore, which I greatly appreciated. Finally, the School offered me a generous scholarship that significantly eased the monetary cost of my studies. This was important to me as I had already taken an education loan for my bachelor’s and did not want to overextend myself financially at that age. All these factors made choosing LKYSPP an easy decision.
Upon enrolment, my first impression of LKYSPP as a graduate school, was that it held an aura of academic excellence. The school, which was located at NUS’ Bukit Timah campus, features Singapore’s post-colonial architecture which created serene environment for learning. Initially, I was slightly intimidated by the calibre of my classmates and the coursework, however with time, I grew more confident and found my place in the school.
Overall, the most valuable part of my LKYSPP experience was the connections forged with my classmates. As the cohort consisted of classmates coming from different regions and cultures, I was especially struck by the diverse perspectives offered by them. For instance, during a final semester class on media and public policy, we did a group project on the changing media landscape of an Asian country. Our small group, consisting of classmates of different nationalities, offered viewpoints that broadened my perspective on how media and public policy works together – how media's function is dependent on factors such as government control and public trust.
Beyond our classes, my cohort also had several bonding activities. In our first semester, a few Singaporean students initiated 'meet and eat' sessions where we would try local food together. By the end of the first semester, our cohort travelled to Indonesia for a public policy study trip, where we conducted field work for short projects. During the COVID lockdown in 2020, we frequently organised online group calls within the cohort to stay in touch. Once in-person classes resumed, we took part in many activities together, such as weekly frisbee sessions at school, and enjoying 'Singapore experiences' like visiting Pulau Ubin.
In terms of relevance to my current work, two modules that I took proved particularly useful: practical political risk analysis and communication for public leadership. The former involved a team project to produce a deep-dive political risk assessment for a real-world client. It helped me hone skills such as clear writing and stakeholder management, which are still highly pertinent to my role today. The latter involved public presentations, which helped me develop the speaking skills that are handy in any corporate setting.
To students considering LKYSPP, I would say that the School lives up to its mission of being a leading global public policy school. The courses allow you to explore different policy streams, such as social, technological, and environmental policy. The capstone policy analysis exercise and other project-based modules like the policy innovation lab also give you the practical experience of working with real-world clients.
I’ve occasionally reached out to fellow alumni for in-country knowledge or domain expertise when analysing regional issues; it’s a reminder of how strong our network is. It’s reassuring to know that wherever my work takes me, there’s always someone from the community I can count on.