Dr Enrico Letta, former Prime Minister of Italy, author of "Much More Than a Market," and Dean of IE University’s School of Politics, Economics & Global Affairs, made the case for a more integrated Europe at a dialogue hosted by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

Administrative reform is never merely a technical exercise. The bureaucratic structure of a state constitutes its institutional load-bearing system, shaping how authority is exercised, resources are allocated and public value is delivered. Altering this structure is akin to removing the central columns of a skyscraper: while the promise is a leaner and more open design, the remaining foundations must instantaneously absorb immense pressure to prevent institutional failure.

“A picture is worth a thousand words”, but in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the picture may not be worth anything at all, or worse, it may be worth a thousand lies. A deepfake is an AI-generated image, video or audio that convincingly depicts people doing or saying things they never did. For a high-trust, hyper-connected society, social cohesion is both a point of national pride and political necessity. However, the rise of malicious deepfakes threatens this very social fabric that Singapore spent decades building.

As Singapore prepares to assume the ASEAN chairmanship, corporate boards face a strategic inflexion point. To thrive in a fractured global order, directors must move beyond traditional risk management and embed geopolitical foresight into the heart of corporate strategy.