Recently, two European alumni of the Master in Public Policy (MPP) program from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) have been appreciated at various forums and are taking exciting learning initiatives.

Ibrahim Köran has been acknowledged as one of the GovTechGroundbreakers in 2023 for his work connecting startups and the public administration in consulting projects in Germany. Francesco Gaetano Fazzi has recently been selected as one of 30 professionals for the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative Fellowship 2024, managed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, US. His timely policy research at LKYSPP on the role of defence in health security was published by the Ministry of Health in Singapore in 2019.

Making the right choice

Francesco Gaetano Fazzi and Ibrahim Köran understood what former Dean Kishore Mahbubani meant when he said years ago, 'Asia is the global economic powerhouse.’ Keeping this statement in mind, both these alumni, with their eyes on the future trends, chose LKYSPP to further their education.

Francesco, an MPP alumnus from the 2017-19 batch who majored in chemistry in his undergraduate studies, currently works as a Manager in Financial Services at KPMG Switzerland. He explains that his decision to choose LKYSPP was centred around Asia being home to the largest global population and being more than just what Westerners read in the economy and politics sections of their newspapers. "The scale of the development and operations in Asia is incomparable to Europe. The West has a lot to learn from the East, particularly in science and technology policy. I wanted to learn about the rapid development of the region firsthand, and hence I had to be here.”


Francesco Gaetano Fazzi (MPP 2019) is a manager in financial services at KPMG Switzerland.

Ibrahim, an MPP exchange student from the Hertie School in 2017 who now works as a Manager and GovTech Lead, Ventures & Strategy Consulting for PwC, Germany, chose LKYSPP because he believed there is an imminent power shift on the global level. "I knew about the West, but I wanted to learn more about Asia, especially Southeast Asia, and I considered Singapore an excellent choice for this," he explains.


Ibrahim Köran (MPP 2017 Exchange) now works as a Manager and GovTech Lead, Ventures & Strategy Consulting for PwC, Germany.

The Consulting Route

Francesco, who is the first Swiss national to complete the two-year MPP program and the first-ever Swiss scholar at LKYSPP. "My career started in the public sector. I was a legal professional and worked for several years in the military and law enforcement before entering university. An MPP classmate was an anti-money laundering (AML) and counterterrorism financing (CTF) expert from the Indonesian Central Bank. Our research on the CTF topic for the capstone project and the course I took at NUS in arms control got me interested in compliance in banking."

For Ibrahim, who comes from a farming background and is an agronomist, it was always interesting to look into structural reform and developmental policies. "I wanted to learn more about the institutional framework that enables us to have a sustainable future. That was one of the initial thoughts which made me choose a public policy program," he explains.


Ibrahim at a conference

Both Francesco and Ibrahim work in consulting now and credit their policy training at LKYSPP as one of the reasons why they can perform well in their roles. "Coming to Singapore and seeing how highly advanced public administration is here and working with new technology made me curious about how to help public administrations, especially those having legacy systems in IT. I wanted to incorporate not just technological innovations but also bring a change in organizational culture. “‘How can we make the government more efficient and effective in the execution or enforcement of policies?' It was this thought and because I did an internship in public sector consulting with KPMG in Germany after I left the school, that I felt the toolkit of a consultant would be a good fit for my goals," says Ibrahim.

In fact, Ibrahim took an Executive Certificate Course at LKYSPP in 2020 to deepen his knowledge of "scenario planning", which had been taught in one of his classes during the exchange year. “I have been applying the learnings in my job,” he adds.

The Bond Between Public Policy and Consulting

So how can graduates with a public policy degree showcase the value they bring to the table? Francesco, who went on to do an MBA at the University of Oxford after his MPP and is currently completing an LL.M. in Transnational Law at Peking University, says in German-speaking countries, public policy degrees are virtually unknown. "Recruiters receiving CVs from applicants with public policy degrees will most likely not understand the skills that graduates have learned in these programs.”

Yet, he believes an MPP degree does act as a differentiator with an advantage. “MBA programs may focus more on market or financial data analysis, and public policy degrees emphasize a broader understanding of societal issues, policy implications, and economic frameworks. Companies in consulting should consider public policy majors for opportunities due to the unique skill sets and perspectives these individuals bring.

The extensive coverage of research methodologies and economics in public policy programs enables such individuals to approach complex problems analytically and critically,” says Francesco. He cites his example and how an MPP alumnus helps him in his role as a consultant. “This foundation in economics has enhanced my understanding of fiscal and monetary policy and my ability to provide strategic and well-informed advice in the complex landscape of consulting in financial services,” he says.


Francesco (sitting left) at LKYSPP

Ibrahim adds that learning to write policy briefs and executive summaries has been a game-changer for him. “What I found very helpful in my career has been the training around writing that a policy school instills. This is the stuff you usually don’t do at a business school. A policy school focuses on writing to prepare your bosses in the administration so that they can be well-briefed. If you have this hard skill of writing super short memos that contain all the information your manager or clients need, they go into meetings well-prepared and can excel. This accelerates your career too,” he says.

Ibrahim adds that policy school training also helps one to get a broader view of what’s happening globally. “You exchange ideas on geopolitical topics; all this very high-level stuff but it is an advantage that public policy professionals bring,” he explains adding that “the conversations in the class touched on social policies to environmental policies to global governance. Such a variety makes you a generalist with the ability to go deeper into one policy area, like I did in technology and innovation. Policy training ensures you never lose a broad view of how things work.”

The LKYSPP Advantage

While both Francesco and Ibrahim have fond memories of their time in Singapore, each of them highlights the unique LKYSPP advantage that stands out. “Of course, LKYSPP was heavily dominated by Asian students, but the variety in their backgrounds enriched not only my view on public administration, but how power dynamics tilt, how societies work, and ultimately how diplomacy functions. And of course, living in College Green means you can have long talks with colleagues from across the world. I met people from Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, and of course, Singaporeans. The drive and the energy to make a difference was tangible in all of them and it rubbed off,” says Ibrahim candidly.

Francesco maintains that the two years he spent in Singapore (including an exchange to the University of Tokyo) were the best two years of his life. “LKYSPP is a unique school. Out of 66 students in my cohort, only six came from Western countries and Latin America. The rest came from Southeast Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and East Asia. This setting allowed me to listen, ask questions, and learn rather than express my opinions on various regional topics I admittedly knew little about before.”

He fondly remembers some of the professors too and found them very approachable. “One professor greatly supported me in my career by introducing me to people in his global health network and giving me access to first-hand information from practitioners for my research. Another professor gave me good advice when I was still considering whether I should take up the offer from the University of Oxford. He told me: ‘If you succeed at NUS, you will succeed everywhere.’ Right, he was.”

The article was written by Seema Chowdhry, an alumna of MPA 2017.