Executive Team

Andy Tan

Managing Director

Jansen Ek

Senior Partner

Edward Lew

Consulting Director Asia

Raymond Tan

Consulting Manager, Technical Expertise

Andy Tan

Managing Director

Andy set up Arete in May 2007, a spin-off arm of HeadStart Solutions that he co-founded in 2001. He entered the executive search industry in 1996 where he joined an established local search firm. As a top-performing consultant, he was subsequently posted to Beijing, marketing the company’s services in China, focusing on Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. He was later promoted to Consulting Manager and was based in Hong Kong from 1999 to 2001, managing search assignments Greater China region.

Throughout the years, Andy has accumulated extensive industry experience in the Technology sector in Asia. In 2015, Andy founded a recruitment technology startup, mimoTREE, and expanded its business to cover ASEAN, South Korea, Japan, China/Hong Kong and Australia.

Andy graduated from Ngee Ann Polytechnic with a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering.

Jansen Ek

Senior Partner

Jansen joined ARETE in August 2011. He is a veteran in the IT industry having spent over 30 years in leading companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Silicon Graphics Inc., ECS Holdings and most recently Intermec.

He has held key executive positions in all those companies and was the Head of Asia Pacific for both Silicon Graphics and Intermec. During his 3 years at Intermec, Jansen has made advancement in sales & channels development. He also built a strong and motivated team that works collaboratively across all functions within the Asia Pacific. Additionally, he has been driving strong growth, yielding more than 100% quarterly performance results, with consistent performance across all sub-regions for the last eight quarters. Prior to joining Intermec, Jansen was Chief Operating Officer of ECS Holdings Ltd from 2002 to 2008. He was responsible for the overall operational management of the Group including setting business strategies, building long-term customers, partners, and employees relationships. His key focus was on overall company performance and vendor relationships with key principals. Jansen helped to drive ECS Group revenue growth from S$250M in 2002 to S$2.8B in 2007. Group net earnings were S$23.4M in 2007.

Jansen graduated from National University of Singapore with a Bachelor Degree (Honors) in Engineering.

Edward Lew

Consulting Director Asia

Edward is a seasoned headhunter with more than 15 years of regional search experiences in Asia Pacific & Japan. Having said that, he is versatile in handling varied functional positions across a wide range of industries, from IT/Telecommunication, Hi-Tech to Logistic/Supply Chain and Pharmaceutical/Life Sciences.

As a high achiever in sales, Edward has bagged several awards and accolades like ‘Master Headhunter’, ‘Round-the-World Awards’, ‘Most Outstanding Headhunter’ and etc. during his previous employment stints. His professionalism in his work and sharpness in sourcing has resulted in repeated clients and even new referrals from those who have worked with him before.

Prior to joining the executive search industry, Edward has spent several years in the Travel/Hospitality industry.

Raymond Tan

Consulting Manager, Technical Expertise

Prior to joining Arete, Raymond was working with a Fortune 100 MNC company, leading the infrastructure & security domain in the organization.

Raymond specialized mainly in technology infrastructure architecture and is well-versed in most aspects of technology., from data center setup and new technology initiatives to information security compliance. With his excellent skills in project management as well as an eye for details, Raymond has contributed significantly to his previous organization where he was the technology pillar in the ASEAN region.

Raymond graduated from the University of Wollongong (Australia) with a Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology.