The making of a change-maker

Mohamed Irshad has worked for a start-up, joined his family business, launched a non-profit organisation, and is now the ASEAN Head of Corporate Affairs for global information technology firm Tata Consultancy Services. As an undergraduate in SMU’s Business Management programme, he was an active student leader. Subsequently, he was appointed a Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) in 2018, enrolled in SMU’s Master of Science in Communication Management (MCM) programme the following year, all before he turned 30.

If there is a through line to his diverse experiences, it is his constant desire to improve the status quo. The beginnings of this drive can be traced back to his National Service days when he served in the Singapore Police Force along with peers from diverse backgrounds.

“All of us were given monthly stipends, and I remember one of my batch mates saying that he wanted to use his to buy a vacuum cleaner for his mother. That really affected me; I realised how privileged I was,” he recalls.

He then started volunteering at grassroots organisations, which further exposed him to residents from underprivileged backgrounds. “That also had a deep impact on me,” says Irshad. “I wanted to play a part in building bridges between different communities and helping those in difficult circumstances.”

His interest in politics first developed when he was a student at Anglo-Chinese Junior College. As an SMU undergraduate in 2010, he joined the SMU Students’ Association (SMUSA) election committee, a group responsible for organising the inaugural elections for the SMUSA executive committee. “I learned it was very important to have capable people leading an organisation. You have to put them through their paces,” shares Irshad.

After SMUSA, Irshad then went on to found or co-found four co-curricular activities (CCA) clubs. The first was SMU Ventures, which was inspired by his desire to explore the world of start-ups.

“Our proposition was to make SMU Ventures the student-facing interface of SMU’s Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship,” he explains. “Where students could be trained to vet and refine start-up proposals, and really help to build an entrepreneurial ecosystem for students.”

A similar motivation spurred his founding of the SMU Islamic Business & Finance Society. Islamic finance was an up-and-coming field, but the university’s International Islamic Law and Finance Centre “was very high-level and its activities were not translated for the youths”, Irshad felt.

“As a business student and a Muslim, I believed I was well-placed to start something that would create more opportunities for my peers to explore this emerging niche.”

He was also elected the first president of SMU Apolitical, a student political association. The idea was initially mooted by Irshad’s seniors, and despite some reservations from the university as it had to remain politically neutral, the association eventually got the go-ahead. To ensure its neutrality, SMU Apolitical was hosted under the university’s Office of Student Life rather than any of its six schools.

“We wanted to battle political apathy,” said Irshad. “I felt that politics shaped society, and it was important to think seriously about local and international issues, debate them, and find ways to engage youths in policymaking.”

Just before he graduated in 2014, Irshad was given the green light to set up his final CCA club, the SMU Muslim Society. By then, his credentials were impressive — he had already founded Roses of Peace, an inter-faith group promoting social cohesion and religious harmony; taken part in the US State Department’s prestigious International Visitors Leadership Program, which included a stint in the US where he was exposed to youth engagement and civil society initiatives; and been nominated as a youth advisor for the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative started by US President Barack Obama.

These action-packed undergraduate years were a precursor to an action-packed professional life. Irshad’s first job was at a Kuala Lumpur-based start-up. “It was a regional role, and it gave me a broad perspective, including a view of start-ups’ importance to the business ecosystem.” Following that, he joined his family’s commodity trading business, then started to turn Roses of Peace into a more professionally run organisation so that it could create a bigger impact.

In 2018, he began his term as an NMP. By the time the dissolution of parliament occurred in June 2020 for the General Elections, Irshad had spoken on issues ranging from racial and religious harmony to the Gas (Amendment) Bill. For him, cultural fault lines and energy security were all potential vulnerabilities, “and it’s important to communicate how vulnerable we are as a country, especially to youths”.

Even with so much on his plate, he was still keen to pursue the MCM programme.

“For public policy and communications, it’s the best degree in ASEAN,” he says. “You get an international exposure, with a focus on ASEAN. I also learned a lot outside the classroom, through different networks, activities, and the people I met.”

In 2020, he began his new job at Tata, a company whose purpose-driven ethos and commitment to community resonated with him deeply. While excited by its wide reach and potential growth across Asia, Irshad is also keenly observing developments in the political scene here in Singapore.

“We are seeing more young people running for elected office and getting elected, and there were more youths who were very active during this election,” he notes. “That is very heartening. As a democracy, we are a very young nation and still evolving.”

Inter-racial and religious harmony was one of the key issues that surfaced during the elections, and Irshad acknowledges that it can still be a contentious topic. “At its core, Singapore is a multi-racial and multi-religious society. We must have more open conversations about these sensitivities in safe spaces,” he believes. “In this highly polarised world, that’s how we can inoculate ourselves against polarisation, and safeguard what we have.”