New NCSS CEO, Mr Lim Shung Yar, Carries Forward Our Mission as Sector Developer

Former CEO, Ms Tan Li San, and new CEO, Mr Lim Shung Yar, pictured together at the launch of grovve.

A Tribute to Our Outgoing CEO, Li San

We bid a heartfelt farewell to Ms Tan Li San, who stepped down as Chief Executive of NCSS on 31 January 2026 after five years of dedicated and transformative leadership. 

Since joining NCSS on 6 January 2020, Li San has provided strong leadership and strategic direction for NCSS. She has worked closely with partners and stakeholders to further build the capabilities of the sector and enhance service delivery. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Li San led NCSS to respond swiftly and compassionately - spearheading the Courage Fund and Invictus Fund to provide timely support to Singaporeans in need and to our social service agencies (SSAs) at a time of great uncertainty.

Beyond the pandemic, Li San’s vision has left a lasting imprint on how our sector operates and grows. She championed digital transformation in the sector through the Social Sector Digital Plan. She worked to strengthen accountability and impact through the Sector Evaluation Framework, providing SSAs with a shared language for measuring outcomes.

Under Li San’s watch, the Community Chest deepened its philanthropic reach - forging new fundraising pathways and advancing the Sustainable Philanthropy framework to cultivate a more caring and ‘We First’ society.

We thank Li San for her invaluable contributions to the sector and look forward to building on the strong foundations she has left behind.

We warmly welcome our new CEO, Mr Lim Shung Yar, and look forward to the next chapter of our journey together. Please see Shung Yar's greeting message below.

Message by Mr Lim Shung Yar:

When I took on this role in February 2026, I was acutely aware that NCSS occupies a unique position - we are simultaneously your partner, advocate and Sector Developer. These are roles that require us to walk alongside you while also setting strategy and allocating resources. Getting our relationship with the sector right is vital.

So before anything else, I wanted to listen.

Over the past months, I have had the immense privilege of meeting many sector leaders and visiting agencies across the sector. It has been an inspiring and humbling experience. This is a sector that serves ‘the last and the least’ at every stage of life, where professionals ‘suffer together’ - drawing on the origins of the word ‘compassion’ - with those we serve (and I take this profound observation from the words of a truly dedicated sector leader). This is a sector where the ‘We First’ spirit transforms from an ideal into tangible difference in the lives of individuals and families in need.

Mr Lim Shung Yar visiting various SSAs and learning from dedicated professionals in the sector.

My conversations with sector leaders also reinforced something I suspect you know too well: the operating environment for social services is fundamentally growing more complex. Client needs are more multi-faceted and often require support from more than one organisation. Trust in our sector increasingly hinges not just on good governance, but on demonstrable outcomes that improve lives. Talent pipelines are strained just as organisations require new and critical capabilities. Fundraising is an ever-present challenge. And the expectations on your organisations continue to mount.

Yet within these challenges lie significant opportunities. Technology promises not just better services for those we serve, but enhanced quality of life for the professionals delivering that care through more efficient processes. Our ageing society brings longer productive careers – creating space for meaningful second chapters, fractional contributions, and opportunities for Singaporeans to give back through social services.

The NCSS team and I are committed to helping our sector grow from strength to strength. We want to equip your organisations to be future-ready and resilient, and strengthen capacity to achieve a better quality of life for service users. We want to work alongside you to evolve how we operate and serve, always with service users at the centre.

NCSS' formalised role as Sector Developer gives us a clearer mandate – but a mandate only means something if it translates into practical value for your work. I intend to focus our efforts on where they can move the needle: driving adoption of the Sector Evaluation Framework and Organisational Health Framework so that there are common indicators of progress; helping agencies scale what works rather than reinvent the wheel; driving capability development; and using technology to strengthen rather than to add burden to your operations.

An example is on the adoption of AI. We encourage SSAs to embrace the transformative potential of AI, but to also take a responsible approach guided by ethical considerations and human-centred values. NCSS is developing a set of AI guidelines that will be shared with the sector in the coming months.

I also want to be direct about what NCSS should not do – and that is to position itself as the expert in rooms where your experience and ground knowledge far exceed ours. The best outcomes I have seen in this sector come from co-creation, and I am committed to building relationships of mutual trust and understanding.

I look forward to continued dialogue with NCSS members, whether through formal engagements or coffee conversations. If you see opportunities where NCSS could be more effective, or areas we should be paying closer attention to, I welcome that conversation wholeheartedly.