ABOUT US
Pioneering the Green Economy
Join Us
We are always looking for talented people to join our team. We take interns all year round. If you think you have something special to contribute, write to us at: joinus@padang.co
(Call us old-fashioned, but we do love a good cover letter -- in your voice, not AI's.)
Padang & Co is a Singapore-based Open Innovation company with operations in Australia and Malaysia. We focus on building the Green Economy across Southeast Asia.
Padang means green, open field in Malay. It is also the name of an important historical landmark in the heart of Singapore, our home base. We bring people and organisations together to solve problems and develop opportunities. We create the environments for creativity and innovation to emerge and flourish.
Our story -- and the story of Open Innovation in Singapore -- began in 2012, when we convened the country's first major public hackathon, UP Singapore. It brought together the tech ecosystem and the business community to tackle urban challenges and build a more liveable, sustainable Singapore. Sustainability was in our DNA from day one. More on UP Singapore
That founding spirit continues to define how we work. The Green Economy is being built right now, across industries and supply chains. We sit at that intersection, helping businesses innovate not just for growth, but for long-term resilience. The organisations shaping it are those willing to collaborate, experiment, and reimagine how they create value.
But sustainability alone is not enough. The sustainability mindset teaches us to respect limits. The abundance mindset* invites us to reimagine them -- to see the Green Economy not as a story of cutting back, but of unlocking access, building new industries, and creating growth that benefits both people and planet. Open Innovation is how we get there.
*Popularised by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in their book, "Abundance" (2025)
Meet the Padang team!
Adam A. Lyle,
Executive Chairman
Adam has combined a career in management consulting, change management and training with a passion for sustainable, purpose-driven business. He has worked with the private and public sectors to challenge and stimulate the way they develop and roll out strategy, including how they approach innovation in the creation and deployment of the products and services.
Adam is a Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Padang & Co. He believes that enabling vibrant partnerships between Enterprise and Startups is a key pillar of the Future of Work and will drive a new wave of innovation and resilient ecosystems. This led Padang & Co to develop world-leading capabilities to enable Enterprises to get closer to and innovate faster with Startups, other Enterprises and Government partners.
Adam is originally from Australia. He has lived and worked extensively across Asia, including four years in Taiwan and the last 15 years in Singapore. His career has covered a broad range of industries, including banking, telecommunications, entertainment, and agriculture.
Derrick Chiang,
CEO
Derrick is old enough to have started his career before he had a mobile phone. Witnessing the growth of Digital – from the earliest days of e-commerce at Singapore Airlines in the early 2000s, and the explosion of social media in China in the latter part of that decade – Derrick has helped multinational corporations across Asia-Pacific transform how they interact with their customers and partners, and reach new markets through digital.
He believes Open Innovation can do the same for corporations and government, importantly to drive sustainable growth and meet the global Sustainable Development Goals. In the last nine years, he has been connecting corporations and government with startups and communities to address Southeast Asia's challenges today and opportunities of tomorrow.
Prior to Padang, he spent seven years in Shanghai and built a successful digital business with global marketing agency, Profero (now Lowe Profero). He has also lived and worked in Sydney.
