From the US to Singapore and a Few Places in Between: Katie (Hektner) Singhal ’04 

Alumni Office (A): Can you introduce yourself? 

Katie Hektner Singhal ’04 (K): My name is Katie Singhal. I graduated in 2004. I’ve been in Singapore for almost 13 years. Over the years, I have held many different roles in different industries. At the moment, I am exploring and working in the field of executive and leadership coaching.

A: Can you share your journey from Breck to where you are now?

K: I went to Washington University after Breck, and I graduated in 2008 with dual degrees in Chinese and International Studies. I spent a little less than a year in Shanghai after that. Then, I returned to Minnesota, and in 2009, I started working for a Minnesota medical devices company (acquired by Covidien in 2010). In 2011, I was offered a role through the same medical device company to move to Singapore as an operations project manager, and eventually, the company was acquired by Medtronic. From 2016 to 2017, I worked at Microsoft for Xbox marketing and operations. I am a very bad gamer, unfortunately, but I was hired to take on Xbox’s hardware operations, marketing, and project management within the team. 

After that, I had my daughter. At the time, I was kind of overwhelmed and working like crazy all the time.  But then I actually lucked out weirdly because Microsoft went through a retrenchment exercise, and I was laid off. It ended up being a great thing because it gave me some time to be with my family and opened up the door for me to go back to school. I attended the Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires (INSEAD) for an Executive Master's degree, which has a campus here in Singapore, and I graduated in 2021.

After that, I started coaching and exploring the different avenues of that kind of startup and entrepreneurial life, and I also did a lot of different projects on the side. My husband started an AI company three years ago, and I also help with that in varying degrees, including marketing and project support. It’s a very off-the-cuff kind of work, but it's a family affair, and there has been some good progress within the company in the last six months. I'm a mother, I do coaching work, and I work with my husband a little bit, and it's fun. It’s all very experimental and uncertain, but it works for our family. 

A: You have done business in the United States and now in Asia. Can you share any advice you have about working cross-culturally effectively?

K:  This is one of my favorite questions. I believe it's a very simple answer — it comes down to listening. Keep being curious and ask open-ended questions. One thing that our brains do — and there's lots of research around this — is that we have tons of biases about how we expect people to respond and how we engage with people. It's one thing to have that kind of complication within similar cultures, but cross-culturally, that's even more complicated. I think the biggest key is just to be curious. Ask many questions that are curiosity-driven, not just driven by our own biases, and do your best to listen. I think within that kind of spirit, a lot of really interesting insights can come, and it can kind of break down barriers and any obstacles that might come up due to so many different cultural aspects. 

A: We know that you have helped out as Breck students have taken their May program language trips. Can you share what that experience was like to connect with Breck students, both in China and Singapore?

K: Yeah, it was fantastic. As I get older and creakier with my joints and everything, I always think it'd be so cool to return to being that age where the world is vast and can be explored in such an open-ended way. And I loved seeing the kids’ energy and excitement. I met Wong Laoshi’s 2012 China group trip in Guilin, and that was amazing. It was one of the best days of my life thanks to Margaret Wong Laoshi, and I was able to spend a lot of time with Margaret and talk to some of the kids. They were just incredible and really sweet, happy, joyful students. Last year, I was able to meet Breck’s May program group in Singapore, and that was really wonderful, too. I hope to see another group soon! 

A: If you think about your career, are there any standout moments that you're really proud of or major accomplishments that you can think of?

K: I think the conventional approach would be to say I did this and that job with these nice-sounding titles. But, I think it's important to also highlight becoming a mom. Becoming a parent is the hardest job I've ever had, and I think it's not as appreciated in the world as much as it should be. Becoming a parent was the biggest thing for me because it changed my identity and relationship to work. I began to prioritize things differently; especially in Singapore because it's a very workaholic culture here where many will work from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. You barely see your families, and work-life balance barely exists. So, I would say parenting and then also rediscovering education. Because I became a parent, I realized I wanted to go back to school, relearn things, and understand that one of my core values is learning and development. You never stop learning and going to school. There's other career stuff I could talk about, but I think it’s important to mention parenting and education as major accomplishments I have achieved as an adult. 

A: What motivates you in your role as an executive and organizational coach? What do you love about it?

K: What I love is the challenge of being open-minded about working with different people from different cultures, backgrounds, experiences, expectations, and perspectives. I find that I love the challenge of getting to know people and coaching. You have to dig deep to ask tough questions that may not always be comfortable and easy but necessary to gain new insights. It is for the client’s benefit, and this is for them to explore more about themselves. And that's the ethos of coaching. It was a big leap career-wise, but being a coach offers people great insights into what might be an obstacle in their lives and careers and how you can think about experimenting with different ways to make changes in your life. One of the most important things about being a coach is being open-minded about people having so many different experiences, and exploring what they want and what they might not know they want for their lives. 

A: Are there any core memories that you have from Breck that stand out and have stayed with you through the years?

K: Throughout my years at Breck, I always loved the teachers. The teachers were always incredible, and I credit them for expanding my thinking and perspective on things, from kindergarten to graduation in 2004. I remember having thought-provoking teachers who were passionate about teaching and helping kids. That’s always a big thing about schools in general — you can have the fanciest building, the best facilities, and the best technology,  but it's extremely human-driven. You need very, very good teachers, and it's a very tough job. Especially now, as a parent, I realize how challenging being a teacher must be.

A: Are there any specific former faculty or staff who made a positive impact on your life?

K: The one teacher that always stands out is Margaret Wong. When I talk to people — especially native Chinese speakers in Singapore — they're like, “Ni de kouyin” (my pronunciation is so good), How do you —  this American lady — speak with such good pronunciation? I always say that because I started learning when I was young, and that's how I speak Chinese with such decent pronunciation. Thanks to Wong Laoshi, I was able to see China and just think about the world in this kind of broader way. There are so many different cultures and people, so I credit her with that. Another teacher that stands out is during my senior year, I took Mr. Moses’ AP English class, and that was such an amazing class. He had this very relaxed classroom and you’d just sit around and talk about books. He always encouraged his students to think about literature not in a formal, pre-defined way; rather, in a way that was more personal and interesting for each student. 

A: What kind of food or snacks from the US do you want when you're in Singapore, and when you're in the US, what kind of things do you want that are in Singapore?

K: When I’m in Singapore, there are many tasty tropical fruits and vegetables that I can buy, but I cannot easily find certain produce that you can get in Minnesota. For example, when I was in Minnesota over the summer, I had sweet corn every day, and you do not get that kind of amazing sweet corn here in Singapore at all. And then flipping the question, when I'm in Minnesota, what I miss the most is the amazing diversity of cuisine that you can get in Singapore. In Singapore, there are hawker centers, which have stalls that serve Chinese, Indonesian, Thai, Indian food, and other foods from all sorts of different regions in Asia. Singapore also has amazing restaurants, like this South Indian restaurant called MTR, and of course, Din Tai Fung, which serves the most amazing dumplings. So, while in Minnesota, I miss that particular wide availability of Asian cuisine that you can get in Singapore. 

A: Thank you so much for your time, Katie!

Katie lives in Singapore with her husband and daughter, Diya. She continues to coach while supporting her husband’s startup and being a mother.