Donna Daritan is currently a Manager at the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IIE) at the Singapore Management University (SMU). She supports and cares for the startups that IIE incubates. Start-up building is not only an occupation but also her life long passion.

She offers a unique combination of administration, operations, and business management. She has over 19 years of experience working with startups & SMEs by working along founders in building the company from scratch for diverse industries such as IT, real estate, retail, online media, financial services, renewable energy, and electric vehicle. She was also the Executive Director for Business Angel Network South East Asia (Bansea) from 2013 to 2016.

Before joining SMU she was part of an MNC’s corporate venture project and went through incubation and acceleration program where she learned how to turn an idea into a product, recruit fellow co-founders, and work with development team in bringing the project into fruition. She also developed the project’s budget, financial plans, revenue model, and initial sales and marketing strategy.

Donna holds a Bachelor Degree in Applied Science (Materials Engineering) from Nanyang Technological University (NTU). She loves to apply the systematic thinking of an engineer by creating organized structure in business operations.

In her free time, she volunteers with Singapore Microcomputer Society and Asia Institute of Mentoring. She believes her life purpose is to have fun, spread joy, and share life’s wisdom. She loves collecting quotes, writing from the heart, meditating, and drinking. Her SPIRITual life is of the utmost importance to her. You may also call her by her nickname, The Drinking Duck.