Cheong En Ting Gladys, Product Manager, Transformation Office, National Youth Council (NYC), Singapore

1) What does public service mean to you? Can you share more about your role in the public sector?

Public service means creating solutions that work for citizens.

It's understanding that behind every platform are real people whose lives we can meaningfully improve through evidence-based work. 

I stumbled into public service eleven years ago after university. Following three months of unemployment, I took the first available role - grant administrator at IDA (now IMDA).

What started as a necessity became something I genuinely cared about when I realised the potential impact of truly understanding user needs. 

Today, as Product Manager in NYC's Transformation Office, I co-lead the Discover platform ecosystem - three integrated digital products serving 399,000 visitors across career exploration, civic engagement, and financial literacy.

We've achieved 540 per cent user growth with almost all temporary headcount, which shows that clear thinking and user focus (and not massive resources) are crucial for good government digital services.

2) Tell us about a project you championed. What impact did it have on the community?

The Discover portal! It addresses different youth life stages through three subsites: On My Way for education and career discovery, Civic Action for community engagement, and Financial Literacy for essential money skills. 

From our February 2024 launch, we grew (and still growing) our visitors by 540 per cent and reached 399,000 by January 2026. 

Youth can easily find relevant programmes matching their interests, while partner organisations focus on supporting youth rather than managing administrative burdens. 

We've streamlined fragmented processes into consolidated digital workflows and improved data reliability through Singpass/MyInfo integration. 

Our approach earned recognition through the GovInsider's Digital Society Award 2025 and multiple GovTech honours. But what truly brings joy is seeing youth engage with opportunities that help them grow. 

3) As a young professional, how has your unique background or perspective allowed you to identify a solution that others in your organisation might have overlooked?

It's more about maintaining a learning mindset than being young. 

I'm naturally curious about why we do things certain ways, always seeking to understand intent before proposing solutions. I've been fortunate to work in supportive environments with great mentors who encourage this approach. 

My grant administration background taught me to work systematically with diverse stakeholders.

When developing Discover, the team recognised that we needed to simultaneously address youth needs, partners’ operational challenges and NYC's compliance requirements. 

This systematic approach of understanding intent first, then working step-by-step while factoring in constraints - brings perspectives that balance multiple stakeholder needs. 

4) What is your personal strategy for maintaining your creative energy when faced with bureaucracy?

Understanding different perspectives maintains my energy. Behind every bureaucratic process is usually someone trying to prevent a past mistake or protect something important.  

I try to understand what leaders are looking for before starting, sharing early concepts to check alignment, then developing iterations with confidence. When facing rejections, I try not to take it personally – they might reflect constraints I haven't considered. 

While working on Discover, resource limitations pushed us to develop a lean operating model now recognised as innovative. The real satisfaction is seeing the solution reach users despite these constraints.  

5) If you had just one area to invest in to accelerate transformation in the public sector (regulation, technology, talent, etc.), which one would you choose and why?

Culture - creating an environment that supports learning and experimentation. Culture shapes how open people are to change and innovate. 

People need time to develop new skills and safe spaces to apply them. When communication is poor or people fear making mistakes, transformation might slow down regardless of how good the technology or processes are. 

If people feel supported to learn and try new approaches without being faulted, they will be more open to build capabilities and drive innovation. 

That's been my experience with Discover - a team culture where people feel comfortable questioning how things are done and learning from users, which have shaped how the product continues to improve. 

6) What is your greatest ambition as you grow in your public service career?

To keep building things that work well for the people who use them, while learning as much as I can and getting better at seeing the full picture like product direction, technical skills, how we work. 

Along the way, if what we've learned from building Discover can be helpful to other teams or agencies, I'm happy to share.

I also want to be someone that colleagues enjoy working with - that matters just as much to me as any big ambition. 

7) What is a “universal value” that connects everyone in your department – from interns to directors – and how do you use that to drive collaboration?

User-centricity – consistently asking “what would work well for our users?” This gives us a shared reference point that helps drive collaboration. 

When there are differing ideas on priorities, we can come together to look at user feedback or plan research to inform decisions.

When we can show management that we've validated something with 1,000 youth or share A/B testing results from more than 9,000 interactions, it builds confidence in the decisions we're making together. 

It also means that good ideas can come from anywhere - an intern with user insights can shape a decision just as much as a director. 

8) What is the best piece of advice you’ve got for the next generation of public servants?

Stay curious about your end users, whether citizens or colleagues.

Technical skills can be picked up but understanding the people you're serving and the context and constraints they're working in takes time. That understanding is what ensures the work you do makes sense. 

Don't be afraid to ask thoughtful questions. You can learn valuable things from everyone since they all have different perspectives.

Have a learning mindset and be ready to adapt - you won't always have the full picture, and that's okay. 

9) What is a myth you wish to debunk about young public servants?

That young public servants think we know everything.

Most of us are quite aware of how much we don't know, which is why we ask so many questions — we want to understand properly before drawing conclusions. 

Our learning mindset isn't just about picking up skills; it's about staying curious and acknowledging our gaps.

We might bring fresh perspectives, but we recognise there's a lot of institutional knowledge, domain expertise, and context that we still need to learn. 

So when we ask a lot of questions, it's not that we think we know better. We're just trying to learn. 

10) Write a letter to your future self in 2035. Please keep it within 200 words.

Hello, hope life is treating you well!

Are you still involved in building products or have you gone to do something entirely different? Whatever path you've taken, you’ll be fine - because our journey has never really been planned, and so far it's working out! 

I hope you still remember to keep our stakeholders and end-users in mind, and that your eagerness and curiosity about learning are still around despite the growing work and life responsibilities. 

Continue being a joy to work with and bring happiness to whoever works with you. 

Keep that resilience too! Don't take rejections personally and remember to see things from other people's perspectives even when it's tough. 

Hopefully you've figured out a few more things along the way - about the work, about the people around you, and about yourself.

And that the people around you are good ones too, who will bring out the best in you. 

Lastly, keep finding meaning in the work. All the best, you’ve got this!