Kal Joffres

Kal is the co-founder of Tandemic, an innovation firm based in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines. Tandemic focuses on developing new approaches to addressing tough social and business challenges, ranging from preventing diabetes to improving the quality of education for undocumented children.

Through his work, Kal has served clients and partners such as UNICEF, UNDP, Standard Chartered, Microsoft, Novo Nordisk, and World Vision in applying human-centred design, foresight, and strategic innovation approaches.

Kal co-led a joint innovation lab with UNICEF. With UNDP, Kal is part of a core team supporting the global roll-out of the Accelerator Labs. Operating in 78 countries, the Accelerator Labs are a large-scale initiative to transform how UNDP designs and manages programming with the aim of accelerating impact on the 21st century social and environmental challenges.

Kal teaches Design Across Borders at Stanford University’s d.school, a course on applying design thinking in globally distributed teams.

He is the author of the Design Thinking Toolkit, the Social Business Model Canvas, a tool used in 80 countries and taught at universities including Oxford and UC San Diego, and the Policy Canvas, a tool and an approach for “reverse engineering” government policies in government-to-government knowledge exchanges.

Education

• 2002 - 2006 - McGill University -BCOM Global Strategy and Philosophy

Experience

• Tandemic - CEO and Co-Founder Jul 2010 -
• UNDP
  • Advisor. Strategy, InnovationA Sep 2019 -
  • Advisor. Strategic Partnerships & Communications, UNDP Accelerator Labs Network Jan 2019 - Sep 2019
• Stanford University - Lecturer May 2017 -
• Asia School of Business - Board Member, Innovation & Entrepreneurship Centre 2016 - 2019
• UNICEF - Co-Lead, Social Innovation Lab Jan 2015 - Dec 2017
• Global Shaper, Kuala Lumpur - Global Shapers Community 2014 - May 2017
• Lean Startup Machine - Mentor May 2014 - Apr 2016
• Tandem Consulting - Managing Partner Sep 2008 - Sep 2009
• Khazanah Nasional Berhad - Consultant Jan 2006 - Dec 2006
• Silitex Group - President Jan 1999 - Jan 2003