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The team will shape the Group's next phase of growth through scale, innovation and culture building in an evolving hospitality landscape and changing customer expectation
SINGAPORE, March 11, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Pan Pacific Hotels Group (PPHG) today announced a strengthened executive leadership team as it positions the organisation for its next phase of global growth. The appointments reflect a deliberate focus on building leadership depth, succession strength and executional capability across the Group's core priority areas.
As part of this leadership strengthening, PPHG has appointed Craig Bond as Chief Operating Officer, Celine Du as Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer and Kate Loh to head up Development. Together, they join industry veterans Andreas Sungaimin, Senior Vice President (SVP) of People and Culture and Valerie Foo, SVP of Finance and Wee Wei Ling, Executive Director of Sustainability Partnerships, Lifestyle and Asset, to make up the senior management team at PPHG.
Led by CEO, Mr Choe Peng Sum, the enhanced executive team brings together complementary strengths across operations, commercial strategy, finance, development, brand-building and talent management, providing the scale, cohesion and discipline required to support PPHG's expanding global footprint and evolving brand portfolio.
Choe said, "As PPHG enters its next phase of growth, the strength of our leadership team is critical. These appointments reflect the depth and maturity of the leadership bench we have been deliberately building across the Group. We advance our commitment to innovation, leveraging technology to improve operational efficiency, enable more personalised guest experiences and create a more connected, empowering environment for employees. This is being driven by the evolving customer needs with industry figures[1] showing that 82% of consumers say technologies like contactless tools or chatbots, enhance their experience."
As COO, Bond will oversee global operations across the Group's "Pan Pacific", PARKROYAL COLLECTION and PARKROYAL brands, working closely with the executive leadership team to translate strategy into consistent execution across markets, ensuring the brand promise is brought to life through distinctive and high-quality guest experiences across markets.
Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer, Du, will oversee PPHG's commercial strategy and performance across its portfolio. A seasoned commercial strategist with over three decades of experience across some of the world's most prestigious luxury hotel brands, Du will drive revenue growth and strengthen brand equity, channel management, loyalty, and global partnerships to enhance the Group's commercial reach and customer engagement.
Loh brings deep familiarity with the Group, having previously served as Director of Development until 2022. With extensive experience across development planning, feasibility and project management, Loh has sourced and negotiated deals for leading hospitality groups which makes her a key member of the leadership team as the Group looks to expand further in key markets.
At PPHG, technology adoption spans the entire guest journey, from personalised digital touchpoints that shape booking and pre-arrival experiences, to AI-enabled services that enhance on-property interactions while freeing teams to focus on higher-value guest engagement. Behind the scenes, secure and data-driven platforms underpin operational excellence, improving efficiency, supporting sustainability initiatives, and enabling scalable, future-ready growth across the Group.
As these capabilities scale across the Group, the finance function plays a critical role in enabling innovation responsibly. Foo brings deep technology fluency to balance strategic oversight with secure digital platforms, automation and data-led insights, strengthening risk controls, streamlining workflows and supporting resilient, future-ready financial operations, including the management of integrated global payment systems with a strong focus on cybersecurity and risk mitigation.
To support this growth, as the Head of People and Culture, Sungaimin will play a central role in shaping a high-performance, inclusive culture as the Group attracts and integrates a new generation of hospitality talent. According to industry estimates[2], by 2030, 74% of the global workforce will be comprised of Millennial and Generation Z workers. Sungaimin will focus on building a culture that resonates with new workforce, prioritising purpose, wellbeing, career mobility and continuous learning, while preserving the Group's long-standing values of care, service excellence and trust.
Finally, to ensure the Group's growth remains sustainable and future-ready, Wee will shape the next chapter of PPHG's sustainability and CSR strategy, integrating social inclusion, environmental responsibility and cultural expression into the way the Group operates, grows and differentiates its brands globally.
Bringing together diverse and complementary strengths is Choe, whose decades of CEO experience underpin a clear ambition to deepen brand strength across the Group's portfolio and ensure PPHG continues to move with pace, recognising that in a rapidly changing environment, complacency is not an option.
With this executive leadership team in place, PPHG is sharpening its focus on priority growth areas including luxury hospitality, serviced apartments and the MICE segment, while continuing to expand in key gateway cities globally.
By investing in leadership capability from within and aligning its executive team closely with strategic priorities, PPHG continues to build the organisational resilience, talent depth and executional excellence required to deliver sustainable growth in an increasingly complex global hospitality landscape.
The appointments also reflect PPHG's commitment to succession planning and internal leadership development, recognising and advancing leaders who embody the Group's values and long-term vision.
About Pan Pacific Hotels Group
Pan Pacific Hotels Group is a global hospitality company that owns and manages over 50 hotels, resorts, and serviced suites comprising three brands – "Pan Pacific", PARKROYAL COLLECTION, and PARKROYAL in more than 30 cities across Asia Pacific, North America, Africa and Europe. Headquartered in Singapore, it is a member of Singapore-listed UOL Group Limited.
Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts delivers sincere and graceful service to every guest with a passion for excellence.
PARKROYAL COLLECTION Hotels & Resorts is driven by our passion for life and sustainability.
PARKROYAL Hotels & Resorts is distinguished by its passion for people and places, immersing every guest into local and authentic cultures.
Visit www.panpacific.com.
Pan Pacific Discovery
Pan Pacific DISCOVERY is a loyalty programme designed to enhance every guest experience. Members can savour the benefits of DISCOVERY Dollars (D$), a user-friendly digital rewards currency, granting exclusive discounts on room rates, dining experiences, and more. With each tier progression, members elevate their status to unlock enhanced privileges and the opportunity to earn and spend D$ on premium hotel amenities and experiences, including Pan Pacific Hotels Group-owned dining outlets worldwide. Pan Pacific DISCOVERY is a member of the Global Hotel Alliance (GHA), the world's largest alliance of independent hotels with 40 brands and over 800 hotels around the world. To become a member, visit panpacific.com.
The team will shape the Group's next phase of growth through scale, innovation and culture building in an evolving hospitality landscape and changing customer expectation
SINGAPORE, March 11, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Pan Pacific Hotels Group (PPHG) today announced a strengthened executive leadership team as it positions the organisation for its next phase of global growth. The appointments reflect a deliberate focus on building leadership depth, succession strength and executional capability across the Group's core priority areas.
As part of this leadership strengthening, PPHG has appointed Craig Bond as Chief Operating Officer, Celine Du as Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer and Kate Loh to head up Development. Together, they join industry veterans Andreas Sungaimin, Senior Vice President (SVP) of People and Culture and Valerie Foo, SVP of Finance and Wee Wei Ling, Executive Director of Sustainability Partnerships, Lifestyle and Asset, to make up the senior management team at PPHG.
Led by CEO, Mr Choe Peng Sum, the enhanced executive team brings together complementary strengths across operations, commercial strategy, finance, development, brand-building and talent management, providing the scale, cohesion and discipline required to support PPHG's expanding global footprint and evolving brand portfolio.
Choe said, "As PPHG enters its next phase of growth, the strength of our leadership team is critical. These appointments reflect the depth and maturity of the leadership bench we have been deliberately building across the Group. We advance our commitment to innovation, leveraging technology to improve operational efficiency, enable more personalised guest experiences and create a more connected, empowering environment for employees. This is being driven by the evolving customer needs with industry figures[1] showing that 82% of consumers say technologies like contactless tools or chatbots, enhance their experience."
As COO, Bond will oversee global operations across the Group's "Pan Pacific", PARKROYAL COLLECTION and PARKROYAL brands, working closely with the executive leadership team to translate strategy into consistent execution across markets, ensuring the brand promise is brought to life through distinctive and high-quality guest experiences across markets.
Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer, Du, will oversee PPHG's commercial strategy and performance across its portfolio. A seasoned commercial strategist with over three decades of experience across some of the world's most prestigious luxury hotel brands, Du will drive revenue growth and strengthen brand equity, channel management, loyalty, and global partnerships to enhance the Group's commercial reach and customer engagement.
Loh brings deep familiarity with the Group, having previously served as Director of Development until 2022. With extensive experience across development planning, feasibility and project management, Loh has sourced and negotiated deals for leading hospitality groups which makes her a key member of the leadership team as the Group looks to expand further in key markets.
At PPHG, technology adoption spans the entire guest journey, from personalised digital touchpoints that shape booking and pre-arrival experiences, to AI-enabled services that enhance on-property interactions while freeing teams to focus on higher-value guest engagement. Behind the scenes, secure and data-driven platforms underpin operational excellence, improving efficiency, supporting sustainability initiatives, and enabling scalable, future-ready growth across the Group.
As these capabilities scale across the Group, the finance function plays a critical role in enabling innovation responsibly. Foo brings deep technology fluency to balance strategic oversight with secure digital platforms, automation and data-led insights, strengthening risk controls, streamlining workflows and supporting resilient, future-ready financial operations, including the management of integrated global payment systems with a strong focus on cybersecurity and risk mitigation.
To support this growth, as the Head of People and Culture, Sungaimin will play a central role in shaping a high-performance, inclusive culture as the Group attracts and integrates a new generation of hospitality talent. According to industry estimates[2], by 2030, 74% of the global workforce will be comprised of Millennial and Generation Z workers. Sungaimin will focus on building a culture that resonates with new workforce, prioritising purpose, wellbeing, career mobility and continuous learning, while preserving the Group's long-standing values of care, service excellence and trust.
Finally, to ensure the Group's growth remains sustainable and future-ready, Wee will shape the next chapter of PPHG's sustainability and CSR strategy, integrating social inclusion, environmental responsibility and cultural expression into the way the Group operates, grows and differentiates its brands globally.
Bringing together diverse and complementary strengths is Choe, whose decades of CEO experience underpin a clear ambition to deepen brand strength across the Group's portfolio and ensure PPHG continues to move with pace, recognising that in a rapidly changing environment, complacency is not an option.
With this executive leadership team in place, PPHG is sharpening its focus on priority growth areas including luxury hospitality, serviced apartments and the MICE segment, while continuing to expand in key gateway cities globally.
By investing in leadership capability from within and aligning its executive team closely with strategic priorities, PPHG continues to build the organisational resilience, talent depth and executional excellence required to deliver sustainable growth in an increasingly complex global hospitality landscape.
The appointments also reflect PPHG's commitment to succession planning and internal leadership development, recognising and advancing leaders who embody the Group's values and long-term vision.
Sources:
[1] Hospitality Statistics: Industry Trends and Data for 2025
[2] The Next-gen Workforce
About Pan Pacific Hotels Group
Pan Pacific Hotels Group is a global hospitality company that owns and manages over 50 hotels, resorts, and serviced suites comprising three brands – "Pan Pacific", PARKROYAL COLLECTION, and PARKROYAL in more than 30 cities across Asia Pacific, North America, Africa and Europe. Headquartered in Singapore, it is a member of Singapore-listed UOL Group Limited.
Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts delivers sincere and graceful service to every guest with a passion for excellence.
PARKROYAL COLLECTION Hotels & Resorts is driven by our passion for life and sustainability.
PARKROYAL Hotels & Resorts is distinguished by its passion for people and places, immersing every guest into local and authentic cultures.
Visit www.panpacific.com.
Pan Pacific Discovery
Pan Pacific DISCOVERY is a loyalty programme designed to enhance every guest experience. Members can savour the benefits of DISCOVERY Dollars (D$), a user-friendly digital rewards currency, granting exclusive discounts on room rates, dining experiences, and more. With each tier progression, members elevate their status to unlock enhanced privileges and the opportunity to earn and spend D$ on premium hotel amenities and experiences, including Pan Pacific Hotels Group-owned dining outlets worldwide. Pan Pacific DISCOVERY is a member of the Global Hotel Alliance (GHA), the world's largest alliance of independent hotels with 40 brands and over 800 hotels around the world. To become a member, visit panpacific.com.
** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **
Pan Pacific Hotels Group Strengthens Executive Leadership Team as group prepares for next phase of growth
Pocket-size device supports up to 120B models locally with 0 token fees, without requiring cloud or high-end GPU
DOVER, Del., March 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Tiiny AI Inc. (www.tiiny.ai), a U.S. AI Infra startup, today announced that its Tiiny AI Pocket Lab surpassed US$1 million in Kickstarter pledges within five hours of its March 11 launch.
Tiiny AI Pocket Lab is a pocket-size personal AI supercomputer that plugs into a laptop or PC and turns it into a local AI terminal. Built as a dedicated backend for always-on AI, it is designed to support up to 120B-parameter models locally without requiring internet, cloud services, separate servers, or a high-end GPU. It also offers one-click deployment, 0 token fees, and an always-on operating profile within a 65W power envelope.
The milestone signals early demand for what Tiiny AI calls "AgentBox" — a new class of dedicated local devices designed to run always-on AI models and agent workflows privately and persistently, including OpenClaw-based agents. It also reflects a broader shift from cloud-based AI toward edge-cloud synergy, where routine agent tasks run locally for privacy, reliability, and greater cost control, while the cloud is used selectively when needed.
In the first five hours, the campaign reached US$1,009,664 in pledges from 728 backers. The backer base was led by the United States (about 70% of backers, by backer count), followed by Germany and Canada, with additional backers from the United Kingdom and Spain, as of 3:00 pm EDT on March 11.
"We are in a broader shift from cloud-based AI to edge-cloud synergy, with a new hardware layer emerging: agent-native devices built to run always-on workflows locally," said Samar Bhoj, GTM Director at Tiiny AI. "Our focus is to make that experience accessible with one-click deployment, local-first operation, 0 token fees, stronger privacy controls, and a practical edge-cloud synergy model that uses the cloud only when needed."
Pricing and Availability
- Kickstarter campaign page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tiinyai/tiiny-ai-pocket-lab
- Kickstarter super early-bird price: US$1,399
- Website-only deposit program: Tiiny AI offers a US$9.90 deposit on its website to lock in a US$1,299 price (US$100 lower than the super early-bird price).
- Estimated delivery: August 2026 (final schedule and regional availability detailed on Kickstarter)
AgentBox: A New Category Built for Always-On AI Workflows
As AI adoption accelerates, cloud-based AI is encountering friction for many everyday workflows: recurring usage costs, privacy and data-sovereignty concerns, reliability risks from network or cloud outages, and long-context capabilities. At the same time, agent frameworks are pushing AI beyond chat and into multi-step workflows, such as organizing files, building local knowledge bases, generating reports, and executing tasks over time.
Against this backdrop, Tiiny AI sees the emergence of "AgentBox" — a new class of compact local AI devices designed to support always-on agent workflows. Tiiny AI Pocket Lab is built to support up to 120B-parameter models locally, while offering privacy, reliability, and greater control as a persistent local AI engine that works alongside users' existing devices.
This "AgentBox" is powered by Tiiny AI's proprietary optimization technologies, including TurboSparse and PowerInfer, designed to improve throughput and efficiency for local inference on compact hardware.
The company offers a ready-to-use open-source ecosystem. Tiiny AI Pocket Lab supports one-click installation of more than 50 leading open-source models including OpenAI GPT-OSS, Llama, Qwen, GLM, Mistral, and Phi, and enables seamless deployment of over 100 popular open-source AI agents such as OpenClaw, OpenCode, Flowise, Presenton, Libra, Bella, and SillyTavern. Users receive continuous updates, including official OTA hardware upgrades.
To further strengthen ecosystem openness, Tiiny AI said the product will also support user-imported .gguf models from Hugging Face beyond the officially adapted mainstream models. The company plans to launch a corresponding model conversion tool in July 2026. SOTA open-source LLMs will receive priority support from Tiiny AI, while longer-tail models can be converted and imported by users based on their own needs. This is intended to make the product not only a local AI device, but also a more controllable local AI runtime environment with greater transparency and user oversight.
Built for Local-First Security and Control
As AI agents become more capable and more autonomous, security concerns are expanding beyond the model itself into broader areas such as permission management, behavior auditing, and execution control.
In response, Tiiny AI emphasizes three design principles: local-first operation, least privilege, and human-in-the-loop control. The company says sensitive workflows should remain locally processed whenever possible; agent access to tools, files, and APIs should be limited to only what is necessary for a given task; and human confirmation or audit mechanisms should remain in place for actions involving sensitive data, external systems, or critical operations.
According to Tiiny AI, this is part of what distinguishes AgentBox from a generic local AI setup and cloud-based AI: it is meant to provide a more transparent and controllable environment for running AI continuously in everyday workflows.
In December 2025, Tiiny AI Pocket Lab was verified by Guinness World Records under the category "The Smallest MiniPC (100B LLM Locally)", recognizing its form factor and ability to run a 100B-parameter LLM locally.
Formed in 2024, the team brings together global engineers from MIT, Stanford, HKUST, SJTU, Intel, and Meta, with deep expertise in systems engineering, AI inference optimization, and hardware–software co-design. Their research has been published in premier academic conferences including SOSP, OSDI, ASPLOS, and EuroSys. In 2025, Tiiny AI secured a multi-million dollar seed round from leading global investors.
Headline specs (configuration dependent):
- Memory: 80GB LPDDR5X
- Storage: 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD
- Performance: ~18–40 tokens/second (config dependent)
- Power: 30W TDP (65W adapter required); designed within a 65W power envelope
- Dimensions/weight: 142 × 80 × 22 mm; 300g
- Compatibility: macOS & Windows
(Note: performance figures are configuration dependent; Tiiny AI can provide test conditions upon request.)
Press kit:
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About Tiiny AI Inc.
Tiiny AI Inc. is a U.S. AI Infra startup. The company's mission is to make advanced AI personal, private, and accessible, bringing powerful model and agent workflows to local devices with simplified deployment and predictable costs. With its founding team formed in 2024 by engineers from MIT, Stanford, HKUST, SJTU, Intel, and Meta, the company develops breakthrough technologies such as TurboSparse and PowerInfer that enable up-to-120B LLMs to run on pocket-sized consumer devices for the first time. Tiiny AI's mission is to make advanced AI accessible, private, and personal.
** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **
AgentBox Emerges as Tiiny AI Pocket Lab Hits $1M in 5 Hours on Kickstarter, a Shift from Cloud AI to Edge-Cloud Synergy
