TOYP Singapore 2019

Samantha Thian Tshi Hui

Honouree · Moral & Environmental

Year

2019

Biography

Samantha Thian Tshi Hui is a Singaporean sustainability entrepreneur, marine conservationist, and the founder of Seastainable Co., a social enterprise she established in 2017 to support marine conservation across Southeast Asia. Her passion for the ocean was sparked at age 16 during a scuba-diving trip, and was further deepened when she volunteered as a whale shark research assistant at the Large Marine Vertebrates Research Institute in Cebu, Philippines, during her university years.

She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (Hons) and a Master of Environmental Management from the National University of Singapore, with additional finance and operations studies at the University of Warwick. Professionally, she served as Senior Manager for Sustainability across Asia Pacific and Middle East Africa at Electrolux from 2022 to 2024, prior to which she held roles at Unilever (Global Procurement for Plastics Sustainability) and HAVI (Regional Sustainability Manager, APAC).

She also co-founded Stridy, a mobile app that enables communities to coordinate and crowdsource beach cleanups globally, and she currently serves as Deputy Head of Operations for the IPCC Working Group II Technical Support Unit, based at Singapore Management University, while pursuing a PhD at the Asian Institute of Technology.

Achievements

Samantha was named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2023 list under the Social Impact category, a recognition also celebrated by NUS Business School as a BBA Class of 2017 alumna. Through Seastainable, she has committed over SGD $50,000 in grants to more than 50 marine conservation projects spanning 7 ASEAN countries, and has engaged over 10,200 individuals through workshops, cleanups, and educational programmes.

She was awarded the NEA EcoFriend Award (2022) by Singapore’s National Environment Agency, the 2020 Earth Optimism Award (Ocean Category) by the East West Centre, and was listed in Prestige Singapore’s 40 Under 40 (2020).

She also received the JCI Ten Outstanding Young Persons (TOYP) Award for Environmental Leadership from Junior Chamber International Singapore in 2019, the ASEAN Youth Eco-Champions Award (AYECA) 2019, and the 10 for Zero Award from Conservation International Singapore (2023).

She was named a Tatler Gen T Leader of Tomorrow in 2024, and serves as the One Young World Coordinating Ambassador for ASEAN, as well as an Executive Member of the Climate Action Singapore Alliance and Co-Chair of the Public Hygiene Council’s Youth Action Group.

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