Ms Jane Ittogi

Jane Ittogi has been actively engaged in leading initiatives for social upliftment and sustainability. She has also been long involved in arts leadership, and as an advocate for its transformative power, including for prison inmates.

Ms Ittogi chairs Tasek Academy and Social Services, an independent social service agency which helps disadvantaged children and youth build confidence and develop their talents, and enables ex-inmates to rebuild their lives. Amongst other programmes, it runs residential camps and a large football-cum-mentoring scheme for youth at risk, including for girls.

Ms Ittogi was Chair of the Board of Singapore Art Museum, (SAM), the nation’s contemporary art museum, for a decade till 2018, during which she guided its corporatisation. She also co-chaired four editions of the Singapore Biennale, and served on the national Selection Advisory Committee for the Venice Biennale.

Ms Ittogi worked to initiate structured training in art with Singapore Prisons in the late 2000s, conducted by established artists and faculty of La Salle College of the Arts and museum curators. Inmates obtained certification upon completion of their courses, and displayed their work at an annual exhibition in Prison and also at SAM, a practice that continues today.

She also served on the Board and Executive Committee of the National Gallery Singapore, the nation’s historical and modern art museum from 2010 to 2018, and on the Board of La Salle College of the Arts from 2009 to 2023. In addition, she sat on the Board of the National Heritage Board, and chaired the Istana Art Collection Advisory Committee. 

She co-founded GreenSG COLLAB with a team of fellow citizens, to help catalyse awareness and community and youth responses to the climate crisis. She also co-chairs Conservation International’s Asia Pacific Advisory Council.  In addition, she also serves on the Foundation Board of the Global Shapers Community.

Ms Ittogi had her schooling in Singapore, before obtaining an LLB and LLM from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She lectured in law at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the UK before returning to Singapore. She practised law as an advocate and solicitor, and primarily in commercial litigation.

For several years she chaired the Singapore LSE Trust, which awards scholarships each year to Singapore students who demonstrate commitment to do good; she continues her involvement as Emeritus Chair. She was conferred an Honorary Fellowship by the LSE in June 2023.

She is married to Tharman Shanmugaratnam, and they have four children.