The Serumpun Leadership Series
A series of recorded conversations with thought leaders whose vision and aspirations sit with Serumpun Sarawak's conservation efforts. Curated by Atlas Collective. Each conversation lives on the Serumpun Sarawak Instagram channel.
What the Series is for
The Serumpun Leadership Series is not a marketing instrument. It is a record of the conversations Serumpun Sarawak has been able to have — with thought leaders whose own discipline reaches the same long-view conclusions about heritage, conservation, and cultural diplomacy that Serumpun holds to.
Each conversation is short, considered, and offered as a public artefact. The reels live on the Serumpun Sarawak Instagram channel — @serumpunsarawak — where the Series will continue to grow.
The Series is curated and produced by Atlas Collective as part of their promotion and storytelling responsibility on Serumpun. The work is recorded, framed, and held in public for those who want to understand what the project keeps as its company.
Maria Porro
President of Assarredo; Marketing and Communications Director of Porro S.p.A.; President of the Salone del Mobile, Milan. The voice of Italian craft and design heritage, spoken on a scale that informs how a sustained creative tradition is held forward.
Lady Linda Wong Davies
Founder and Chairperson of the KT Wong Foundation. The philanthropy of cultural continuity — and the partnership of those who fund the long view rather than the immediate.
H.E. Axel Cruau
Former French Ambassador to Malaysia. The diplomatic conversation that connects France’s culinary tradition to Sarawak’s indigenous knowledge — the kind of exchange only a senior career diplomat can host.
Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz
Malaysia’s Minister of International Trade and Industry from 1987 to 2008, and Chairman of MATRADE from 1991. Tan Sri Rafidah is also the figure whose first introduction brought Serumpun into formal contact with the State of Sarawak — a kindness the project also records on the cornerstone.
Professor Gerard Bodeker
Serumpun’s scientific advisor; international authority on traditional and indigenous medicine; the on-stage narrator at Expo 2025 Osaka. Three conversations capture his perspective on traditional medicine, indigenous knowledge, and the scholarly framing the platform proceeds from.
Conversation I → Conversation II → Conversation III →
James Won
Co-Founder and Custodian of Serumpun Sarawak. Three conversations on the discipline of conservation, the responsibility of the temporary custodian, and the work that endures beyond the founder.
Conversation I → Conversation II → Conversation III →
Datin Sri Dona Drury-Wee
President of the Sarawak Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA) and Chairperson of the Culinary Heritage and Arts Society Sarawak (CHASS). Datin Sri Dona played a key role in Kuching’s designation as a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy — the institutional moment that the wider Serumpun arc proceeds from.
Dato’ Jacqueline Fong
Primary founder and CEO of Tanoti Crafts — the award-winning social enterprise based in Sarawak, established in 2012 to support rural women artisans and preserve traditional songket weaving. Dato’ Jacqueline carries the same conservation discipline that Serumpun applies to gastronomy, into the textile heritage of Sarawak.
Conversation I → Conversation II →
Zee Avi (PBK)
The Sarawakian singer-songwriter Zee Avi, holder of the Pingat Bintang Kenyalang — Sarawak’s State recognition. The voice of contemporary Sarawak finding its way into the global conversation.
Raven Kwok
Earthlings Coffee Workshop. The Coffee Blossom Tea programme — community empowerment through innovation, named in the Minister’s launch speech as one of Serumpun’s anchoring partnerships.
A growing record
The Series is continuing. Further conversations will be added as Serumpun proceeds. The Instagram channel — @serumpunsarawak — is the canonical home; this page reflects what has been recorded to date.
The Series is curated and produced by Atlas Collective.
What endures is not the founder. It is the company a movement keeps.
James Won
A movement is read by the company it keeps. The Series is the public record of that company.