Assistant Director, Planning & Design, Healthy Food & Dining Division (2 years contract)

[What the role is]

The Health Promotion Board’s vision is to make Singapore a nation of healthier people.
Come be a part of this journey if you’re passionate about creating boundary-pushing work that drives behavioral change.

You will join HPB's Healthy Food & Dining & Programme Business Analysis (HFD&PBA) Division, where we develop and implement programmes that make healthier eating the easier, everyday choice for Singaporeans. We work across two key pillars — shaping a healthier food supply by partnering food manufacturers, suppliers, retailers, and F&B operators; and driving demand through nutrition literacy, behavioural nudges, and activations such as public education campaigns, the H365 app, and the Eat Drink Shop Healthy Challenge

[What you will be working on]

You will serve as the lead for the Division's planning function, sitting at the intersection of strategy, operations, and governance to drive coherent alignment across programme design, resource deployment, and measurable outcomes.

Strategic Planning & Design

You will develop and review the Division's multi-year strategic plans, translating national healthier eating priorities into actionable roadmaps. This includes horizon-scanning across both supply (e.g. industry reformulation, healthier options availability) and demand landscapes (e.g. consumer behaviour, nudge interventions). You will synthesise insights across workstreams to produce coherent divisional strategies that are evidence-based, stakeholder-informed, and outcomes-oriented.

Demand Generation Strategy

You will lead to design and implement interventions that shift consumer attitudes and behaviours towards healthy and healthier eating at scale. You will need to work across teams to identify target segments, define behaviour change objectives, and architecting integrated campaign and engagement strategies that are well-sequenced, mutually reinforcing, and grounded in behavioural insights.

Cross-Matrix Team Leadership & Project Management Office (PMO)

You will contribute as secretariat to the Food Strategy PMO, staffing and facilitating a cross-matrix team to deliver HPB's food strategy and priorities. This includes setting standards for project governance, milestone tracking, reporting cadences, and escalation protocols — and most critically, building a culture of accountability and delivery discipline to ensure projects are delivered on time, within scope, and within budget. You need to also identify and actively manage interdependencies and that projects are delivered on time, within scope, and within budget.

Planning, Budget, Risk & Governance You will support the Director in ensuring resource allocation aligns with Divisional priorities, oversee the full budget cycle including projections, submissions, forecasting, and utilisation. You will maintain the Division's risk register, working with programme relvleads to identify, assess, and mitigate operational risks. You will also champion governance hygiene — ensuring audit readiness, timely resolution of findings.

[What we are looking for]

The ideal candidate must be a dynamic self-starter who can take ownership of programmes end to end and manage a fast pace and dynamic environment. 

He or she must come with minimum 8 years of relevant working experience, including 3 years in supervisory role in programme management, public health, the food industry or related field.

The candidate should:

• Have a good understanding of Singapore’s food landscape, including how the retail and F&B industries operate
• Demonstrate a strong command of programme and project management practices and manage portfolio of concurrent workstreams with proven results
• Demonstrate clear thinking and able to synthesize different perspectives to produce clear strategic narrative and make sound judgements
• Strong written and verbal communication skills to communicate clearly and present ideas/ concepts to management or partners
• Lead without direct authority and demonstrate strong interpersonal skills with the ability to navigate effectively
• Manage competing demands, reprioritise in response to changing circumstances, and maintain strategic clarity amid operational complexity.
• Possess experience in a public sector or health promotion, finance and resource management, risk and compliance management will be an advantage

Successful candidates will be offered a 2-year contract.