The Team · AI Subject-Matter Specialists

Practitioners of the applied AI craft.

Ladder of Life is led by practitioners with deep experience across law, business, design and service — and a working command of AI as a practical tool, not a buzzword. The people you meet in the first call are the people in the room when it matters.

Ryan Wong

Founder · Consultant & Facilitator

Profile

Ryan has designed, built, and shipped two AI-powered apps — Sagehand and Somnial — to the App Store, end to end, working directly with AI coding tools rather than a traditional engineering team. He did it without a conventional programming background, which is precisely the point: the same AI-accelerated build process he brings to clients is the one that took him from a standing start to two live products in production.

He brings that same operator's rigor to everything Ladder of Life builds — stress-testing billing logic, hardening paywalls, and treating every edge case the way a production engineering team would. That discipline is now built directly into the Zero to Hero curriculum he wrote from his own build notes, and into the consulting practice's insistence on shipping real tools, not slideware. See what he's built →

His legal career spans Corporate M&A, Litigation and Conveyancing — three practices that train the same throughline: holding complexity calmly, asking the harder question, and turning ambiguity into a clear path forward. His courtroom background also runs Land The Room™ and Hold The Room™ → see The Edge.

"The same instinct that makes a good lawyer — ask the harder question, don't accept the first answer — is exactly what makes a good AI builder. I just pointed it at a new craft."

Amanda Swee

Consultant & Lead Facilitator

Profile

An experience designer, UX strategist and seasoned facilitator. A Distinction graduate in Industrial Design (Honours) from the National University of Singapore and an Art Elective Programme Scholar — Amanda works at the intersection of design, research, and human behaviour.

Most recently Lead UX Designer at an enterprise AML compliance platform: full product overhauls, UX governance across multiple products, user research and co-creation with clients. Recognised three times by the company — Brand Ambassador (2022, 2024) and Woman of the Year (2023).

A LUMA-certified practitioner, published co-author on design innovation methodology, and recipient of the SG Good Design Award (2022). Amanda anchors the facilitation craft behind every workshop we deliver.

"Good design is mostly the hidden work — the emotional, social and structural decisions nobody sees. The same is true of any room worth winning."

Patrick Wong

Advisor

Profile

Patrick joins Ladder of Life as an Advisor — a senior voice we draw on for the decades of hospitality, service and operational leadership he has accumulated across some of Singapore's most demanding F&B and service environments.

His operating career spans more than three decades at the highest end of service — heading hotel F&B departments, running multi-outlet club operations, and authoring the Standard Operating Procedures for a marquee elevated dining experience.

Today, Patrick is the Founder and Owner of S'Chorus Music, a premier Play & Sing music school in Singapore — a venture that reflects both his entrepreneurial instincts and his lifelong commitment to craft, community and the patient cultivation of people.

"Service, at its highest level, is the same discipline everywhere — whether it's a dining room, a private members' club, or a music studio. Standards are kept by people who care about the smallest details."

Amy Yuen

Advisor

Profile

Across more than three decades, Amy's career has moved fluently between operations, marketing communications, fundraising and the arts — a rare combination of disciplines that informs how we think about running a service practice that has to deliver, day after day.

Most recently Data Protection Officer and former Fundraiser for a Singapore foundation. Senior marcomms roles span a luxury hotel, a leading private members' club, and a national symphonic organisation. Earlier, Music Director of a major Singapore radio station; founder of Singapore's first online directory for musicians and music companies.

Master of Marketing Communication (University of Canberra), Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing Communication, Advanced Diploma in Mass Communication, Diploma in Audio Engineering.

"Operations is where intention meets reality. The organisations that earn trust are the ones whose systems quietly deliver — every day, for every person who walks through the door."

In their own words

"We have sat across boardroom tables, stood in courtrooms, and built companies from nothing. Every environment taught us the same truth — the best decisions come from stripping away assumptions and building from what's real."

What we actually believe

AI is the instrument. You are still the point.

Somewhere in the noise around AI, it became easy to confuse the tool for the goal — to treat "using AI" as the achievement itself, rather than what it actually is: a vehicle. A very capable one, but a vehicle nonetheless, the same way a craftsman's tools are a vehicle for their craft, not the craft itself.

We don't teach AI so you can say you use AI. We teach it so you can build the thing you were already capable of building, faster and further than you could alone — your app, your business, your next chapter, the version of yourself you were already becoming before any of this existed. The instrument changes. What you're here to become doesn't.

That's why everything we do — the Academy, the Lab, the work itself — starts with the person, not the platform.

It's why the Lab and our Academy are built around people first. Consultancy is where we bring the same belief to businesses — but the person is always where it starts.