About Us

SecondAct SG was built by two Singaporeans who believe that the second half of life deserves as much intention as the first.

Meet the Team

Jael’s full bio

Some conversations change everything.

I’ve spent over 20 years in Human Insights — listening to people, finding the patterns beneath what they say, and helping them articulate what they actually want. First at Unilever, then across research and media agencies, and now as a certified life coach.

But the conversation that sparked SecondAct SG wasn’t in a boardroom or a coaching session. It was far more personal than that.

My mother passed away at 54. My sister died just shy of her 50th birthday. Neither of them got to retire. Neither of them got to find out what their next chapter could have looked like.

That loss changed something in me. It made retirement feel less like a distant milestone and more like a gift — one that is never guaranteed, and one that deserves to be lived with real intention.

What I believe

Retirement is not the end of your story. It’s the beginning of your most intentional chapter — if you design it that way.

But my mother and sister never got that chapter. And watching people I love leave before their time taught me two things:

First — don’t wait. If there is a version of your life that feels more purposeful, more aligned, more you, start designing it now. Not at 65. Not when the kids are grown. Now.

Second — the end of life deserves the same thoughtfulness as the living of it. Most of us avoid this conversation. We think planning for death is morbid, or that it means giving up. I’ve learned the opposite. When you’ve sat with loss — really sat with it — you understand that clarity about your ending is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself and the people you love.

Too much of the conversation around retirement in Singapore is focused on CPF, SRS, and passive income. Those things matter. But they don’t answer the harder questions:

Who am I, outside of my job title? What do I want to wake up for? How do I want to be remembered?

SecondAct SG exists to hold space for those questions — with honesty, warmth, and real stories from people who are figuring it out too.

Jael’s Credentials

I’m a certified Life Coach (CPCC), Agile Team Coach and Facilitator, and Gallup Strengths Coach with over 500 coaching hours under my belt. I’ve spent more than 20 years in Human Insights across Unilever and various research and media agencies, which means I know how to listen — really listen — beneath the surface of what someone is saying.

My clients describe me as compassionate and kind, and also as fearless and challenging. I flex easily between the two, always in service of what the client actually needs.

My top Gallup Strengths are Connectedness, Strategic, Arranger, Positivity, and Communication — which means in our conversations, you can expect pattern-spotting, fresh perspectives, encouragement, and a clear eye on what truly matters to you.

I’m also the author of Life Happily Ever After — a practical, coaching-led book to help you pursue more fulfilment and satisfaction in your life.

I currently split my time between the Netherlands and Singapore, having also lived in Shanghai for four years. Singapore is where I grew up and built my early career — and it’s the community I most want to serve with this work.

If any of this resonates — whether you’re just beginning to think about your next chapter, or you’re ready to have a real conversation about it — I’d love to hear from you.

Jacqueline’s Full Bio

Good ideas need good foundations. Jacqueline is the reason everything we do at SecondAct SG is grounded in sound theory — not just lived experience or good intentions, but research that actually holds up.

Jacqueline holds a PhD (cum laude) in Educational Psychology from Erasmus University Rotterdam, where her thesis on self-regulated learning was awarded the Best Thesis Award 2021 by the Erasmus Graduate School of Social Sciences and the Humanities. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University, where her work focuses on motivation, self-regulated learning, metacognition, and how people learn and grow across different life stages.

Her academic expertise is what shapes the frameworks behind SecondAct SG’s coaching and content. Central to our approach is Self-Determination Theory — a well-established motivational framework that identifies three core drivers of human motivation and wellbeing:

• Autonomy — the freedom to make meaningful choices about your own life
• Relatedness — feeling genuinely connected to the people and communities that matter to you
• Competence — doing things that make you feel capable, valuable, and appropriately stretched

These three needs don’t disappear at retirement — if anything, they become more urgent. When all three are met, people thrive. When they’re not, people drift. Our programmes and coaching are designed with this in mind.

Beyond her research, Jacqueline is also the creative force behind the SecondAct SG brand identity — bringing the same thoughtfulness and precision to our visual language as she brings to everything else.

She has lived and worked in Singapore, Shanghai, and the Netherlands, bringing a genuinely international perspective to questions about ageing, purpose, and what it means to live well in the second half of life.

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Together, Jael and Jacqueline bring a rare combination of coaching practice, human insights expertise, and academic rigour to a conversation that Singapore needs to have — openly, honestly, and with real warmth.