Joe Biden picks Jonathan Kaplan for Singapore ambassador post
- The city state hasn’t had a formal American envoy since the end of the Obama administration in early 2017
- Kaplan, whose appointment requires Senate confirmation, is currently chairperson of a non-profit organisation
Kaplan, whose appointment requires Senate confirmation, was CEO of Pure Digital Technologies when he invented the Flip video camera, according to a biography released by the White House. The company was sold to Cisco in 2009 for US$590 million.
Kaplan left Cisco soon before it closed the Flip unit and emerged with a fast-casual restaurant start-up concept similar to Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. but for grilled cheese sandwiches. The Melt restaurant was another place of tech innovation – one of the first chains to let customers pre-order food for takeaway on their smartphones. Although the company was a modest success it never reached the disruptive status he’d targeted and Kaplan departed in 2016.
Kaplan is currently chairperson of EducationSuperHighway, a non-profit that seeks to connect US public schools with access to high-speed internet.
It’s also a critical pivot point between the US and China. Singapore maintains warm relations with both powers, deliberately refusing to choose sides. The US and Chinese embassy compounds are among the largest in the city state, situated about a five minutes’ walk from each other in the prestigious Tanglin neighbourhood.
