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What truly differentiates J.S. Held is our people — world-class talent driven by a common set of core values. Together, these shared values inspire a culture of integrity, excellence, teamwork, and service.
Meredith Cheong joined J.S. Held’s Financial Investigations Division as a senior consultant in October of 2021. Meredith supports the firm’s Forensic Accounting – Insurance Services and Economic Damages & Valuations practice lines in Singapore. Her areas of expertise include quantifying business interruption damages and stock losses, as well as providing litigation support in financial disputes.
“It has been fantastic working with Meredith over the years,” said Jeff Wong, Managing Director, Forensic Accounting – Insurance Services. “She is a team player, technically very capable, and interacts well with clients. Meredith works across Insurance Services as well as Economic Damages & Valuations, and is an integral member of the Financial Investigations team based in Singapore.”
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“I never get bored. Every day is a new challenge.”
Meredith Cheong
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Meredith has had a keen interest in numbers since a young age and found herself gravitating towards accounting for her University studies. She majored in Accountancy at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and soon discovered the subcategory of forensic accounting. At that point, Meredith found most people had the perspective that accounting was limited to auditing and taxation, and knew little about forensic accounting. She was intrigued by the critical thinking and problem-solving skills involved in forensic accounting and sought out internships in that field. Meredith started working at a forensic accounting firm upon graduation, and eventually became a senior accountant there.
Since joining J.S. Held in 2021, Meredith has had the opportunity to work on a wide range of cases, including business interruption losses stemming from a natural disaster at a theme park, refinery losses due to a fire, hotel losses due to Covid-19, and more.
In the course of her work, Meredith seeks to analyze the financial performance of various companies and individuals, as well as how they may have been impacted by a loss. In doing so, she has the opportunity to better understand the inner workings of a company and interact with top management and executives.
However, the details are also in the records and documents. In fact, a typical week for Meredith involves reading contracts and analyzing bank and financial statements to better understand how the business she is examining has performed. This analysis enables her and her team to project the potential scenarios but-for the loss, and to determine a range of suitable loss estimates.
In doing so, Meredith says every day brings a new challenge and she appreciates the variety in her engagements.
What Meredith enjoys most about her role at J.S. Held in particular, and forensic accounting in general, is the many perspectives from the various departments and experts in their respective fields. The diversity of experts at the company has allowed her to gain multiple viewpoints on files to better understand all aspects of the matters she is involved in. “It trains you to have an open mind because you never know what you'll find,” she says. “Every case is unique, and I enjoy exchanging different ideas and opinions with my colleagues.”
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"[Working at J.S. Held in forensic accounting] is exciting and dynamic, as I have the opportunity to work on a wide range of cases and learn new things every day.”
Meredith Cheong
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Outside of her professional career, music, photography, and volunteering are key aspects of Meredith’s life. She takes her camera throughout Singapore and in her further travels to photograph nature and any unique sights she encounters.
As a volunteer, Meredith spent more than a year as president of the Henderson-Dawson Interfaith Goodwill Store, where she and her team spearheaded the inaugural clothes donation drive and supervised monthly packing and distribution of rations to underprivileged families. She also served as a field leader at Heartware Network, a charitable youth organization in Singapore. In that role, she and her team organized virtual workshops focused on literacy and online design skills for children during school holidays.
Meredith is also a huge fan of choral music, first being introduced to it as a member of the Singapore Symphony Children’s Choir and later as a member of the Singapore Symphony Youth Choir. Her other great interest is movie musicals, with her all-time favorite being The Sound of Music. Her latest favorite musical? La La Land.
Interested in learning more about Meredith Cheong? Send her an email at [email protected].