Meet the Insider Singapore team: Q&A with bureau chief Julie Gerstein and managing editor Lina Batarags

In late 2020, Insider announced its expansion into Asia Pacific with the launch of a news bureau in Singapore. In this Q&A, bureau chief Julie Gerstein and managing editor Lina Batarags describe their experience getting the bureau off the ground, the major differences between living and working in Singapore vs. the US, and how the office has evolved in the past months.

(from left) Lina Batarags, Julie Gerstein

Please introduce yourself! Take us through your background, how you got started at Insider, and how long you’ve been here.

Lina: I’ve been with Insider for three years. I joined in July 2018 and launched the executive lifestyle team in NYC. The team I led covered real estate, travel and tourism, and the lifestyles and spending habits of the world’s richest people. Prior to BI, I worked for a viral media start-up called LittleThings for 3.5 years.

Julie: I've also been with Insider for a little over three years. I initially came on to the Life team to  run a viral news team, but then a reorganization moved me over to the news division and I became a deputy editor overseeing breaking news, sports, and science. A few months after that, my manager at the time left and I took over her role as executive news editor while Insider searched for a permanent replacement. 

What made you decide to join / open Insider’s Singapore bureau? Please describe the process from start to finish.

Lina: As soon as I heard Jim Edwards (EIC of news) announce that Insider would be launching a Singapore bureau back in the summer of 2019, I knew I wanted to be involved. The actual application and interview process was quick. I got the job in December and was preparing to move overseas for the launch in March 2020. The pandemic totally changed the timeline of our move, and we spent 9 months in limbo (in NYC) as borders closed, visas became harder to obtain, and questions of health and safety remained top of mind. I finally got my visa cleared in December, arrived in Singapore on January 6, and spent 14 days alone quarantining in a hotel before my life in Singapore really kicked off.

Julie: I thought it'd be a great opportunity to really build something from the ground up while still benefiting from the support of a large, successful company. I also really wanted to travel in this part of the world and thought Singapore would be a great hub to do so. 

The conversation around joining the team here started in the late summer of 2019. I applied with my vision of how the office would run and grow and was told I had the role in November 2019.  Then the pandemic threw our timeline (way) out of whack. 

What was your role at Insider before moving to Singapore, and what is it now? 

Lina: I was the senior editor of the executive lifestyle team. Now I’m the managing editor of the Singapore bureau. 

Julie: Prior to coming to Singapore, I was the acting executive editor of the news division. My current title is Singapore Bureau Chief.

What have been the major differences between living and working in Singapore vs. the US that you’ve noticed so far?

Lina: I have a much better work-life balance in Singapore than I did in NYC. I find my workdays actually end on time rather than bleeding frequently into my evenings. Lifestyle-wise, it’s a hard comparison to draw, because life out here isn’t “normal” yet. The travel opportunities across SEA were a big part of the appeal for living here, but the borders are still mostly closed, so none of us have been able to venture outside of Singapore since we arrived.

Julie: I really didn't appreciate how big the US was, and how many opportunities for travel there were, until I moved to Singapore. The country is about 17 miles across, so it's very, very, small in comparison — you can walk across the country in half a day. I now appreciate that even if I couldn't travel abroad during the pandemic while living in the US, I could still get on a train and visit a friend upstate, or in a neighboring state.

How has Singapore been handling the COVID-19 pandemic? (If you were still in the US for part of the pandemic,) how has the response and experience differed from your experience in the US?

Lina: Singapore has had a much stricter response to COVID-19. Like I mentioned earlier, we all (separately) had to go through 14-day quarantines upon arrival during which we could not leave our hotel rooms. Once those PCR tests came back negative, though, I found life in Singapore was much more “normal” than it had been in NYC. While NYC was still relatively closed down, my coworkers in Singapore were able to go to the office and I was able to meet people for networking coffees in person. We’re currently at the tail end of a 30-day light lockdown, during which offices, restaurants, and bars were closed, and group sizes were capped at 2 people.

Julie: Singapore is a COVID zero country, and at the moment we're under pretty intense restrictions because of a number of small outbreaks here. To give perspective, the country shut down after there were around 25 cases reported in the community. At the moment, bars, restaurants, and movie theaters, etc, are closed for all but takeaway, and the government has mandated that you can't be outside with more than one person at a time. You can only take your mask off outside if you're exercising. As Lina mentioned, there was a fair amount of freedom when we first arrived — everything was open and you could socialize in groups of up to eight people. But as the US and UK have opened up, we remain restricted. 

Take us through a typical day in your life living and working in Singapore. 

Lina: Right now, we’ve all been working from home for a month. The day starts at 9AM, at which point we check in with each other and with the reporters about the biggest stories of the day. I usually have a variety of recruiting and networking calls throughout the day as we work to grow out our presence in SEA. I usually go for a run around 6 or 7 PM (at which point it is still extremely hot out) and then a swim in my apartment’s pool.

Julie: At the moment, we're under COVID restrictions and so my commute is from my bedroom to my desk. My team works along the news cycle, and so we're coordinating with the Los Angeles team in the morning and the UK team as the day winds down to make sure all the biggest stories of the day are covered. After work, I usually do a barre class and try to make a couple of hours to practice painting (a new hobby that I am extremely bad at).  

How is the Singapore office & team structured? What other teams do you work with within the organization?

Lina: Julie runs the breaking news division out here, which means she makes all final calls on the bulk of the stories we write in a day. I’m overseeing lifestyle content in addition to personnel, ops, and hiring. 

Julie: We work a lot with Julian Childs, our SVP of international, and Roosa Kivisto, Insider's international partner manager, both of whom have been invaluable in helping us get set up over here. Though it can be difficult with the time difference, we follow the overarching vision and approach of the news division and its leadership, Jim Edwards. We're also looking forward to other divisions and areas of the company hiring out here and are excited to help facilitate that. 

How has the Singapore office grown and evolved since it opened?

Lina: We’ve hired 3 Singaporeans so far: Cheryl Teh (breaking news reporter), Matthew Loh (regional breaking news fellow), and Vanessa Gu (breaking news reporter). So, we’ve doubled in size in the roughly six months we’ve been operational — and there’s lots more growth to come.

What have been some of the coolest or most memorable projects you’ve worked on so far at Insider?

Lina: It’s been exciting adjusting our onboarding systems to be the best fit for our bureau. Our senior lifestyle reporter Katie Warren launched a series of day in the life posts with top-ranking execs across the APAC region, which readers have been loving. And I’m excited about some of the regional features we’ve been publishing.

Julie: I've been really excited about working with our writers to produce more feature stories. 

What’s next for the Singapore office? Can you share anything that you’re working on or are planning for in the coming months or years?

Lina: Things change fast around here, so it’s hard to give a look several years into the future. We’re currently recruiting for a business news reporter, a China tech reporter, and another breaking news reporter, so team growth is definitely on the imminent horizon.

If you weren’t at Insider, what would you be doing?

Lina: I’d probably be trying to get myself onto one of those multi-year digital nomad visas a lot of countries are launching right now. 

Julie: Running an animal rescue!