Eunice Olsen

Childhood and youth

Eunice Olsen was born in Singapore. She is the only child of Alice Yap and Francis Olsen. A Eurasian Singaporean, her mother is Chinese and her father is of Swedish and Portuguese descent. At the age of three, her parents enrolled her into Yamaha music school where she developed her love for music and performing. She attended Woodlands Primary School, Singapore, St. Margaret's Secondary School and Anglo-Chinese Junior College. She completed her degree at the National University of Singapore where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Philosophy.

Miss Singapore Universe

In 2000, Olsen decided to take part in that year's Miss Singapore Universe pageant. She went on to win the title and was sent to Cyprus, for the Miss Universe pageant. Deciding to put her title to good use, she approached the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre and was directed to the Toa Payoh Girl's Home.

Volunteer Work

Her work at the Toa Payoh Girl's Home and Andrew and Grace Home spurred her to seek out other opportunities in youth activities. In 2002, she became a member of the advisory council for the People's Association's youth movement T-Net Club (Teens Network Club). She has also been a member of the Kebun Baru Youth Executive Committee since 2001. Olsen has also worked with many organisations including the Singapore Red Cross, Worldvision, Habitat for Humanity and the Muscular Dystrophy Association of Singapore.

Nominated Member of Parliament

In November 2004, Olsen was appointed as a Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) in Singapore. Her main role as an NMP was to highlight issues pertaining to youth and volunteerism. In the course of her term she touched on issues like access to public transport for the disabled, legislation for child sex tourism, enhancing supervisory guidance for Voluntary Welfare Organizations and sex education. In the parliamentary debate on Integrated Resorts in 2005, Olsen called for stronger measures to address social problems of compulsive gambling, including mandating a loss limit for casino patrons and to require the casino operator to provide responsible gambling counselling services. She also called for the captioning of the Channel 5 English news programme.

Apart from parliamentary duties, Olsen was involved with organisations like the Handicap Welfare Association and became the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre's Youth Ambassador. Her other ambassadorships included Beyond Social Services' BABES program for pregnant teenage mums and the Red Cross national blood program to actively promote the importance of donating blood. Olsen served two terms and remained an NMP until 2009. She did not apply for a third term in parliament.

Acting & Hosting

Olsen first came into the public eye in 2002 when she was selected to be the co-host of Singapore's version of the popular TV game show Wheel of Fortune., taking on the role of Vanna White in the Singapore version of the game show. She then went on to co-host 3 seasons of FRONT, an Arts Central production that took an edgy look at the arts scene in Singapore. In 2007, She was a judge on Channel 5's International Emmy Award nominated youth debate program The Arena and on Channel U's biggest talent search show, U Are The One. In 2008, she hosted Rouge, an award nominated talk show that had themes and trends concerning Singaporean women and featured a mix of celebrity interviews and real-life stories. Olsen made her English acting debut on Channel 5's first long form English drama Red Thread and co-hosted an exciting men's magazine lifestyle show on AXN, The Duke. In 2010, Olsen starred in an Okto original production 10-part comedy TV series Before I Was Awesome. She is to appear in a mandarin movie Red Numbers (红字) that will be released later this year.

In August 2013, Eunice founded WomenTalkTV, a social enterprise. It serves as a resource portal with an interview series hosted by Eunice featuring extraordinary women from all over Asia whose stories are inspiring and empowering. It aims to use online media to celebrate and advance the social empowerment of Asian women. WomenTalkTV plans to release 24 interviews over 3 seasons in a year and thus far, all 10 episodes of season 1 have been uploaded while production is underway for season 2. Viewers are encouraged to upload their own videos documenting how they overcame their own personal struggles or that of other women they know on the portal as well. WomenTalkTV was also nominated for an International Emmy Award in the Digital Program: Non-Fiction category in 2014.

Music

With a grade 8 in practical and theory for piano, Olsen started teaching at the age of 17. In university, she was part of a hostel band and was president of the Electronic Music Lab at the Centre for the Arts. In 2004, she released an album in Korea entitled Believe .

Eunice Olsen is part of a duo called 7 States . She is joined by music producer and sound designer Rennie Gomes. Together, they have written a Christmas song, produced a kids album and scored a short film for one of Singapore’s most acclaimed film directors, Royston Tan, titled Anniversary. 7 States has also written a song titled Light which they dedicated to the athletes of the Singapore Youth Olympic Games in 2010. 7 States recently performed, featuring Humaa Rathor, at the “From Singapore With Love” Benefit concert 2011. This was in support of World vision’s earthquake relief work in China, Myanmar and Japan.

Brand Ambassador

Eunice Olsen is the latest ambassador for BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™), the popular mobile social network for the BlackBerry® community. She joins 4 other ambassadors from the region – Professional footballer James Younghusband from the Philippines, Thai singer Chin Chinawut, Malaysian Designer Sonny San and former model Annisa Pohan from Indonesia in the latest BBM™ campaign 2011. She was also appointed spokesperson for Cosme Decorte’s latest range of beauty products, AQMW, in 2011.

Olsen was appointed in 2009 by Shell Singapore as its FuelSave Ambassador to help local motorists save more on their fuel expenditure. She attended the Shell Eco-Marathon in Dresden, Germany in May 2009 and competed against other FuelSave ambassadors from around the world in a one-litre challenge. She emerged second out of the seven ambassadors, achieving an amazing result of 20.8 km/litre of fuel. Olsen has since attended two more Shell Eco-Marathons in Sepang, Malaysia and led a Shell FuelSave Challenge in Singapore in June 2011.

Selected as the first ever brand ambassador for Nescafé Gold, she was the face of the Taste It All campaign that ran across OOH, press and in-store from 2009 to 2011. In 2008, Olsen was picked by hair products brand Redken to be its first official spokeswoman for Singapore. A press statement issued by L'Oréal Singapore said she was the perfect choice with her graceful sophistication and perfect marriage of brain, beauty, attitude and style.