INTHEBLACK July 2026 - Magazine - Page 34
MEMBER PROFILE
My job involves a lot of decision-making,
managing expectations and helping different
teams work together. I think every growing
organisation is facing people challenges:
finding the right people, putting them in
the right positions and motivating them.
I believe that you have to “press the right
button” to help people to work happily.
My one-on-one conversations start with
“How do you feel today?”, “Are you happy
working here?”, “What are your challenges?”
and “How can I help you?” I believe it is
important for everyone to find the right
balance between personal achievement
and contribution to the company. Once you
find that sweet spot, you get the most out
of people, and they can really contribute
and bring growth to the business. Of course,
it is not without its challenges. People are
the most complicated subject that every
leader deals with, and it is no different for
finance leaders. But I am proud of the strong
team I have built. I am always very proud
whenever I catch up with them.
GAME CHANGERS
Being brave
My pivot point was being brave enough to
leave Sealed Air, a company I had worked
with for over a decade, to join Ravago,
which is a more entrepreneurial
family-owned business. The decision was
not just professional but also personal,
because I became more conscious about
taking ownership of my career and what
kind of leader I want to be.
I started my finance journey in an
unconventional way. I studied law and
sociology in university, so I was not
academically trained as an accountant
from the start. Of course, when I joined
KPMG early in my career I went through
intensive training, starting at debit and credit,
preparing financial statements, compliance
and so on. From that point my career route
became quite traditional. I spent three years
in an audit firm, moved into corporate,
and my roles progressed conventionally
from there.
I spent a short period of time at Apple,
but realised that while it was a good job
and a nice company, it was not for me.
What drove the decision to leave
34 INTHEBLACK July 2026
Sealed Air was the realisation that while
working in a US company was more
structured with a lot of governance
frameworks, you are not as close to the
action. I was really interested in getting
closer to the business, and I wanted to make
more impact. Being in the farthest region
of a US-listed company, there are a lot of
decisions that need to be made from the
US headquarters, which is far from the target
market and the customers.
At Ravago, I am much closer to the core
of the business, the people and the market,
and the leadership team gives us a lot of
authority and autonomy to make decisions.
I think taking ownership of my career was
at the heart of my development: it meant
being honest with myself and looking for
a meaningful next step.
MY CHALLENGES
Working smarter
Meeting supply and demand, managing
expectations and helping the business
operate in a fast-moving and competitive
environment are daily challenges for me.
However, the one that keeps me awake
at night is how to utilise technology
and artificial intelligence (AI) to help
my team work more efficiently.
In Singapore, there is a lot of emphasis
on utilising technology to make people more
productive and efficient. In a region where
we have powerhouses like China, India
and South-East Asian countries, we have
a lot of tools that we can leverage.
So, for me, the question is really about
how to best cope with today’s fast-moving
and competitive environment in a smarter
way. As an example of where technology
can be leveraged at Ravago, take my
operations team. They are dealing with
calls from salespeople and customers asking,
“Where are my goods and when can they
be delivered?” They have to put down what
they are doing, go into the system to see
where the goods are and their status, then
also look through emails to see whether
anything has happened in-between.
I think about whether we can use
technology to send a message to customers
when their order is dispatched, just like you
would receive when you order from a retailer.
