By Tee Lin Say
His 3-year turnaround plan called for a profit of RM500mil. Impossible, they said. But the airline made more than that – RM851mil – in 2007, a year earlier and 70% more.
Malaysia Airlines Systems Bhd chief executive Datuk Seri Idris Jala not only sets seemingly impossible targets but achieves them – you cannot help but notice, his unrestrained passion for all things impossible.
The loftier the targets, the more he thrives and loves it. But there’s an x-factor – things you can’t control. That, the stoicly spiritual Idris, leaves to divine intervention. But he explains how you can get the divine to be on your side – more on that later.
There is an important caveat for those wanting to transform companies. There has to be personal transformation first.
Idris Jala performing on stage“For me, my baptism of fire was when I went to Sri Lanka as the CEO of Shell in 1998. The company had acute problems and had been losing money for years.
“If I had relied on my textbooks, there was no way I could fix the problems. During that time, I had to unlearn what I had already learnt. I had to reinvent myself to make the impossible happen,” he says in an interview.
To make the impossible happen – that was the key. But how?
“After my Sri Lanka experience, I was a different Idris. Before that, I never believed in the game of the impossible. I was scared of failure and would never think of setting unthinkable targets.
“If you always do safe things, then you will never realise your potential. But if you stretch your targets and push yourself to the limits, you will be surprised at what you can achieve.”
The book by Tracy Goss titled The Last Word on Power/ Executive Reinvention to Make The Impossible Happen helped shaped Idris’ ideas, and today, he makes all his staff read it. “It taught me how to think,” he says.
It is exactly because of his fire for restructuring troubled companies that saw Idris accepting the gargantuan challenge of turning national airlines MAS around in 2005. He got right down to business. On the first day itself at 8.30am, Idris presented his turnaround blueprint to the board of directors.
Idris went so far as to make the business turnaround plan totally public – something never been done before by a listed company in Malaysia. And everybody felt Idris’ targets were crazy. They were wrong, of course.
He breaks down the turnaround process into four crucial parts:
·Build the case for change and get the buy-in from stakeholders such as the board, employees, shareholders and the Government.
·Lay the facts on the table and explain their consequences. “I told them, if we don’t change, we will run out of money in three months,” he explains.
·Unleash talents, much of which was done through running laboratories, where people were put together in rooms to come up with solutions to problems.
·Focus on the profit and loss (P&L) accounts. “If an activity did not generate profit or reduce losses, I was not interested.”
“Today, all MAS staff are very aware of having to anchor everything to the P&L statements. We have created leaders and seen so much potential from our staff through our strategy of running laboratories,” he says.
Divine Intervention
Despite Idris pinning everything down to numbers and getting to the root of problems, he is a strong believer in divine intervention – God or fengshui, or something else if you prefer. Idris believes the majority of things that happen in our lifes are beyond our control.
“We cannot control 60% of the things in our lives. With the 40% that we have, we can try our best. It does not matter if we fail. We need to recognise that we are vulnerable. That gives us the peace of mind.
“We need to bring in the element of humility. The day you think the world is at your feet, that is when pride sets in, and it is over,” he says.
He thinks divine intervention works to one’s favour, when you do some things.
First, be a good human being, for instance, helping the poor.
“Recently, we increased the salaries of all MAS staff earning below RM1,000 (per month). Now, there is no MAS staff who earns below RM1,000. This may increase cost but we need to do the right thing, which is to help our staff make a decent living and support their families,” says Idris.
Second, Idris believes in having the right values, in terms of being ethically correct.
For instance, in business dealings, there are always the white, grey and black areas. Many times, people are forced to step into grey areas when making decisions.
“My belief is that we should always stand firm on the white area even when we are forced to step into the grey area. We need to document and clarify our reasons for stepping into the grey area, then quickly return to the white area.
“If we do not document it, eventually our conscience will be modified. Hence the next time we step into the grey area, we will think we are in the white area. And when we are in the black area, we think we are in the grey area!” says Idris.
Third and very importantly, Idris believes in self-renewal and time for solitude and reflection. It is during these period that one should take the time to count one’s blessings.
“Most people are not happy because they are living for another day. That is why they are jealous of their neighbour’s new car or new house. What is enough for a person? For me, what I need is a house, a car, insurance and education for my family and money to buy my blues CDs. Everything on top of that is luxury.”
Adds Idris: “Don’t take things for granted. I believe that when somebody dies, suddenly life is different. You realise that very few things are important. That we should just be happy to be alive.”
Nonetheless, Idris also believes that if you want something bad enough, somehow you will get it.
He cites Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist and quotes one of the phrases in the book: “If you want something desperately, the whole of the universe will conspire to give it to you.”
Spirituality and Love
A spiritual person, Idris is a practising Christian who prays diligently. If there is a Sunday where he does not attend church, he will hold mass at home where he leads by conducting readings for his family. He even prays with his 19-year-old son Leon (who is studying in Britain) via Skype.
Idris’ life principles are based on love, enabling others, God and passion. Passion, for him, is a convergence of heart, soul and mind.
He believes in the importance of getting married and having children. After 26 years of marriage, Idris keeps his marriage alive by having love, commitment and respect for his wife, Datin Sri Pang Ngan Yue.
“Marriage is about give and take. I believe that when you first decide to get married, you need to be deeply in love. You need to be sure that you have found the one. It is about two people becoming one. You can never be right all the time,” he says.
As for enabling others, it is about taking a back seat, or sacrificing oneself for the betterment of another. Idris says he feels great when he enables someone else to feel good about themselves.
Last Friday, Idris performed in a concert for the first time at the Groove Junction pub in Sri Hartamas. While he demonstrates much adroitness with the guitar, his main motivation for playing was to get his son Leon to perform in public.
“Leon plays a mean guitar. I have asked him before to play but he refuses. So the only way to get him to perform is if I also perform. That is why I put my name down that night,” he says.
On this note, Idris’ first guitar was made of two pieces of plywood, which he strummed at the age of 13. His favourite blues musicians include Kelly Joe Phelps, Eric Clapton, BB King, Buddy Guy and Jackson Brown, among others.
Idris’ other great passion is deep-sea fishing, a passion which has brought him to the Maldives, Vancouver Island and Perth, Australia.
“Once I went fishing in Vancouver Island. The skyline was beautiful and we caught fish and ate it with wine. That was such a perfect moment. And I thought, that would be such a perfect way to die!
“If you catch a perfect fish and then have a heart attack, I think that is a nice way to go,” laughs Idris.
And what’s next for MAS? As announced, it is talking about transforming into a five-star value carrier, earning RM1.5 to RM3bil – yes you read right, as much as RM3bil – a year by 2012. Impossible? Don’t bet on it.
WHAT made you agree to take up the job in MAS?
I came because I was very passionate about turnarounds. The Government came to me via Khazanah. I never applied for it.
The person who was really chasing me (for the job) was Khazanah MD, Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar.
In transforming MAS, what was key in enabling you to succeed?
Transformational leaders must pursue the game of the impossible. That means you must put targets that are seemingly impossible for everyone else, and you state them and go further. You need to conquer the fear of failure. And if you’re not able to do that, most of us will then say, if there is a high chance of failure, I’m not going to do it. I’m going to do the safe thing.
I believe if you put really stretched targets, you have no choice but to reinvent and push yourself to the limit.
How did you succeed in implementing all the positive changes in MAS?
It is all about unleashing the talent. We run laboratories. We get people to come into the room and solve the problem. That is the answer.
In MAS, there are many good people, you just need them to do the right thing, the things that matter to the company’s P&L. It’s a good airline. The product and services are good, but unfortunately it was not making money. I always say – if something does not improve the P&L, then it is not a priority.
This belief in divine intervention, when did that happen?
I have always believed this. I find that more than 60% of what happened to me, happened not because I planned it. They just happened.
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/1/10/business/2965142&sec=business
If you listened to the mellifluous President-Elect Obama deliver his acceptance speech at Grant Park on November 4th, you wouldn’t be alone in thinking that his oratorical gift was naturally endowed. So too with Tiger Woods, who famously has been honing his apparently innate gift for golf since he outputted Bob Hope on the Mike Douglas Show at age two. Similarly, in describing his investment prowess Warren Buffett has oft been quoted as saying that he “was born to allocate capital.”
We all believe that the world’s best performers are different than us. And that perhaps unfortunately is true. However, you might be surprised at exactly how they are different and what truly accounts for their success. Conventional wisdom would explain that the super-human performers came into the world with a gift for doing exactly what they ended up doing and that they had the good fortune to discover their gift early in life. But as Geoff Colvin, Senior Editor at Large with Fortune Magazine puts forth in his ground-breaking new book, Talent is Overrated, it turns out that “great performance is in our hands far more than most of us ever suspected.”
In my mind, Talent is Overrated has the three key elements that make a business book great: 1) It poses one important and specific question, 2) The question is answered authoritatively, with both facts and compelling examples and 3) The answer is counterintuitive. Put any of the best business books through this sieve — Good to Great, In Search of Excellence, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and The Tipping Point — and they will pass this tripartite test.
Summary of the Book’s Key Points:
Contrary to popular belief, what makes certain people great is not inborn talent. Rather, it is something called “deliberate practice,” a sustained, often life-long, period of purposeful effort designed to improve performance in a specific domain. This turns out to be just as true in business as it is in sports, music, medicine, chess, science, and mathematics.
Deliberate practice is characterized by several elements: It is an activity designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher’s help; it can be repeated a lot; feedback on results is continuously available; and it’s highly demanding mentally. It is far different than the general notion of “practice makes perfect.” Instead of repeating a task over and over again in your comfort zone, deliberate practice requires that you identify certain sharply defined elements of performance that need to be advanced and then work intently on them.
Once a highly specific capability is improved, whether it’s mastering a passage from a demanding music composition, delivering an investment recommendation in a staff meeting, or answering a key question in a job interview, then it’s on to the next step. Top performers get the help of coaches or mentors to select and design the best practice activity, repeat them to a stultifying degree, adjust their techniques based on objective feedback, and concentrate so intensely on their efforts that it strains their mental abilities.
If you are motivated to achieve, the fact that deliberate practice is extremely difficult is actually good news. Why? Most people don’t do it or stick with it, so your commitment to do so will distinguish you. What makes deliberate practice so powerful is that it pushes you beyond what you can currently do and enables you perceive more, to know more, and to remember more than most other people.
Excellent performers perceive more by developing better and faster understanding of what they see. This is evidenced by the best typists seeing more words on a page than others and expert radiologists detecting subtle but life-threatening issues from x-ray readings that elude medical residents. Highly trained pilots are twice as good as new pilots at sorting through the cacophony of air traffic control; and in business and finance, the best performers understand the significance of particular information and data that average performers don’t even notice.
Great performers in every realm also recall more. Jack Nicklaus could reportedly remember every shot he had hit in every tournament. The best direct marketers remember the results of every campaign and which specific variables caused the largest movements in response rates.
At the extreme, the effects of deliberate practice actually change the body and the brain. Endurance runners for example have larger than average hearts. But they weren’t born that way; their hearts grew only after years of training. When they stop training their hearts revert toward normal size. When kids start practicing a musical instrument, their brains develop differently. Brain regions that hear tones and control fingers garner more territory. London taxi drivers, who train rigorously for two years on average, have been found to have larger areas of the brain where spatial navigation is governed. It is significant that the process by which the brain changes is very slow and requires many years of intensive work. Activities need to be replicated thousands and in some cases millions of times for the “rewiring” of the brain to take effect.
The fact is that great performers are different from everybody else. But the key points to recognize are, one that they didn’t start out that way, and two, that the transformations didn’t happen by themselves.
Colvin Speaks
In my interview with Colvin, he said “The heart of the matter is that this is demanding stuff. To excel, you have to pursue these activities at length and with intensity.” He added that it’s difficult to sustain the effort in something if you’re continually doing a cost-benefit analysis. “You need to look deeply into yourself and select something you will find rewarding for its own sake to which to devote yourself.” Of course, it’s relatively straightforward to do this if you have a deep passion for an activity; but how do you discover it when it’s not obvious? “You may not have the passion a priori,” Colvin said, “but as you pursue an endeavor with focus it will often develop.”
I asked Colvin how he is personally applying the principles from the book. In his work, which involves writing and speaking, Colvin is thinking much more specifically about the core elements of great performance and how each can be improved. For example, he cites the use of story in his articles. “It’s much more effective to show rather than to tell the reader something important. I now review my writing and ask myself, ‘Am I telling or showing? How can I show more?’” He is also seeking feedback of editors and mentors much more than he has in the past. He advises you to find someone in your organization that you respect and know well enough to solicit genuine feedback and then focus on improving that which is most important.
Outside of work Colvin is applying his learning in an entirely different way – moving away from great performance. “I’ve changed my outlook when I play golf,” he said. “I now understand the reality of where excellence comes from and know that I will never be world-class (he’s a single-digit handicap). I can stop deluding myself which is actually quite liberating and have much more fun out there.”
The implications of Talent is Overrated are important and actionable. For your career, the principles are essential because the standards of performance in business will continue to rise relentlessly driven by the power of information technology and the fact that you may well be competing in (and for!) your job with other workers around the world. Beyond your career, however, the book is incredibly exciting if your life is your work. It will show you how to maximize what you’ve got and what you can accomplish. There are also profound insights about how parents can create a home environment that encourages children to excel and about how great performance can be achieved and sustained late into life.
Colvin brings to life deliberate practice with a wide array of examples. He takes the reader deeply behind the common knowledge of how Tiger Woods, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Bobby Fischer and other “child prodigies” really became great. We see the true genius behind other renowned performers, such as Chris Rock as a stand-up comedian, Jerry Rice as the best receiver in NFL history, and Benjamin Franklin as an essayist. Colvin also convincingly draws on in-depth research on large groups of violinists, mathematicians, and other groups of anonymous high achievers. In fact, much of Colvin’s research underpinning is drawn from the leading expert on great performance, Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, a professor at Florida State University, whose work over the past thirty years has set the standard in the field.
If you are motivated to devote yourself to becoming a great performer at work or in an avocation, Talent is Overrated will show you how to focus on an area and develop and pursue a disciplined regimen of deliberate practice. Doing this over the long term will lead you further than you may have ever hoped or dreamed.
http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/leadership/123955
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/9/20/business/2076821&sec=business
THE popularity of MUNCHY’S has seen the Malaysian snack being munched in more than 50 countries around the world.
The business, run by five brothers, started with just a wafer stick machine in 1991.
Today, Munchy Food Industries Sdn Bhd has a monthly output of over 2,000 tonnes of biscuits and wafer products.
“Munchy’s brand mission is to produce all kinds of fun-eating snacks for every home all over the world,” said chief executive officer C.K. Tan. “We are trying to use Malaysia as a base and build Munchy’s into a world brand, instead of seeing more foreign brands coming into our country.”
Tan and his brothers have gone through tough times in bringing up the brand, especially in 1996 when the local market was saturated with many other big brands.
“It took us about 10 years to grow Munchy’s into one of the top brands in Malaysia. Now our mission and vision in the next 10 years is to grow Munchy’s into a world brand,” Tan said.
“We will allocate more funds into marketing to grow each overseas market in a big way in the next 10 years.”
Tan, who foresaw the importance of branding after he joined the company in 1994, started a re-branding exercise in 2002.
The company promptly brought in top branding consultants, who re-designed the logo with the distinctive colours of Munchy’s red and white.
“Munchy’s brand value is to bring fun into people’s lives and this has been our main focus for the past six years.
“Munchy’s is a very catchy name. It comes from the word munch. Our brand is very lively as you can see from our product packaging,” Tan said.
He added that a lot of innovation went into the design and packaging of Munchy’s products.
“I believe everything starts from the product. You have to have a very good product and …we put a lot of innovative ideas into designing the products from the packaging to brand image, the shape and weight of the products, basically from all aspects,” he said.
The Tan brothers believe in continuous product development.
“We spend three years to innovate a product and keep modifying the quality and packaging.
“Until today, we still keep thinking on how to make the existing products better.
“It took us more than 10 years to make Munchy’s Lexus the most saleable biscuit sandwich product in Malaysia,” Tan said.
Export markets
Munchy’s major markets are in Asia with Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan its key markets. It is also looking to penetrate Vietnam.
Munchy’s products are also exported to Mongolia, Bangladesh and Iraq.
Iraq is a major market; prompting Munchy’s to take a closer look at the Middle East.
“Going forward, we also focus more on the Middle East because with the oil money, people there are willing to spend,” Tan said.
Overseas sales now contribute about 25%-30% of Munchy’s total revenue, with the management aiming to expand it to about 50% of total sales by the end of next year.
With the launch of the new Munchy’s Mini crackers this year, the company is expecting export sales of RM90mil to RM100mil and a total revenue of over RM300mil, against RM250mil last year.
Overseas expansion
Tan said the company would produce 10 new products under the Munchy’s brand this year and planned to build a factory each in Vietnam and Indonesia to increase production.
“Vietnam is a new and emerging market with a population of 80 million while Indonesia has a huge population and is now our second largest export market, which shows that Munchy’s products are widely accepted,” he said.
Tan said the company had invested about RM75mil in new equipment in the last two years that resulted in the production of the new Munchy’s Mini crackers.
I like this story teach us that we must work hard and please our customers to succeed in business.
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From its humble beginnings of a small electronic repair shop to the widely recognised local brand it is today, Vincent Chew shares how it is like growing up with a legend.
WALKING into the Kollektion showroom’s designated wine and cigar room to interview Vincent Chew, group executive director of Pensonic Holdings, one might wonder at a local electrical empire this big. (Pensonic products are now exported to the Middle East and also other Asean countries.)
Vincent, the second of three sons of the founding father of Pensonic Datuk Seri Chew Weng Khak, has big shoes to fill.
I sometimes feel as though it is fated for me to be doing this, says Vincent.Besides its anchor brand Pensonic, the Pensonic Group also imports quality electrical products from all over the world like GE Appliances, Princess and Lebensstil Kollektion under the Kollektion umbrella.
“I remember being really young when my father started out 26 years ago in a small stall in Balik Pulau, Penang. Well, it’s not even a stall but a counter where he fixed electrical goods,” he reminisces.
From there the little ‘counter’ grew into a shop that sold imported electrical items. Chew had worked hard to put Pensonic up to where it is today.
“I remember playing in the shop front as we used to live above the shop. By that time, my father had already started his very own “backyard assembly line” where he had technicians producing electrical goods under the Pensonic brand,” he says.
According to Vincent, his father is also a forward thinking person.
He hired technicians to produce his own electrical goods as he knew there will be no future in his business if he kept selling products he had to buy from someone else.
“Father’s a one man show. He was the salesman, the delivery man and the technician.
There was nothing he couldn’t do,” Vincent says while agreeing that though the rise of Pensonic wasn’t a rags-to-riches story, it wasn’t without its own struggles. Everyone had to do their part and he used to help deliver cooking gas cylinders for his father to earn extra pocket money.
Fatherly advice
Quite typical of the old school of parenting, Vincent rarely spoke to his father, a stern disciplinarian, when he was a child.
“He had a fierce face and was always busy. Me and my brothers feared him to a certain extent but we have total respect for him,” says Vincent.
He also says that the brothers never really gave taking over the Pensonic empire much thought when they were in school as their father only wanted them to concentrate on their studies.
Vincent speaks fondly of the time when his father, no matter how busy, will still bring the family out over the weekends for a movie.
“Those old school cinemas with kuachi all over the floor, gum stuck under the seats and of course, back then people were still allowed to smoke in the cinema. Those were the good old days,” he laughs.
The others eventually left the country to study overseas.
Vincent studied in the US and came back to Malaysia in 1996.
“I was lucky. When I returned, the business was already up and listed. My eldest brother had already started helping out in the factory,” he recalls.
He started working in Penang for another two years and had to travel to Kuala Lumpur once or twice a month regularly.
“That was when I decided to base myself temporarily here in KL. I guess this temporary move turned permanent,” laughs Vincent.
Vincent admits that he and his siblings do seek their father’s advice most of the time when making major decisions for the company.
“We want his feedback and blessing as he is in the industry long enough. But there are times we need to persuade him to open up to new concepts and ideas,” he grins.
“The best advice he gave me are things you can never learn from books,” he shares.
“The way he dealt with customers was unique. His customers trusted him because whatever he promised, he will deliver,” Vincent says proudly.
In dad’s footsteps
Working in the company with family members might be stressful for some but for Vincent, the arrangement works.
“We take care of different departments. My eldest brother oversees the business in Penang while I’m based in KL. My youngest brother is in charge of the marketing and advertising department.”
He can’t recall thinking of doing anything else but to follow his father’s footsteps. Subconsciously this has always been the path for him even before he left the country to study in the States.
“Though my father had never pressured any of us to take over the business, I sometimes feel as though it is fated for me to be doing this,” says Vincent, who evidently has big plans for the group.
His siblings however have decided that they want to do other things and so, if things go as planned, they will hire professionals to run the business.
Being in touch
Vincent travels back to his hometown in Penang regularly to attend meetings and more importantly to see his family.
He tries to arrange his meetings on Fridays or Mondays so that he gets to spend more time with them.
He raves about Penang hawker food like any other Penang local and is a fan of Japanese and Korean cuisine. Besides working hard, Vincent also takes some time out to have some fun with his high school mates.
Though he left the country after high school, they still do keep in touch.
“With the wonders of Internet and emails, they are just an email away!,” he laughs.
These old time buddies make it a point to go for a holiday once every year.
According to Vincent, they have a savings plan for that yearly trip. Every month, everyone will bank in a set amount of money into a bank account and by the end of year their holiday is already paid for.
“We usually travel to places where we can afford to that year. Doesn’t matter if it’s local or overseas,” says Vincent whose favourite holiday destination is Tokyo, Japan.
“It really doesn’t matter where we head to, as long as we’re going there together,” he says.
Right timing and location pay off
http://star-space.com/news/story.asp?file=/2008/3/3/pnews/20501660&sec=pnews
WHEN they first started out in the Italian restaurant business in 1996, Piccolo Group managing director Suzianna Wong-Svrcula and her husband, Dr Kurt-Svrcula, took the plunge by trusting their instinct that “the timing and location would be good.”
“To be honest, when we first started in the food business, we had no idea where it would take us. Trusting our instinct was the right thing to do and had been proven right as the business is still prospering today,” Suzianna said.
Suzianna Wong-Svrcula and her husband Dr Kurt Svrcula have plans to expand their business.
“The rest was hard work, good practices like providing good food and services. I believe most businesses started from that one seed. If it grows well, it would give you the confidence to grow more.”
Having built up a chain of three Piccolo Mondo eateries and one fine dining restaurant (the Ristorante L’Opera) in Kuala Lumpur, the couple are now focusing on the hospitality business.
Their maiden hotel project, Piccolo Hotel along Kuala Lumpur’s Bintang Walk, will be opening for business at the end of this month.
“This time around, we have a clear vision of what we want to do. When we boldly took over the lease of the 13-storey Wisma Peladang building five years ago, our vision was to turn it into a hotel-cum-retail space complex, in line with the company’s goal to build our Piccolo brand for further growth,” she said.
The building had since been renovated at a cost of RM42mil and renamed the Piccolo.
On the lower three floors are Piccolo Galleria lifestyle activity centre, while the rest of the building will be occupied by Piccolo Hotel, a 239-room boutique hotel.
Suzianna said the new hotel venture would benefit the group’s restaurant business as Piccolo Mondo would be providing breakfast and room service to Piccolo Hotel. It will also operate a lounge bar on the ground floor of the building.
“Going forward, these new ventures are expected to raise Piccolo Mondo’s group sales by 30%.”
Not one to rest on their laurels, the Svrculas are already having a couple of other business ventures in the eco and sports tourism sector, currently at the nurturing stage.
“These projects will be in Malaysia, as we believe in building on what is probably one of the most pristine and bio-diverse eco systems in this part of the world,” Suzianna said.
A fellow of the Chartered Institute of Accountants, she has came a long way since her “corporate executive” days with several multinational companies in Britain, where she spent 13 years.
Upon her return to Malaysia in 1984, she worked with several manufacturing outfits before joining the Berjaya group in 1988.
Soon she rose to become one of the 10 senior general managers and the only woman to hold a top position in the group then.
For all her achievements, she was named “Woman Manager of the Year 1996” by the Women at Work magazine.
It was not all rosy for the feisty mother of two – Nikolai and Mikhail Svrcula, who are 22 and 21 years old, respectively.
In 2003, things almost came to a standstill when she was diagnosed with brain tumour and had to undergo a five-hour long operation, which was a success.
The tumour, the size of a 20 sen coin, was removed and she has since recovered from the dizzy and fainting spells.
Today, Suzianna is trying to take things a little bit easy and, wherever possible, follow her husband, who is an avid diver and renowned underwater photographer and writer, on his live-on-board expeditions.
On the things she cherished most in the journey of managing her own business, Wong said: “There is a sense of pride to have built an organisation with committed staff and well reputed and highly regarded products and services.
“As a business owner, I think the most important achievements are having built a successful and widely recognised brand of Italian restaurants and now, an exciting new boutique hotel.” – By ANGIE NG
