Aileen TanjayaChief Human Resources Officer

Executive summary / Personal profile

Whose working day the delivery promise sets

Portrait of Aileen Tanjaya

Chief Human Resources Officer Singapore / Southeast Asia

Every delivery promise sets somebody's working day. I make sure the people who sell the promise can see whose.

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01 / Leadership approach

A two-hour window is designed in a sales meeting, but it is carried by a rider at half past two in the afternoon, a van driver queuing at a loading bay and a sorter on the night belt. Pay rules, worker status and rosters are where a company shows whether it has understood that. I want those consequences priced while the commercial decision can still change.

02 / Areas of responsibility

  • Worker status and the duties that follow it
  • Heat, road safety and the pace of a delivery promise
  • Migrant workers under two employment systems
  • Rosters for hubs that peak on the online-sales calendar
  • Keeping fleet technicians as the vans change
Revenue in 2025
S$468m
Parcel services in Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia
Employees at June 2026
5,300
Plus about 2,700 contracted riders each month
Sortation hubs
11
Four in Singapore, seven in Malaysia

Evidence from practice

Paying for platform protections directly instead of moving riders to agencies
When Singapore's platform-worker law took effect in January 2025, about 1,150 riders took work through our app each month, and we had to decide who would carry the new obligations.
Withdrawing the two-hour product from the hottest hours
In April 2024 one of our van drivers collapsed with heat exhaustion while unloading at an industrial estate in western Singapore in the middle of the afternoon.
Capping peak overtime at Shah Alam when the workers wanted the hours
In the November 2023 peak, the 610 sorters at our Shah Alam hub averaged 131 hours of overtime a month, above the 104-hour monthly limit in Malaysian employment regulations.
The complete case record ↗

I treat each delivery promise as a decision about someone's working day, and I ask for its cost in heat, road risk and lost rest to be counted before the promise is sold.

I am chief human resources officer of Merbavane Express, a privately held parcel carrier headquartered in Singapore, with eleven hubs across Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia and about 360,000 parcels a day. Revenue in 2025 was S$468 million. At June 2026 we employed 5,300 people, among them 1,450 van drivers, 2,050 hub staff and 310 fleet technicians, and about 2,700 motorcycle riders took work through our app each month on contracts rather than employment. I report to the group chief executive and lead 118 HR colleagues.

My route into couriers did not run through sales or technology. I began by rostering cargo handlers at an airport terminal at Changi, where the apron was hot and the roster decided who slept. Fifteen years in Malaysia followed, first with a cross-border coach operator in Johor Bahru, then in Klang Valley contract warehousing, where most of the people loading lorries were foreign workers in company hostels. I learnt there that an employment model is chosen again whenever a customer asks for a faster window or a lower rate.

Three decisions on this site show how I work. When Singapore's platform-worker law arrived, I argued against moving riders onto agency contracts and we paid for the new protections ourselves. After a driver collapsed in the afternoon heat, we withdrew two-hour delivery from the hottest hours. At our largest Malaysian hub, we capped peak overtime for migrant sorters who wanted the hours. Each change had a cost, and I record who disagreed.

Platform protections paid for directly

From January 2025 about 1,150 Singapore riders received work-injury cover and Central Provident Fund contributions through us rather than through fleet agencies. The added cost was S$2.4 million in 2025 and will rise as contributions phase in.

The hottest hours taken out of the express product

Withdrawing two-hour delivery between 1pm and 4pm cost about S$1.3 million of annual revenue from one marketplace customer. Reported heat illness among drivers and riders fell from nine cases in the hot months of 2024 to two in 2025.

Peak overtime brought under the legal ceiling

At Shah Alam, average overtime in the November peak fell from 131 hours a month to 96 for 610 sorters. Base pay rose by RM180 a month, yet average monthly earnings for the foreign sorters still fell by about 6%.

Technicians who stayed through the move to electric vans

A skills-based pay ladder and high-voltage certification run in our own workshop academy reduced annual technician attrition from 24% in 2022 to 13% in 2025.

Current focus

With our chief operating officer I am rebuilding the 2027 roster model for the Malaysian hubs around rest days first and volume second. I am also working with the workshop leads on how many technicians must be certified for high-voltage work before the next forty electric vans arrive in Johor.

Conversations I welcome

I am preparing for a first non-executive role on the board of a transport, logistics or field-service business whose people work in shifts, outdoors or through platform arrangements. I can offer up to twenty-four days a year, subject to my chief executive's consent and a review of customer and supplier relationships.

The leadership record

Trusted with consequential decisions.

Formation

  • Master of Human Resource Management (part-time)Ellowmere University · 2005
  • Bachelor of Social Sciences (Sociology)Ellowmere University · 1996
Aileen spent two days in our Shah Alam workshop before she proposed the new pay ladder. She asked my senior technicians what the dealerships offered and why the ones who stayed had stayed. What she brought back paid for the electric-van skills we needed, not for years served.
Murali PellavanarHead of fleet engineering, Merbavane Express
The full record ↗

Contact

I am preparing for a first non-executive role on the board of a transport, logistics or field-service business whose people work in shifts, outdoors or through platform arrangements. I can offer up to twenty-four days a year, subject to my chief executive's consent and a review of customer and supplier relationships.

  • Board appointments
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