Six roles on sites in Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam

Mandate

Bring five parks in two countries onto common operating, safety and utility standards, and deliver the construction programme and the Batam data-centre campus.

Outcomes

• Completed the eighteen-factory third phase at Hai Phong after the main contractor failed, at US$80.4 million against a US$71 million contract.
• Cut unplanned utility interruption hours from 9.4 to 2.1 per tenant a year between 2022 and 2025.
• Reduced the lost-time injury frequency rate, contractors included, from 0.92 to 0.31 per million hours between 2023 and 2025.
• Delivered the first 24 MW data-centre building on Batam in 2022 and energised the first 18 MW of a 36 MW second phase in July 2026.
• Installed 41 MWp of rooftop solar and a 20 MWh battery in the northern Vietnam parks.

Decisions in context

I came back from Hanoi to Singapore as COO in January 2021, when each of our five parks was still run largely to its own habits. My mandate from the group chief executive was to give them common standards where standards mattered, deliver a construction programme that has since run between S$250 million and S$420 million a year, and build the first data-centre building on our Batam campus. The years since have been shaped by four hard episodes: a main contractor's failure at Hai Phong in 2022, the power shortage in northern Vietnam in 2023, a fatal fall on Batam in 2024 and the sizing of the campus's second phase. I lead about 1,180 people through six direct reports, our two country directors among them, and report every quarter to the Board Risk and Sustainability Committee. I am not a director of the listed company.

Reason for the move

Current role. Not seeking an executive move; considering one independent directorship with the Selvanta board's consent.

Mandate

Fill the newer Dong Nai park, extend Bac Ninh and build a Vietnamese management team for all three parks.

Outcomes

• Leased 212 hectares of industrial land to 71 new tenants between 2016 and 2020.
• Completed the second phase of the Dong Nai park and a 90-hectare extension at Bac Ninh.
• Brought estate services in-house in all three parks and more than halved the average response time to tenant faults.
• Handed every park general manager's post to a Vietnamese colleague by 2020.

Decisions in context

I moved to Hanoi in July 2016 to run Selvanta's three Vietnam parks, which together then housed about 140 tenants. It was my first role running places rather than delivering buildings. Manufacturers were moving capacity into Vietnam quickly, and my mandate was to fill the Dong Nai park, which had opened in 2015, extend Bac Ninh and replace a management model that still depended on expatriate general managers. We leased 212 hectares to 71 new tenants, finished Dong Nai's second phase and a 90-hectare extension at Bac Ninh, and took estate services back from contractors whose response times tenants had complained about for years. I learnt to work with provincial authorities on wastewater permits and land procedures, and I learnt Vietnamese well enough to follow a tenant meeting. By 2020 all three parks were led by Vietnamese general managers.

Reason for the move

Asked by the group chief executive to become COO, responsible for all five parks.

Mandate

Deliver new capacity in Singapore and Jakarta without commissioning failures, and improve the cooling efficiency of the oldest Singapore site.

Outcomes

• Delivered three data centres with 43 MW of IT capacity, within the overall programme budget.
• Introduced integrated systems testing under simulated load before any hall was released to customers.
• Retrofitted the chilled-water plant at the oldest Singapore site, reducing its power usage effectiveness from 1.72 to 1.49.
• Built the Jakarta data centre with two independent utility feeds and 72 hours of on-site fuel.

Decisions in context

Halcyra recruited me from the contractor's side in March 2011 to lead delivery of its data centres as the owner. With a team of 42, I delivered two facilities in Singapore and one in Jakarta, 43 megawatts of IT capacity in all, within a capital programme of about S$640 million. The discipline I brought was the one I had learnt as a contractor: nothing is finished until it has failed safely under test. Every hall went through integrated systems testing under simulated load, with chillers, generators and switchboards failed on purpose before customers moved in. I also led a retrofit of the chilled-water plant at our oldest Singapore site, which reduced its power usage effectiveness from 1.72 to 1.49 while customers stayed live. In Jakarta I learnt how differently utilities behave outside Singapore, and designed for two independent feeds and three days of fuel.

Reason for the move

Wanted to run whole places, with their utilities and tenants, rather than deliver single buildings.

Mandate

Deliver large technical buildings for owners who could not accept a late handover.

Outcomes

• Handed over a S$310 million wafer-fab support complex in 2008, three weeks before the owner's tool move-in date.
• Delivered a S$180 million data centre for a financial institution in 2010 with no failed systems test at handover.
• Kept every subcontractor on both projects paid within contract terms through the 2008–09 downturn.

Decisions in context

As a project director I ran two of Daruvan's largest contracts in succession. The first was a S$310 million support complex for a semiconductor wafer fabrication plant, where the owner's tool move-in date was fixed months in advance and a late handover would have cost it far more than our contract was worth. We handed over three weeks early. The second, from 2008, was a S$180 million data centre for a financial institution, my introduction to critical facilities. Both ran through the downturn of 2008 and 2009, when several contractors around us protected their own cash by stretching their subcontractors. I insisted that ours were paid within contract terms, which cost Daruvan some short-term borrowing and taught me how the payment chain looks from inside a contractor. That knowledge is the basis of how I now manage contractors as an owner.

Reason for the move

Recruited by a data-centre operator to lead delivery from the owner's side.

Mandate

Run individual warehouse and pharmaceutical-plant building contracts from mobilisation to handover.

Outcomes

• Delivered four logistics warehouses and two pharmaceutical plant buildings in western Singapore.
• Introduced a weekly reconciliation of subcontractor payments against valuations on my projects, later adopted across the company.
• Completed a part-time master's degree in construction management in 2004.

Decisions in context

I arrived in Singapore in May 2001 with four years of site experience in a market that had collapsed, and Daruvan gave me my first contracts to run as project manager. Over nearly five years I delivered four logistics warehouses and two pharmaceutical plant buildings in western Singapore, contracts of between S$25 million and S$70 million, with site teams of up to 25. The pharmaceutical work taught me how far an owner's validation requirements reach into construction: clean finishes, documented materials and services that must be proven before they are accepted. Remembering East Java, I set up a weekly reconciliation of what we had been paid against what we had paid our subcontractors, and the company later adopted it for every project. I studied for my master's degree in the evenings and completed it in 2004.

Reason for the move

Promoted to project director.

Mandate

Set out, supervise and measure structural and civil works on factory projects.

Outcomes

• Supervised structural works on five factory buildings.
• Kept a garment-factory project moving after its steel fabricator failed in 1998 by arranging steel supply through the client.
• Took over the measurement of subcontractor work when the company let its quantity surveyors go in 1999.

Decisions in context

I joined Sindarupa two months after graduating, as a site engineer on factory buildings in the industrial estates around Surabaya. Within weeks the Asian financial crisis reached Indonesia. In early 1998 the steel fabricator on our garment-factory project failed without warning; its workers had gone unpaid for six weeks while our programme still showed steel erection on schedule. I persuaded the client to buy steel directly so that we could keep going, and the factory was finished nine months late rather than abandoned. Sindarupa shrank from about 600 people to 250, and when it let its quantity surveyors go I took over measuring subcontractors' work myself, which taught me to read a contractor's finances from the bottom. By 2001 the Indonesian market had still not recovered, and I accepted an offer from a contractor in Singapore.

Reason for the move

Indonesian construction had not recovered, and a Singapore contractor offered me a project manager's role.