STEERING SINGAPORE
Two captains of industry from the private sector, who have dramatically changed how Singaporeans work and play, tell Yanni Tan how they are continuing to innovate to propel our nation into the future
Wilf Blackburn and Sulian Tan-wijaya changing how we work and play
AT WORK: WILF BLACKBURN
Chief Executive Officer, Prudential Singapore
• Transformed its corporate philosophy to move beyond life insurance into total wellness, not just for customers but also employees
• Thought leader on longevity and ageing through research and conversations on longevity, healthcare and an older workforce
• Removed retirement age from its HR policy and maintained equal benefits for older staff, including a retirement payout
• Promoting a performance-based culture that prioritises the value of employee contribution
• Raised total CPF contribution rate for employees above the age of 55 to match that of their younger peers
• Launched upskilling courses that span innovation, data analytics, entrepreneurship, cyber security and artificial intelligence
• Spearheading innovative, agefriendly solutions to holistically meet the needs of customers in view of longer life expectancy
• Launched Knightsbridge and orchestrated the entry of Abercrombie & Fitch into Singapore
• Ushered into Singapore a host of new brands via the Orchardgateway project
• Introduced pop-up stores for blogshops and emerging indie and street fashion brands in Somerset
• Revamped the former rundown
Turf City building into The Grandstand, a trendy and hip lifestyle and family destination
• Involved in heritage projects such as Chijmes, Capitol Piazza and the National Gallery Singapore, where new F&B concepts hit home run
• Curated the tenant mix for the newly restored Raffles Hotel
Arcade to help it evolve from being just a tourist destination
• Pushed for activity-based tenants in malls to improve visitor engagement and experience
• Helped pioneer the co-working trend in Singapore
• Involved in the current redevelopment and rejuvenation of the Bugis district
Walking The Talk
Imagine a workplace that actively resists ageism, offers flexi-work arrangements, promotes internal mobility, disregards your inoffice hours in favour of output, gives you ample opportunity to upgrade your skills, and compensates and values older workers as fairly as their younger colleagues.
Policies aside, your office isn’t exactly an office. You arrive at work every morning to a breakfast spread at the in-house cafeteria, which rivals Starbucks. And when tea time rolls around, snacks served range from tacos to dim sum to samosas. There are sleep pods for a power nap, nursing rooms for mums and showers for those who need freshening up.
At 4.30pm, you join a free daily yoga, pilates or muay thai class with your squad. Come 5pm, you are welcome to help yourself to beer on tap or a choice of wines from a dispenser. You choose to sit where you’re most comfortable – from a variety of work spaces, lounges and meeting areas. You might even find yourself seated next to your CEO, since your company practises 100 percent hotdesking. And the best part – the incredible culture and welfare are exactly that; not an inducement for staff to stay late or forget about returning home.
If the above scenario sounds like a fantasy, it is because you don’t work at Prudential Singapore. The man who made it happen is its
Chief Executive Officer Wilf Blackburn, who has been spearheading waves of dramatic, and positive, transformation in and outside his company since taking the helm in November 2016.
CHAMPION OF CHANGE
With all that hype on promoting a thriving work environment and a healthy work-life balance, few organisations truly put their money where their mouth is. One of Wilf’s first initiatives was a “culture transformation” that extended beyond company walls into the lives of their employees. Kicking it off in 2017 was a complete revamp of the office space.
He says: “Prudential Singapore used to be characterised by closed doors, corner office spaces and high cubicle walls. Today, we work in an open-space environment. The traditional symbols of hierarchy – offices and assigned seating – are gone. Everyone, including myself, does not have a desk and is given a locker. A key outcome of the change in our physical environment is accessibility and its effects on collaboration and innovation. The leadership team is no longer ‘hidden’ behind high castle walls, and is more accessible and accountable to our colleagues.”
Being a father of five children who live outside Singapore, the importance of family time cannot be over-emphasised – not just for himself, but his 1,200-strong staff. He says: “Work-life balance is achievable when you have an accountable team that is empowered to lead and to make decisions. I often tell my leadership team to lead more and do less. I spend time coaching and nurturing them so I can deliver more through them. If they are doing work that could be delegated, they are actually stealing resources from the company because they are allocating the wrong level of resources to get the work done. By delegating, leaders create the capacity to drive focus in their teams.”
Empowerment, however, isn’t just a term reserved for his senior staff; proactive decision-making is encouraged through all staff levels. “It is also about pushing decisions down to ensure that the people closest to the customers make the decisions, because they have the most knowledge about what our customers want.”
Harbouring a deep passion for changing the narrative on ageing, Wilf is instrumental in championing the rights, aspirations and potential of older workers in and outside the company. Practising what its chief has become renowned for preaching, Prudential Singapore abolished the retirement age in October 2018, and in August 2019, became the first financial institution in the country to raise the CPF rate, on a voluntary basis, for its staff aged above 55 so that they reap the benefits of the total 37 percent CPF contribution rate enjoyed by their younger peers.
“My team’s commitment to build a more age-friendly workplace is something I am very proud of. We believe performance matters, not age. Our people shouldn’t have to retire at 62 if they are still delivering. In giving everyone equal opportunities and pegging remuneration to quality of work and not age, we want to help our people be more financially ready to enjoy their rising lifespans and live to age 100,” he adds.
YOUR LIFE, HIS LIFE
Indeed, a longer lifespan (and increased years of productivity) was a key factor that drove changes within Prudential Singapore’s HR policies. It is a reality that Wilf, an insurance veteran in his early 50s, is all too aware of. “I am passionate about healthy eating and living. I believe in investing in my health, so I can live well for longer, and be there for my family and loved ones. No matter how busy I am, I always make time to exercise for at least an hour a day. I also spend all of my leave days with my kids.”
He believes he also speaks for his customers when he says he’s most concerned about his holistic well-being. To that end, Prudential Singapore’s business approach has changed – moving beyond merely selling policies to protect people from risks and help them pay for medical bills, to innovating to help them live well. “Singaporeans now have the world’s longest life expectancy at 84.8 years. Our focus has thus turned to helping people take charge of their health by practising preventative care. We are doing this by investing in innovative tech solutions designed to provide timely health information, nudge healthy behaviours and help people better manage their chronic conditions.
“We have also introduced a novel pricing approach on our hospitalisation plans that reward people for staying healthy. With our claims-based pricing that was launched in 2017, our customers who stay healthy and therefore claim less, pay a lower premium.”
With later retirement ages, the insurer has also conceived new solutions for a greying workforce. “With our Pruactive plan, customers can determine how long they want to save, when they want to receive their first payout and for how long they want the monthly payout. To help our corporate customers meet the aspirations of their staff to work longer, we have extended coverage of our customised group insurance policies to age 100. These products shape new ways of thinking of a multi-stage life in which our 60s or even 70s could be the new mid-life.”
Ultimately, Wilf hopes for a new perception of ageing and retirement in Singapore, and encourages companies to play a part. “Discourse on ageing tends to be negative and fuels ageism, stereotypes and discrimination at the workplace. Organisations must tackle these issues to fully embrace an older workforce. We need to stop defining ourselves by age and start reimagining how we spend our time, now that we will have more of it. This means rethinking education, careers and finances. It also means investing more in our health – physical, mental and social.”
“Work-life balance is achievable when you have an accountable team that is empowered to lead and to make decisions”
Reinventing The State Of Play
Wasn’t it not so long ago when our original national pride, Orchard Road, was said to be in dire straits? It is too dominated by ubiquitous international brands, some said. It is boring and staid, remarked others. Well, if you haven’t already noticed, recent years have seen a revival along the beloved thoroughfare.
One of the early defining moments of Orchard Road’s renewal was the opening of Abercrombie & Fitch (and its controversial use of shirtless male models as promoters). Yes, that was way back in 2011, but the frenzy that ensued signalled the beginning of more imaginative and exciting times ahead. And we’d have to thank Sulian Tan-wijaya, Executive Director of Retail & Lifestyle at Savills Singapore, for that – and more.
The National University of Singapore law graduate had spent the bulk of her early career in Indonesia as a corporate banker, before switching to hospitality in Singapore and then stumbling upon the retail industry. At the Pacific Star Group, Sulian ran Wisma Atria, before moving on to Singapore Tourism Board as Director of Tourism Shopping. She was headhunted to lead Hong Kong developer Sino Land’s iconic Fullerton Heritage, where she masterminded the successful redevelopment and repositioning of its retail, F&B and office space.
In October 2008, Sulian joined Savills where she was tasked to set up a new Retail & Lifestyle department. Over the next 11 years, she’d grow her department from the ground up, winning a slew of marketing contracts and transforming the fortunes of multiple buildings, malls and projects that, together, formed a hit list of sorts.
HERE COMES THE RAINMAKER
On her role in pushing for transformation in the local shopping and lifestyle scene in these uncertain times, she says: “The disruption and changes in the retail landscape are coming too fast and furious. Some retailers are not even able to complete their first lease term, and we get calls either from them or landlords to find replacements. Customers’ expectations in malls have also evolved and if malls don’t pay attention, they will lose shoppers. When tenants leave prematurely, the malls’ bargaining power with incoming tenants will diminish. Everyone stands to lose.
“To keep customers engaged and give them a reason to visit malls, we are always on the lookout for new and experiential retail, more interactive and entertainment concepts. To fill temporarily vacant spaces, we don’t just look for any pop-up store. Ideally, they should bring together the latest in street fashion and culture, a trend that’s catching on very fast in this part of the world that even luxury brands like Louis Vuitton recognise, with its past collaboration with Supreme.”
Such is the influence of Sulian’s hidden hand in how we shop and play that you’d be hard-pressed to find your everyday life not in some way touched by her – whether you’ve found yourself drawn to the revitalised Somerset district for its youthful and hip vibe, taken the family to The Grandstand for a meal or enrolled your child for classes there, or dined in style at the National Gallery Singapore.
Some of the key trends or concepts enjoyed by Singaporeans over the past decade can also be credited to Sulian. She’d worked with H&M and Crate & Barrel on securing shop spaces; snagged Abercrombie & Fitch as a flagship tenant for Knightsbridge; introduced athleisure giant Lululemon to local landlords; found swanky new homes for F&B clients who went on to win Michelin stars; and placed co-working space
The Working Capitol at its 33,000sqft shophouse premises at 1 Keong Saik Road. “When we did that in early 2015, few people knew what ‘co-working’ meant or who Wework was,” she adds.
Orchardgateway, which opened in 2014, was one of her biggest successes. “Over 50 percent of tenants were new to Singapore, and we achieved 97 per cent occupancy two months before TOP, the highest for an Orchard Road mall. We also introduced many indie and street fashion retailers as well as blog shops, some of whom, such as Love.bonito, blossomed into role models for online-to-offline retailers.”
Picking up on the trend towards activity-based tenants for malls, she had also introduced indoor trampoline park Bounce to Cineleisure, and brought Fat Cat games arcade to 313@Somerset. Most recently, she was instrumental in curating the tenant mix for the newly restored Raffles Hotel Arcade and seeing it through its transformation. In spite of naysayers, she had the hotel’s blessing to induct The Great Room, a co-working space, into the fold in a bid to change the perception of the property as being just a tourist hotspot.
“What will it take for me to make that trip to the mall? The key words that jumped at me were: Experience, Personalisation, Authenticity, Entertainment, Discovery, Storytelling, Community…”
BRAINS, BEAUTY, BOLDNESS
Always being game to take on new challenges is a big part of her personality that she channels into her work, says Sulian, who’s also made a name for herself deejaying as a hobby. “Since my student days, I was always game to try new things, and failure did not scare me. When I decided to swim competitively, I won medals. When I won Law Queen in NUS and a modelling contract, I shed my tomboy look and learnt how to wear makeup and heels. I learnt to mix vinyls as a beginner deejay, and years later, I had a 15-minute crash course on using the turntables before going ‘live’.”
She is also curious by nature, which she says helps in an industry as dynamic and subjective as retail. “Personally, I was getting really bored seeing the same shops and eating the same food everywhere. I asked myself: What will it take for me to make that trip to the mall? The key words that jumped at me were: Experience, Personalisation, Authenticity, Entertainment, Discovery, Story-telling, Community…”
Right now, Sulian is already on to the next big thing: GR.ID, a redevelopment project in Bugis targeting the Gen Y and Z demographic. “I’m studying their buying patterns and preferences, and how to positively engage them. I’m keen to introduce esports and games within malls. I’m also talking to curators of multi-label street fashion and lifestyle brands, and entertainment, games arcade and hyper-reality operators. Many Asian cities have leap-frogged Singapore by embracing new retail trends, and understanding what young shoppers want. We have a lot of catching up to do. It is my dream for Singapore to reclaim the title of ‘Asia’s Shopping Capital’ again one day.”