MR IVAN Lee , 32, chief executive officer of ThaiExpress Concepts, has a soft spot for children, senior citizens and the disadvantaged, and it shows in his business.
The youngest top entrepreneur in the Rotary-Asme Entrepreneur of the Year Award (EYA) 2008, he says: 'People think that entrepreneurship is about making a lot of money but I have found that the best part of entrepreneurship is that it provides you with an opportunity to genuinely touch the lives of real people.'
As the boss of a diversified food and beverage (F&B) business that has 50 outlets locally and 25 abroad and enjoys an annual revenue of $80 million, Mr Lee says he has so far hired 80 senior citizens, 20 ex-offenders and about 10 handicapped workers in his Singapore workforce of 600.
With a new outlet opening every month, it is likely that more such workers will be hired, he says. 'I have found these workers to be generally more committed, partly because they need the job more. I also want to give them a chance as they face more hurdles in landing jobs.'
Last year, he donated $10,000 to establish the Ivan Lee study grant in the Singapore Management University to help financially disadvantaged students.
Other F&B outlets under Mr Lee's purview are New York New York, offering American food; Shokudo, Singapore's biggest Japanese restaurant; Xin Wang Hong Kong Café and pinle, which sells soya bean drinks and Chinese pastries.
Soon, he will be opening two Shanghai restaurants, Tang Dian Wang, on the same day. Another six ThaiExpress restaurants are in the pipeline.
Asked what made him enter the business world immediately after he got a Bachelor of Arts honours degree in economics from the National University of Singapore in 2000, the former St Andrew's Junior College student says: 'I realised that with a general degree, I would probably end up as a teacher or a civil servant. I didn't want that.
'Perhaps, it was partly because generations of my family have been in small businesses of one kind or another. My grandfather owned a bicycle shop and my grandma was an itinerant hawker.
'My father is in shipping and my mum runs a beauty business. So, it's in our genes, I guess.'
Married and a father of two girls, aged one and three, Mr Lee, whose wife is a homemaker, describes Thai Express as family.
Unlike most bosses, he encourages his workers to bring their personal problems to the attention of their supervisors.
'If a worker has, say, a very sick mother at home, do you think he can concentrate on his work? We want to help him, and even those with financial problems. If they share their problems, we have greater resources to help.'
Mr Lee won the Singapore Youth Award for Entrepreneurship last year and he has also been on the lecture circuit to kindle the spirit of entrepreneurship among students in the universities and junior colleges.
But his last word was not about entrepreneurship or making money. 'I plan to open a school for children one day ' a school which will teach moral education. I think there is a need for this in Singapore,' he says.
This article was first published in The Straits Times on October 22, 2008.
