By VINCENT WEE

When someone who has spent a lifetime in shipping and is still working in his retirement years tells you the secret to success is to reinvent yourself, you had better listen.

Through a long process that eventually led him to his current post as executive director of the Singapore Maritime Foundation (SMF), David Chin relates his career history as an example for young people to emulate.

'The most important thing is to keep reinventing ourselves to adapt to ever-evolving circumstances,' he says.

And as for the maritime sector: 'First, have a good knowledge of the fundamentals, then be prepared to adjust to change.'

Mr Chin started life as a maritime engineer in the shipyards, then reinvented himself as a commercial/ costing administrator and bill negotiator and customer service marketer.

His talent was quickly recognised and he soon found himself recruited to government service. On joining the public sector, he had to reinvent himself as an administrator for the export of services and in shipping and trading.

Although the transition from operational to policy work was not easy, he applied himself and excelled.

Although he is not an economist, this later led to him becoming a trade policy negotiator at World Trade Organization level and at other negotiations as an Asean representative.

Mr Chin undertook all these 'reinventions' in an era when change was not as profound and far-reaching as it is now.

'The world we face today is evolving and progressing more rapidly,' he says.

'For future young leaders, it is even more critical to constantly reinvent themselves and adapt quickly to changing circumstances.

'I would just like to say to our young people that if your boss gives you a job in a new or unrelated area, the likelihood is that he or she thinks you can do the job. So just dare to take it, do the best you can to reinvent yourself and I'm sure you will succeed.'

After his retirement as Director-General (Trade) of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Mr Chin found himself coming full circle to serve the maritime sector, where he started work at 16, as SMF's executive director.

This again was a challenge - to co-ordinate the promotion of the private sector aspect of the maritime sector's development.

While the Maritime Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) also promotes the industry, it is more at policy level where government incentives and schemes are handed out to attract companies to Singapore.

SMF's role is to promote and develop Singapore as an international maritime centre (IMC) through private sector-led initiatives.

In this respect, Mr Chin says that 40 per cent of its role is to attract and retain the industry's talent. Another 40 per cent is to profile the industry for the public. And the remaining 20 per cent is to profile it internationally.

Looking ahead, he sees a need for Singapore to develop expertise in shipping services for it to fulfil its potential as one of the six or seven IMCs he reckons will dominate the shipping world by region.

'I think the shipyards, as well as the shipping sector, are quite well developed,' he says.

'What we now need is to go beyond that to the other aspects such as ship financing, legal, insurance, dispute resolution and so on.'

This article was first published in The Business Times.