Global growth

Changing careers later in life is a daunting prospect for anyone, especially when that change involves switching from a career in the military to the private sector. It’s a decision that Terry Tan, former Commander CSSCOM for the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), carefully considered.

“I decided to make the transition in late 2022, after close to 30 years of public service,” Tan recalls. “In the last few years, beyond my primary job in the military, I had been busy helping fight the COVID-19 pandemic at a national level, supporting hospitals and sorting out the supply chain, and I felt it was time for a new challenge.”

While many ex-military personnel are drawn to the defense industry, Tan found himself drawn to the corporate world.

“I thought carefully about what I wanted to do for the second part of my life, so I set myself three criteria. I wanted to do something meaningful, contributing to the country, I wanted something uncomfortable that would force me to learn new skills, and I wanted a challenge.”

While many people will be familiar with SATS as the company that manages the vast majority of Changi Airport’s ground handling, air cargoes and catering business, it also provides services to Singapore’s military camps, Singapore Hospital and many nurseries and nursing homes.

Tan was offered and accepted the role of Managing Director for New Business at SATS in 2022.

“Giving back to the country is something very close to my heart because Singapore has given so much to me and my family,” Tan says. “Joining SATS fulfilled all my criteria and has allowed me to work toward a cause I believe in.”

Gearing up

As the Managing Director for New Business and later on as CEO, the first year of Tan’s new career involved setting up a new food commodity trading startup called Emporium Foods. This involved creating everything from scratch: finding the office, recruiting the team, establishing the structure, policies and processes, finding the suppliers and, of course, business development.

“It was really exciting because I’d never created a startup before,” Tan says. “Although there was a lot of learning involved, I found I really enjoyed the process.”

Tan was later offered to take over the role of CEO at Country Foods in 2023, a fully owned SATS subsidiary offering farm-to-fork services including food sourcing, manufacturing, cold chain logistics, marketing, distribution and sales.

“At this point I said to myself, ‘why not?’ I had a short learning from creating a startup, I had experience in the food supply chain industry, and the new role meant I could continue challenging myself.”

With three manufacturing sites, Country Foods supports the catering services of aviation and non-aviation SATS business units, Singapore consumer channels, including many Singapore institutions, all which attracted Tan to the company in the first place.

“Our company has only come out of the COVID-19 pandemic recently and now the market conditions are completely different,” Tan explains.

“What worked for us pre-pandemic is no longer applicable, so we’ve had a big reassessment of our commercial model to ensure we’re able to bring the company forward.”

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These changes include focusing on the company’s core fundamentals while upgrading its enterprise resource planning solution and introducing technologies and automation to many business processes.

“We’re asking ourselves how we can make our work smarter, more meaningful and more productive,” he adds. “This includes looking to our key clients and asking how we can do things differently to offer them new value.”

Further expansion

Looking even further ahead, Country Foods intends to expand beyond Singapore.

“Today, SATS is going global. It’s no longer just an inward-facing company supporting the domestic market, and we’re quite aligned on that,” Tan says.

“And we don’t just mean regional, we mean bringing our services and the SATS brand to the global market while ensuring we continue to serve the Singapore market.”

This includes forming and maintaining good relationships with small and medium size enterprises (SMEs).

“We need to collaborate with a variety of suppliers, and I believe that supporting SMEs in Singapore is good for Singapore,” Tan says. “Through good times and bad, if we can get our SMEs to expand their services across the region and the world, it’s even better for us.”

After one year as CEO of Country Foods, Tan continues to feel motivated by the role and the challenges ahead.

“It has been a journey of self-discovery, a journey of being very humble and having to learn fast. I’ve had to build my networks and my capabilities, but to be honest, it’s energizing,” he asserts.

“When it comes to trying new things, I’ve learned that you have to trust yourself. If you’re willing to learn, stay humble and you have that fighting spirit, I think everything in life is possible, regardless of your age.”