BUILDING A LEGACY IS MORE THAN JUST GROWING AN EMPIRE – IT’S THE PRESERVATION OF VALUES THAT THESE TWO FAMILIES STRIVE FOR.
BUILDING A LEGACY IS MORE THAN JUST GROWING AN EMPIRE – IT’S THE PRESERVATION OF VALUES THAT THESE TWO FAMILIES STRIVE FOR.
PLACE IN THE SUN
NOT FOR FAME OR FORTUNE, BUT FOR A UNITED FAMILY – THAT IS WHAT MOTIVATES THE THREE GENERATIONS STEERING TAI SUN.
TAI SUN
Han Yew Lang, 80, matriarch Sandy Lim, 59, daughter Esther Loo, 34, granddaughter (daughter of Lim)
From a small snack business operating out of a home kitchen, Singaporean snack brand Tai Sun has grown into an empire with an international reach, including the US, Middle East and China – all within just 50 years. Still, the family members are modest about their success, and seem to approach everything they do in a matter- of-fact manner.
It probably is a quality passed down from 80-year-old Han Yew Lang who built the company ground up with her husband, the late Lim Jit Syong. Responsible for producing the snacks – everything from roasted peanuts and ikan bilis to keropok that her husband distributed to bars and restaurants – and bringing up three children at the same time, her days started at 4am and ended around midnight. She even once singed her eyebrow and burnt her forehead in a kitchen accident, only to resume roasting peanuts as if nothing had happened.
With a tough-as-nails matriarch, it is little wonder that the future generations also have a quiet gung-ho spirit in them. You see it in the soft-spoken demeanour of Han’s eldest child, which belies a steely resilience. The 59-year-old director, Sandy Lim, witnessed the hardship endured by the pioneer generation, and personally saw the company through various economic crises and development challenges. Her two siblings, Winston, 58, and Lawrence, 55, are also involved in the business.
It is also in Lim’s daughter, 34-year-old Esther Loo – the eldest of the third generation who has boldly rejuvenated the brand with a new logo and product lines since joining in 2010. And they all work towards a common goal: betterment of the family. “The nature of a family business makes one work less for individual interests than for the good of the family,” Loo says.
Some 11 members of the family are currently involved in business operations, including four from Loo’s generation. Yet, theirs is not a family business where stereotypically dramatic tension between conservative old guards and hot-blooded young scions unfold. “For many family businesses, the challenge for the earlier generation is to trust the next generation enough to let go of the reins. That trust is important for succession planning, but also for the next generation to find their place in the family business and take ownership of it,” says Loo. You see the determination to prove herself and do her family proud in the intensity of her gaze, as she speaks.
“When I joined Tai Sun and was tasked with spearheading the rebranding, I wasn’t sure if the second generation would be open to new ideas. But I was pleasantly surprised that they trusted me even with something as sentimental and precious as the family brand.”
“IF THE BUSINESS DOESN’T BRING (THE FAMILY) TOGETHER, IT WOULD HAVE LOST ITS PURPOSE.” ESTHER LOO
Lim is acutely aware of the need to loosen the reins. Despite being the elder, she let Loo lead the conversation during the interview. And even though she was apprehensive about filming a video segment for The Peak, she warmed up to the idea after a short discussion with Loo.
Still, it is idealistic to think that it’s always peachy at the Tai Sun office. “There are moments when we don’t see eye to eye on a situation,” admits Loo. “That’s when you pick your battles. Not everything is worth disputing and most things require a generous portion of give-and-take.”
These days, Han takes a back seat and allows the second- and third-generation members to steer the company. That doesn’t mean she’s completely removed from the business. The energetic octogenarian still attends board meetings and drives herself around in a shiny champagne Lexus, a recent birthday gift from the family. During our photo shoot, her wickedly infectious laughter – a sign of having attained the elusive contentment with life – slices through awkward moments and puts everyone at ease.
Yet Lim and Loo still feel the pressure to perform. “All the more so, because there’s no one to tell you how it should be done!” says Lim. For Loo, pressure also comes from inheriting a rich legacy. “A lot of what we do – such as the rebranding exercise – charts the course of the company. (Preserving the legacy) is a great weight on our shoulders,” she says.
But to Loo and Lim, the biggest challenge of all lies in guarding familial relationships from the stresses of the business. It is just as Han emphasises throughout our interview – jiahe wanshi xing, a Chinese saying that means when a family is united and harmonious, all their endeavours will be prosperous.
“My granddad believed that if the business doesn’t bring us together, it has lost its purpose,” says Loo. This remains the guiding principle for Tai Sun. Values – that’s what every parent wants to impart to their children. But a family mission statement? Well, that’s moving from the boardroom to the home. More commonplace in Europe, a family mission statement or family constitution is instituted by prominent families to implement sophisticated frameworks for family succession and governance. This is slowly catching on among Asian families, according to Eric Landolt, Asia-Pacific’s head of family advisory at UBS Wealth Management, especially those whose businesses were founded after World War II. Not only are they paying more attention to succession and continuity, they are increasingly concerned with creating structures for achieving a lasting legacy.
Simply put, a family mission statement “lays out a shared vision for the family – where they want to go as a family and how to get there, providing them with the path and the guideposts”, says Ronnie Tan, management consultancy firm Franklin Covey’s president in Singapore and greater China. It provides the family and its future generations with a sense of meaning and identity, and acts as a good guidepost for rational decision-making, as the latter tends to be more emotional.
A family mission statement can be used as an internal code of conduct for family behaviour, or it can be developed into a more formal way of governing family businesses, dealing with issues such as ownership, roles and responsibilities, family assets, capital allocation and related corporate decision-making.
Landolt encourages one to create a family constitution as early as possible, before the family has too many branches, and to cherish the process of creating the document. He says: “The process of drafting the document is more important than the constitution itself, as it fosters communication among family members and generations.”
WHERE DO WE BEGIN?
Here are three key steps to defining your family DNA.
01 EXPLORE WHAT YOUR FAMILY IS ALL ABOUT.
Tan explains that this is a process that will take some time, and it is highly encouraged to have each family member provide his or her input. UBS advises that discussions should include more than one generation of the family, to ensure multigenerational buy-in. Landolt says: “If younger generations are not involved, it is unlikely that they will act according to the constitution in the future.”
02 DEFINE YOUR CORE VALUES.
List the family’s core values, and “decide on a vision that will drive the business and the family for next few decades”, Landolt says. Tan says: “This can include phrases that capture what your family is about.”
03 WRITE A FAMILY STATEMENT.
This can be done together as a family, using the information gleaned based on the core values, vision and phrases agreed upon. You can also engage a family advisory expert who specialises in family legacy. Very often, private banks offer this service, as well as multi-family offices.
