SINGAPORE, Nov 18 — Less than eight months after it announced key senior leadership changes, StarHub yesterday said its chief executive officer (CEO) Tan Tong Hai will leave his post from May next year.
Tan, 54, will also relinquish his role as StarHub’s executive director. No replacement has been named, and the telecommunications firm will embark on “a global executive search” for his successor.
In a press statement, Tan said that he has achieved what he set out to do for StarHub, which is to grow its enterprise business. “I believe it is now the right time for me to step down to pursue my own interests,” he said, without elaborating. He added that he is looking forward to working with Starhub’s board to find its next CEO.
Tan first joined StarHub in 1999 as the general manager of StarHub Internet, left to helm Pacific Internet and Singapore Computer Systems, and rejoined StarHub as its chief operating officer in 2009. He took over as CEO and executive director in 2013.
StarHub said that under Tan’s leadership, the company grew its enterprise business by more than two folds. The telco’s chairman Terry Clontz noted that Tan has also “struck numerous strategic partnerships with established partners to give StarHub a global presence”.
After he became CEO, Tan pushed for the launch of Singapore’s first free-to-cable sports channel, SuperSports Arena. The next year, StarHub launched the market-first integrated fibre and cable home broadband solution.
Last year, it set up a S$200 million Cyber Security Centre of Excellence. The joint investment over five years is in collaboration with education institutes and industry partners, to strengthen cybersecurity capabilities. This year, it also made investments in companies such as media content producer mm2 Asia.
The telco’s latest quarterly results, which were released earlier this month, showed a net profit of S$76.5 million in the third quarter of the year, down 11.5 per cent from the same period last year. Revenue was S$580.4 million, down slightly from the previous quarter due to lower service revenues from its mobile, PayTV and broadband services, and lower sales of equipment. It had 2.25 million mobile customers as of end-September, down from 2.29 million in the second quarter.
In March, StarHub announced that it was making changes to strengthen its senior leadership team.
Dr Chong Yoke Sin was to head the enterprise business group, Mock Pak Lum was to lead business development, and Chong Siew Loong was put in charge of the network engineering division. The three were to report directly to the CEO.
Chief commercial officer Kevin Lim, who also reported to the CEO, was to retire by the end of the year, and he was to work with Dr Chong to help her transit to the enterprise business group.
Dr Chong, who was CEO of the Integrated Health Information Systems for eight years, was tasked to drive the next phase of growth for StarHub’s enterprise business and to deepen the engagement with the business community.
At the time, Tan said the new appointments would support StarHub’s efforts to becoming a digital enabler, as organisations have to transform at a much faster rate than ever before. He said that StarHub recognised it has to move to keep pace in order to “stay relevant in the market”. — TODAY
