Corporate Shaker - Mr Chan Chong Beng - Part 1

Chan Chong Beng is Chairman of Goodrich Global Pte Ltd and Vice-President for Awards and Projects of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (ASME). He has attended the CEED Programme.

Mr Chan Chong Beng is a successful and busy businessman. What made him participate in the CEED Programme? "So that I stay successful and busy", the gregarious businessman answer without batting an eyelid. "If you want to continue to be successful and busy, you cannot take peace for granted. You do not want a situation where you have to worry about your family being attacked." What the CEED Programme did was to give him good insight into operational realities on the ground that will help keep the peace should anything untoward occur one day in Singapore.

As an employer, he is keenly aware of the need to inject a CEP dimension, including communal harmony, into the workplace. "We do not allow staff to discuss sensitive issue of race and religion at work", he said, referring to the Goodrich managerment's policy. Indeed, Mr Chan has gone farther than that prohibition. Although his workforce is largely Chinese, he intervened when a Malay worker felt uncomfortable over a tape of Buddhist chants being played in a company vehicle. He advised the Chinese driver to stop playing it.

(to be continue)

Featured by Hearts of Resilience - Singapore's Community Engagement Programme 2011