THE TAO OF VINCENT TIEW

There is a saying about how the struggle you’re in today helps develop the strength you need for tomorrow. While most of us can relate to it at some point, few people embody it in their everyday lives as much as Dato’ Sri (Dr) Vincent Tiew. Hailing from a modest background, the youthful Tiew is frank about his growing-up years.

“My father was a fishmonger, while my mother sold chicken in a small wet market in Klang,” he says. “I knew from a very young age that, in order not to be poor, I had to work harder and faster than everyone else.” Despite his insistence that he was a mediocre student, Tiew’s early years proved to be rather amazing, attending two schools simultaneously – one a sekolah kebangsaan (national school where the syllabus is taught in Malay), the other a Chinese school, in order to gain competence in Mandarin. “I probably had just half an hour in-between sessions,” he laughs, recalling the difficult days of spending time in school from dawn to dusk in order to get a headstart in life.

VISION OF YOUTH
From a young age, Tiew displayed a great deal of discipline, determination and ambition – qualities that have seen him through his rise from ground zero to property mogul-in-the-making. Born the eldest of four children in the Year of the Dragon, Tiew acknowledges that it was the constant fear of poverty that spurred him on. “I remember the sounds and smells of life in the wet market and it always terrifies me,” he lets on. “Moreover, my father had always told me that if I didn’t want to end up like him, I’d better study hard. So, I would always choose to stay home and do my lessons.”

A turning point occurred in his late teens, when Tiew began exploring his options for further education and, to his dismay, discovered that the courses he had wanted to pursue were beyond his family’s means. “It was the worst time of my life,” he shares. “I felt ashamed I couldn’t study in the same college with my schoolmates and I resolved then, that in everything I did from that point, I wanted to be number one!”

Tiew duly enrolled himself in Tunku Abdul Rahman College’s diploma course, earning a certificate in Accounting with Business Computing. “It cost RM1,200 per annum in school fees and just RM70 a month for my room and utilities, a fraction of what it cost for a private college education,” he shares. Continuing his primary school habit of doubling-up, Tiew also made time to pursue his Chartered Institute of Marketing diploma concurrently, while working part-time during school breaks to earn extra money to cover tuition fees.

“You could say I learnt to swim in the deep end,” he laughs. “But my college years really shaped and groomed me, helping me develop skill sets like leadership, self-confidence as well as public-speaking and social skills.”

THE FIRST STEP
Although he harboured an ambition to be a businessman since childhood, Tiew acknowledges he wasn’t sure what he really wanted to do then. “I just knew I didn’t want to work for others in the long run but everyone has to start somewhere.” Not content with his double diplomas, he began scouting around for a suitable MBA programme. “I’d gone in to Intellect Asia, a student recruitment consultancy firm, to get some advice but came out with a job offer instead.” Tasked with helping to recruit students to pursue programmes at foreign universities, it didn’t take long before Tiew earned enough in commission to cover his own MBA tuition fees.

On the inevitable question why he chose to sidestep the traditional path of obtaining a degree first, he shrugs and says it was “just too slow. I preferred to work and it proved to be the right choice, as I could pay for my tuition fees with my first big bonus.” On his penchant for fast-tracking situations, Tiew says not being a “smart student” forced him to run, in order to keep up. “Some might call it kiasu (an unflattering slang used to describe the ‘fear of losing out’) but I was always driven by fear, of being poor.”

It is this same drive that led to an employment path marked by distinct but short growth spurts. A glance at Tiew’s CV shows eight decisive career moves since 1997. Among them was a transition from Head of Marketing at MSC Premier College – a subsidiary of SEGI University – to General Manager of Berjaya Times Square’s Complex Retail Operations and, finally, to the Andaman property group, of which he has been Managing Director since 2008.

THE MAN FOR ANDAMAN
In an industry where the big boys are veritable household names, the Andaman Group still has a long way to grow. “We are not a huge company by property industry standards,” admits Tiew. “In fact, we had a very tough first five years. It was only recently that we reached a key turning point.” Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, it’s clear that size doesn’t matter for Tiew and his team of around 100 employees as the company has already exceeded MYR3billion in gross development value, an impressive achievement for a non-listed company.

With capital appreciation and rental yield as key priorities, Tiew says Andaman properties are normally sold at 20 per cent below the market price. “Our ROI (Return on Investment) benchmark is much higher than many other top 10 property counters in Malaysia. We simply work harder to ensure our developments always deliver outstanding results. The Andaman culture is pretty aggressive but we always opt for more low-risk projects,” he says. “In fact, over 90 per cent of our projects in the past nine years have been very lowly-geared and we certainly do not carry loans of over a billion, unlike some other companies. I must add that it’s only after nine years in the business that we dared to adopt the tagline of ‘Generating Value, Creating Wealth.’”

With a proven business strategy of identifying developmental locations before they are on other people’s radars, this has helped the Andaman group secure exceptionally low prices as it gets a foot in before the competition does. “We think like a buyer, looking at the way we design the product and market its position. We design with the view that it’s the kind of product I myself would love to own.” Although comfortable playing in the mid-range property segment, Tiew lets on that Andaman is currently working on realising its most luxurious project to date – Upper East at Tiger Lane in Ipoh, touted to be Perak’s most luxurious residential condominium development.

With 529 units on offer, it is already making waves in the northern state, boasting amenities like the largest private swimming pool in the area as well as spacious grounds, which will feature eight acres of landscaped gardens designed by Site Concepts of Singapore. And if all goes according to plan, Tiew plans to take Andaman regional, moving out of its regular playing fields in the Klang Valley and Ipoh, to Myanmar and Vietnam. “I believe Myanmar is heading towards a bull run and I want to be ready to catch the wave,” he shares. “As for Vietnam, if you do things right, the ROI is secure, provided you work in matured locations.”

THE FORMULA OF SHARING
Following the success formula of other leaders like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos who like to keep teams tiny but mighty, Tiew says this has enabled him to reward his team handsomely, with individuals taking home annual income ranging from 36 to 60 months of salary, a feat he has been able to repeat three years in a row already. “Andaman isn’t a luxury, branded developer but our staff’s pockets are thick with money,” he says bluntly. “Moreover, depending on their years of service or employment grade, our staff also enjoy anywhere from five to 50 per cent discount on Andaman properties.” With a young and hungry team, where the majority are still in their 20s and 30s, Tiew says he prefers to hire by referral only. “I had experienced high turnover during the first five years. But now is the time to fly!”

With a company motto of ‘work hard, play hard’, Tiew keeps his team engaged and happy by organising company trips several times each year – almost unprecedented by industry standards. The team at Andaman travel for play at least three times each year, visiting destinations as diverse as Dubai, Jeju Island in South Korea as well as England a few years back, where each employee was given hospitality tickets to watch Liverpool play Manchester United. “I’m actually a Chelsea fan,” says the chatty Tiew, “but you could say I ‘sacrificed’ myself as most of my staff support these two teams.”

In order to keep the business momentum going, major trips are divided into three groups so the office is never left unmanned. For the Andaman Group’s 2015 travel plans, Tiew has Turkey, the US west coast, the Maldives and Eastern Europe in mind. “I joke to the team that our company tagline should be: ‘Every month can fly!’” This powerful way of team-building has resulted in an extremely engaged workforce, where the entire company stays connected by way of WhatsApp chat groups, with Tiew’s hard-worn BlackBerry in the thick of action.

Driven to succeed by his deep-rooted fear of poverty, Tiew, likewise, makes it a point to never forget to help the less fortunate. The Andaman Group undertakes at least a dozen projects each year to help the needy. “I’ve been aware of the need to give back since my college days,” says Tiew. “Although my family was poor, I never suffered major hardship. I’d visited an orphanage once and have since been haunted by the thought of what it would be like if I was the one left all alone and how I’d wished someone would have helped me.”

THE ROAD AHEAD
Having started his career, in a way, in education, it should come as no surprise that Tiew believes in investing heavily in this field. He is working hard to organise many fund-raising campaigns for schools. In the pipeline is a plan to set up a St Joseph’s Institution at Seri Tanjung Pinang, Penang, by 2018. “I’m a former student of La Salle in Klang so this is a way of giving back to my alma mater,” he says.

Tiew’s business foray into education includes setting up the Straits International School in Penang two years ago; he is planning another one in Rawang, Selangor, by the end of next year. The self-confessed foodie has also found success with Mamak Village, a Malaysian street food café with three outlets to its name already. “I love food but I’d lost a substantial sum of money once in a failed string of bakeries called Breadcrumbs. It was a good lesson learnt,” he grimaces. “I’ve since realised that if you don’t know the business and cannot be hands-on, you’d better not invest in it.”

Still, Tiew, like most Malaysians, enjoys indulging in good food, particularly the food of his childhood. “I’m a Klang boy, a bak kut teh boy,” he jokes, referring to the herbal pork rib soup that is very much an icon of the port-side town. When he’s not working, Tiew spends his leisure hours collecting cars and watches, favouring timepieces with metal bracelets, particularly those by Rado. “I’ve always liked watches and I remember buying one at the age of 19, a Seiko, if I remember correctly, with my first pay cheque.”

His garage is currently packed with at least 10 cars, all of which bear quadruple “8” licence plates – the satisfying result borne out of an inability to sell any of his vehicles until they absolutely break down. “I just sold my first-ever car – a Proton Saga. I wouldn’t have sold it but I had no choice as it just refused to move anymore,” he sighs. “But I try to buy a new car every year, if I can. It’s a bit of a habit and a hobby.” Although he has recently organised a successful supercar drive for orphans in Ipoh recently, he has yet to own one of his own – a move vetoed by his wife of 10 years, Datin Sri Tham Pei Ching.  But he is quick to reveal which marques he is eyeing. “I’m in love with the new two-door Bentley as well as a particular Lamborghini.”

Tiew is, not surprisingly, also a sought-after speaker. Weekends are spent giving talks and attending speaking engagements, on top of organising his own property launches and seminars. Making it a point to give at least one talk a month, he says it all boils down to a keen desire to educate and share with others what he has learnt along the way. “It’s a little like CSR (corporate social responsibility),” he says, before adding, tongue-in-cheek, “and, besides, talking is never a problem for me.”