Kenny Yap

Biography of Kenny Yap

Kenny Yap, also known as "Kenny the Fish", is the Executive Chairman and Managing Director of Qian Hu Corporation Limited, the only integrated ornamental fish service provider listed on the Mainboard of the Singapore Exchange. He graduated from Ohio State University (USA) with a 1st Class Honours degree in Business Administration. He currently serves as the Chairman for the Ornamental Fish Business Cluster initiated by AVA and is a member of the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE).

Through his leadership, vision and passion for the industry, Kenny plays a key role in establishing Singapore as the ornamental fish capital of the world, with Qian Hu accounting for more than 4% of the global fish market.

He has won numerous awards and commendations among which includes Singapore Youth Award for Entrepreneurship (1998), Spring Singapore's International Mangement Action Award (2000) and the Ernst & Young Services Entrepreneur Award (2003), Public Service Award (PBM) in 2004, Ernst & Young’s Service Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2003, Young Chinese Entrepreneur of the Year by Yazhou Zhoukan in 2002, one of the 50 Stars of Asia by Business Week in 2001, the PSB/International Institute of Management’s International Management Action Award in 2000, and the Singapore National Youth Award in 1998.

Leadership Traits

Focus

He mentioned the the necessity of being focus in business, "focus on what we are good in" . It should not operate the business by diversifying, one should remain focus. When asked whether there is a future of diversifying his business in other areas, he mentioned that the focus of his business would be in the fish business.

Open-minded

He mentioned of his "open door policy" to allow people to communicate or feedback to him. He ensure that there are both a formal and informal meeting. According to Mr Yap, the informal meeting is usually the fruitful one, as he would get his staff drunk in order to receive honest feedback. The attitude of having an open-mind is important, one should keep on improving himself.

Great decision maker

Make wise decision to be one of the first in singapore to do fish farming. In the end, Qian Hu expanded into the local wholesale-distribution business and dealing with fish food and aquarium accessories. They even set up a small plastics division to manufacture plastic bags that are used to hold the fishes being sold. Qian Hu had aimed to be a total-solutions and quality-service provider that was involved in the entire value chain of activities in the ornamental fish industry.

Creativity

Although Kenny believes in concentrating on his core business and not venturing into other areas that he has no experience in, he is always researching and introducing new ways of doing business. In particular, he focuses on innovation in relation to quality assurance so as to reduce the attrition rate of fishes, especially for overseas exports. This set him apart from other fish business. Because he is always coming out with new ways/methods to improve on his fish business.

Integrity

Recognizing that trust and integrity are vital, Kenny is upfront and honest in his conduct of business. He believes that Qian Hu is not just a “Yap” family business but rather a “Qian Hu” family business, where employees are just as important as shareholders of the company. He joins his employees during coffee breaks to minimize any barriers to communication and foster strong teamwork, camaraderie and commitment.

Analysis

Kenny Yap went through the change process in his business as discussed in class. The change process consists of planning, implementing, monitoring and continuous improvement. First of all, he recognizes a need for change in the market and went to read up on fish farming/breeding. After researching and studying, he gather all resources and his family members to implement the new way of fish farming or breeding. He monitored the whole process closely and soon became the main fish supplier. However its not enough as he realised that competition is stiff and people expect new things. Instead of venturing to a new business, he believed more in continuous improvement and hence he did some research and development and came out with new ways and methods to market and sell his fishes and products.