Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay

Biography of Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay

Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay He is currently the Chairman and Chief Executive of Genting Berhad, which is the holding company of Genting Group known for its gaming and entertainment businesses. He holds a Bachelor in Civil Engineering through the University of London while he also attended the Advanced Management Programme of Harvard Business School in the United States. He is the second son of casino magnate the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong and his wife Puan Sri Lee Kim Hua who is currently the richest woman in Malaysia.

Tan Sri Lim is also the co-founder of Genting Hong Kong Limited which was previously operating under the company Star Cruises Limited. It operates and manages a combined fleet of 18 ships that visits more than 200 destinations around the world with Norwegian Cruise Line which today is the third largest cruise operator in the world.

His rise to prominence in the industry started when he was elected to the board of Genting Berhad where he worked together with his late father and from being a single entity to 5 listed entities in Bursa Malaysia. In addition, Genting is also listed in the Singapore and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges respectively. In 2003 when Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay's late father retired, he took over as Chairman and Chief Executive of the group and has since been working relentlessly to expand the group into becoming one of the major entertainment and tourism companies in the world. Under Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay, Genting has established major brands globally while it also runs the largest casino in the US at the Foxwoods Resort Casino.

Leadership Traits

Humility

Being born under a wealthy family, Tan Sri Lim has never faced any major problems and always get what he wanted. When he started working as an assistant to the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, he began to realize the difficulties in managing and working with a group of team members. Throughout this period before he inherited the business, he was taught to be humble and learn from the basic and earn the respect of his fellow team members.

Influential

Being the Executive Chairman of Genting Singapore PLC and Resorts World at Sentosa Pte. Ltd, Chairman and Chief Executive of Genting Berhad, Genting Malaysia Berhad, Genting Plantations Berhad and Genting Hong Kong Limited, Tan Sri Lim was seen as one of the most influential person across Asia. Given his determination to face any obstacles and challenges and the wisdom to make critical decisions, he had gained much respect and reputation. His influential presence continues to impact Asia especially when he won the bid to build one of the integrated resort with casino in Singapore.

Optimistic

Tan Sri Lim believe that positive thinking is a powerful tool that affects one’s behaviour, image and success. A positive mind anticipates happiness, joy, health and a successful outcome of every situation and action. Tan Sri Lim was taught to be optimistic by the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong whom envisioned a resort on a remote mountain and finally achieved his dream of building Genting Highlands into a world-class resort.

Communication

For any organization to be successful, they have to ensure effective communication throughout the flow of the organization. For Tan Sri Lim, communication plays a vital role for him as being the Chairman and Chief Executive of Genting Berhad, he has to make sure that his vision is being communicated to the employees throughout the organization.

Committed

Tan Sri Lim was seen as a very committed and detail-oriented leader. Despite having a few businesses under his baton, he continued to put his time on the bid to be one of the two integrated resort operators in Singapore. He spent day and night working closely with his group of team members in which he displayed his commitment towards his business and had built his rapport with his team members. This was also the reason why Resort World Sentosa continue to stay firm to the ground as they have a team of strongly bonded management team.

Analysis

There is a couple of lessons that be can learnt from Tan Sri Lim. While leaders always have followers, they will need to have certain qualities in order to have people whom will be willing to follow them. In Tan Sri Lim case, he was able to inspire others to believe in his vision and follow after his footstep or work closely with him.

Being a leader in a large organization, Tan Sri Lim was always positive-minded and committed into whatever he was doing. This lesson taught us that being a leader does not come easily and that we will often obstacles in which we will have to stay positive and never give up  easily. While we have our goal set ahead of us, we will have to stay committed and persevere towards the end.  

While climbing up the corporate ladder may not be easy, one will have to humble himself to learn from the people around him and respect others as they are. Do not be overconfident by placing yourself way above others but always being humble towards everyone. This will be the start of gaining respect and trust from the people around you.