Technology Magazine March 2020 | Page 186

NTUC ENTERPRISE
186

“ NTUC Enterprise is a unique organisation ; a socially-minded commercial organisation , with strong partnerships with the government and the labor unions , for the benefit of the Singapore society ”

— Johnny Wong , Group Chief Digital and Technology Officer , NTUC Enterprise and FairPrice in 2018 . Coming from a background which included tenures at Oracle , Google , MercadoLibre and Lazada , Wong gained valuable experience that would serve him well for the future . “ I was in charge of managing product development and the engineering to create products for end-users ,” he explains . “ NTUC Enterprise is a unique organisation ; a socially-minded commercial organisation , with a strong partnership with the government and the labour unions , for the benefit of the Singapore society . It ’ s a very rare model , and I would say , a truly Singaporean partnership model .”
However , when Wong joined the company , he discovered that NTUC Enterprise ’ s heritage was , in some regards , both a blessing and an obstacle . After decades of successful operations , the company had , from a technological point-of-view and mindset , not made much advancement . “ It was very much a traditional organisation , with strong operations and people values , but technology had taken a backseat ,” he says . “ My goal was to make it much more forward-looking and change into an organisation that ’ s
MARCH 2020