Tang Naiyong (Martin) 

Associate Vice President, Singapore Aice Group Holdings  

EMBAC, Class of 2024

When Martin was still a child living in the countryside, the happiest he felt on a hot summer afternoon was when he was chasing the ice cream cart to buy his favorite mung bean or red bean popsicle. “The moment my tongue touched the popsicle, it felt like the summer heat had disappeared, and a strong sense of happiness arose from my heart,” he shares. “I truly believed selling ice-cream could bring coolness and sweet happiness to more people.”  

Today, he is realising this mission at Aice, to enable more people to easily enjoy the happiness brought by ice-cream.  Aice is Indonesia’s number one ice-cream brand, with over 10,000 employees across 11 countries. 

As with many startups, the beginning stages were rough. Although they had conducted rounds of market research and were convinced that the ice-cream market had tons of potential and opportunities, Martin and his group of mentors and partners unexpectedly faced many external and internal challenges.  

“In the early days, we didn’t have an office and worked from a residence. Some people thought we were a fraudulent company,” recalls Martin. “Additionally, the pandemic had a significant impact on the operations and management of our factories. Many areas did not allow ice cream delivery trucks to pass.”  

How the team managed to overcome these challenges was no mean feat. Not only did they continue to refine their market positioning and innovate new categories and flavours (such as their bestselling Mochi ice-cream and corn-flavoured ice-cream), they also expanded into untapped markets, and adapted their vehicles to deliver to various small shops.  

“The process of entrepreneurship is one of continuous challenges and growth. We must constantly think about how to better meet market changes and satisfy consumer needs,” Martin says, when sharing his lessons learnt. “Also, taking on difficult tasks reaps rewards – this mantra by our CEO, Mr. Wang Jiacheng, has now become one of the core company values of Aice.”  

Martin credits much of his learnings to his time at NUS Business School. Not only has he gained knowledge in understanding various business scenarios from different perspectives, but he also acknowledges that the global alumni network at NUS extends to all parts of the business world. In fact, he once met a client during a business trip to Brazil, and they hit it off much better upon finding out that they were both NUS alumni!  

As he takes away profound insights from his professors and lifelong friendships with his classmates, we see that Martin is someone who values the impact that good and positive relationships can bring to his life and career.