Howie graduated from NUS BBA in 1993 with a major in Marketing. He dived straight into the technology industry spending time at IBM and Lenovo before joining StarHub. He was the CMO and head of consumer business at StarHub. He then joined IMDA in 2018, and is now their Assistant Chief Executive (Media and Innovation).
Q: Hello Howie, could you give us a brief description of yourself to our readers?
Recently, I had a catch-up with old friends. The highlight of our chat was that skills and capabilities are constantly evolving and there’s a growing need for specialised skills. My friends joked that my specialisation is generalisation because I have worked across several roles through my career – sales, consulting, outsourcing, project management, marketing and M&A. I was fortunate to be able to have had the chance to gain experiences across many different aspects.
Howie Lau (centre), Assistant Chief Executive (Media and Innovation), Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA)
Bachelor of Business Administration – (1993)
Q: Do you have a tagline that represents you?
“Bite off more than you can chew, and then chew it”. My mentor has previously joked, “Be careful, don’t choke!”
Q: When you started out, what were you aspiring for?
It’s always challenging for people in their 20s to know what they truly want as they are learning to know themselves better. When I was in school, the general path was the following: get into a good university, graduate with a good degree and join a good organisation. Just like any other young person then, I wanted to work my way up from a small desk to a small office, and subsequently the executive corner office.
When I graduated, I was in a hurry to succeed and do well as my father had retired and I was the sole breadwinner to support the family, my brother’s schooling and to pay off my study loan. You could say that I was hungry and pretty determined. I was prepared to put in the extra hours, be bolder in decisions and taking risks. Was told during the job interview that it’ll take at least 5 years to get promoted to first line manager. I’d set myself a goal to achieve it before 5 years without really knowing what it takes. It’s perhaps similar to a start-up life where entrepreneurs are stretched towards succeeding quickly with hard work and a never-say-die attitude. I was fortunate to reach my goal within 3.5 years – a result of stretching to achieve targets, advice from my mentors and a healthy dose of luck.
Q: Were there internship opportunities between 1990-1993?
Internships were very rare then, but I was fortunate to get an internship with IBM where my job was to index books on health information systems. This was done via a mainframe computer terminal and the editing style was very similar to HTML codes as word processing software were not available. Printing was via large system printings which printed entire chapters/sections, any typos would lead to a lot of paper wastage.
Besides this internship at IBM, I’d taken on various part time jobs during school breaks for extra income. This included selling magazine subscriptions, packing hampers, decorating showroom to pasting posters at coffee shops for a cigarette company.
Build core capabilities in digital, joining dots and connecting with people. Whichever course you might be reading, these three will be core foundations in almost all career paths.
Q: What would be your advice to current undergraduates?
Firstly, the university experience should be holistic. It’s important to take the opportunity to expose yourself to many different experiences. This could come in the form of internships, community projects, university CCAs, volunteer programmes etc. Academic grounding will be important but getting more than just results is equally important.
Secondly, know your brand. Know what your personal brand attributes are through the lens of your friends and family. Understand the gaps of your current attributes and your aspirational self, this will be a good basis for you to ground yourself on the improvements that you might work on.
Thirdly, build core capabilities in digital, joining dots and connecting with people. Whichever course you might be reading, these three will be core foundations in almost all career paths. The world is Digital and technology is infused across all industries, having a digital mindset and understanding are the new A B Cs. Secondly, everyone has access to information in today’s world, the magic comes from making sense of the data and connecting the dots to create value. The new workforce is global and being able to work well with people globally is a necessity.
Lastly, do develop curiosity into a habit. A perpetually curious mind will spur you to continually learn and acquire new knowledge and skills. The university degree will come but the learning should never stop. If a shark stops swimming, it’ll sink to the bottom. Likewise, if we stop learning, we’ll stop growing.
The Alumni Spotlight Stories is a weekly series that explores a Bizad alumni’s journey from school to the working world. The story was first published in “Alumni Spotlight Stories: From Student Life to the Peak of your Career” compiled by the NUS Business School Alumni (NUSBSA).
