All he wanted to do was to stay a kid and never grow up. But, even Peter Pan had to grow up one day. When the time came for him to choose, engineering beckoned to him but strategic planning became his true calling. Today, still a child at heart, guided by the mentors in his life and an MBA from Oxford under his belt, Hanson has one of the coolest jobs around – he is Malaysia’s one and only Country Consultant of Google, Inc.Now, just sit back, relax and let the words flow…

Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Well, I’m local – very much a PJ and semi-KL guy! *smiles* I’m the eldest in my family and I’ve got a sister who’s younger by 5 years. Currently, she’s a banker in Singapore. My parents and most of my immediate relatives are also in the banking and finance industry except me. I guess, I’m the odd one out… Hehehehe. I graduated in engineering instead.

How would you describe your relationship with your sister?
As the elder brother, I feel that I need to take care of my little sister. Lets just say that, if I’m walking ahead, I will make sure that I look back to see if she is OK. We grew up being pretty close, and even now we’re still quite close, despite the distance and work-life.
Editors: Aawww… so sweet.

What is your most unforgettable memory during your childhood days?
Hmmm… I guess some of my most unforgettable memories growing up are those of me and my sis. As there were only the two of us, we grew up being very close. We hung out a lot with each other, sharing thoughts and doing things together. Ooh… I remember this funny incident, where we went to Beijing with my Dad many years back. It was the first time my sister saw real snow. At the time I told her that eating ice cream in winter is an amazing experience – even better than eating it in summer. She believed me.

As she was eating her ice cream she some more said “Kor-Kor, eating ice cream in the snow is so so so nice!”. The next day, she came down with this massive fever and flu! Hahahahaha! Boy, I felt so guilty, but it was so funny! *still laughing out loud* But, it was a memorable trip for us, and a great bonding time *smiles*.
Editors: Lesson learnt, ice cream in winter is a no-no!

Share with us some of your most memorable moments at college/uni?
You know what, I was actually quite nerdy back in secondary school!*laughs*. It was during college, that I opened up more to new experiences and aware of my interests. Of course, juggling with all these new interests created havoc with my priorities, hence that explains my messed up results ?.

But, the best times of my life were during my engineering undergrad studies at (the University of) Warwick. What I’m about to tell you now is my most unforgettable memory in university. See, it was my final year and I used to live in the Hall of Residence back then together with 5 other students of various nationalities – 1 Malaysians, 2 Kenyans, 1 Indonesian and 1 Canadian. We were an unlikely bunch of people that ended up living together but were an interesting mix of personalities and we had fun doing “guy stuff” together.

Anyway, it was my 22nd birthday, and I was on my way back to my flat after my birthday dinner. Out of nowhere, about 10 to 15 guys suddenly ran out, grabbed hold of me and tied me to a tree. And the next thing I knew, I had flour, eggs, garlic, you name it, all thrown at me. One of the guys even shaved half of my eyebrow off! Boy oh boy… I was shouting and cursing on top of my lungs and of course everyone was looking and having fun! Mind you, the tree I was tied to was in the middle of the quadrangle! It was really super embarrassing!! There I was all drenched in flour and eggs… They then dragged me upstairs back to our flat, into the bathroom and the torture continued.

The guys held my feet up in the air and dunked me headfirst into a bathtub (like a doughnut into coffee?) filled with water mixed with shaving cream, tomato sauce and garlic!! Ewwww urrghhhh…. can you imagine that?? Hahahahaaa… Now, as if that was not bad enough, the guys finally let me out of the bathtub, and I went into my room hoping to quickly change and get the disgusting paste of flour, eggs, tomato and garlic sauce off me, and guess what, they turned my room completely upside down!

My mattress had disappeared, my cupboard was upside down! No kidding ok, they turned my cupboard literally upside down! I wanted to cry… Hahahahaaa *laughing out loud*. Well, at least at the end of the session a few of the guys then helped me to recover my mattress which was chucked in a corner at the lower floor. Phewww.. man, that was really a nightmare for me. So there… that was my most unforgettable memory in uni *smiles*.

Anyway, at end of that night, I *still* had my birthday cake and presents from the guys, so I guess they still like me after all. Grin.

Wow… we wouldn’t want that to happen to us. Hehehe… So, do you know what made them do that to you?
Errrrr….. Maybe I didn’t bake them cakes? See, I learnt how to bake cakes during uni and on my birthday, a group of girls invited me over for dinner. Naturally I couldn’t go to their place empty handed, so I baked them a cake. I guess the guys were just getting back at me because I didn’t bake any for them! *laughs*.

Describe your typical day as a Country Consultant of Google Inc.
Hmmm… there really isn’t any typical day! *grins*. I generally try to start the day at 8.15 – 8.30 a.m. so that I can catch people early in the morning. My lunch schedule is quite flexible actually. I would normally work through lunch and just grab a sandwich if I don’t have an appointment. Yes, I know what you think… Google consultants actually do eat! Hahahhahaa… . Come 4.30 - 5, ideally I prefer to take a break from work, make a mad dash to Fitness First for a quick RPM session and come back later to finish up the day’s work, which may continue to wee hours….
Editors: We stopped writing and looked at him top to bottom, left to right. Hmmm…

Eh, why look so surprised?? Hahaha… I know, I know, I don’t look like the Fitness First type la… hahaha…

When I was in DiGi, things were quite different. I could only find time to go to the gym on weekends. After work during weekdays was a no-no as the gym is typically jam-packed with people. And when you’re in the locker room, you can literally see (smell?) the bacteria in the air!

Do you think you have achieved a work-life balance?
I guess it comes back to the work cycles we all have. Right now I’m going through a setting-up period, so I need to put in more effort and time to put a system in place. When things get more structured and organized, then it should become more manageable. So, my work-life balance is not really ideal now but that’s fine. It’s quite alright I guess because I work according to my own schedule and at least have a bit of time to do my personal stuff.

What would you like to hear in the speeches at your farewell reception (say, from Google)?
Haiyah! In Malaysia I’m the only staff for Google, where got farewell reception la?! Hahahahhaha….

Errmmm… anyway, I would want to be remembered as person who is accountable, passionate about my work and doing a good job, fair about things, mean what I say and have made differences; hopefully more than what people expected. I would also want to leave behind a good impression and have made good relationships with people.

How would you relax and take work off your mind? What do you do on weekends?
I’m quite a workaholic actually! *laughs* Ok lah, since I got married, how workaholic can I be?? Hahaha…
On Saturdays, I would normally play tennis (or at least try to). Right now, since we’ve just moved to our new home, my wife and I re-charge by going shopping at Ikea and at the same time charging our credit cards too! ?. Hahahahahaa…

I would also normally try to meet and catch up with my uni friends and in the evenings, it can be a mixture of anything, be it watching DVDs at home or out clubbing. Weekends would also mean time with my wife and in-laws.

Who he really is…

How would you describe yourself?
I guess I’m ummm… ummmm… ummmm… hardworking, committed, I’m serious - except when I’m not ?! A part of me loves to play, and I play pretty hard. I am passionate about life. Basically, what you see is what you get! *grins*.

What would be the most common misconception that people have about you?
A lot of people think that I’m a bit too serious and because I have a quieter, gentle personality, they think that translate into me being not or a aggressive or “go-getter” type of person. I don’t think that’s true though. Once they get to know me, they’ll find that it’s not at all true.
Editors: What? Quiet? Are we talking about the same person here? Hmmm… definitely not true!

What would make you smile and make your day?
Achieving most of what I had set out to do for the day, or when I receive a compliment from a colleague on a job well done, or when I helped someone at work.

It is also always great when a friend calls up after a long time just to “borak” (chat) and catch up.

And oh, beating the queue to buy ice cream at Baskin Robbins on the 31st of a month also gives me a kiasu moment of happiness!! Hehehe… little things like this make me smile. Really, they don’t have to be grand.

Your favourite holiday destination?
Definitely Greece! It’s such a cool place to be. I remember when I was growing up, I used to read about Greek mythologies and when you’re there in Greece, everything you read when you were young just comes alive.

Oh, and you know those pictures of islands and beaches that you see on postcards from Greece, well, they are exactly the same as the real thing. In fact, seeing the real thing is even better! Really beautiful.

And of course, the food there is great too.

What was your childhood ambition?
I didn’t have any lah! In primary school essays?? I don’t remember what I wrote already lah! *laughs* Hmmm… probably a banker. I had a pretty happy childhood, so basically I didn’t want to do anything else! Then, as I entered teenage hood, I think I wanted to be a chartered accountant. That was when I was in Form 2, I think (I was told they make a lot of money). But in Form 4, I entered the science stream and I thought it was kinda cool to be a chemical engineer (influenced by uncle who’s a chemical engineer). Again, I was told chemical engineers make a lot of money! Hahaha… Somehow, that didn’t happen and I ended up a mechanical engineer instead! *laughs*.

Who inspires you?
A lot of successful entrepreneurs like Tony Fernandez and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com but most of all, probably Li Ka-Shing from Hong Kong. They all have this amazing foresight and this willpower to survive. And also my mentors in life. I found that as my career progressed and I grew older, I constantly found new mentors who taught me new things, and I think that’s expected – that no single mentor can teach you all there is to know, at different stages of your life.

It is tough working in the corporate world. What keeps you going?
Paying the rent, settling car bills…? Hahahhahaaaa…. Guess that’s not very sexy huh?!

Ok, let me start again. For most of us, if you talk about compensation, I’m quite sure we’re all wanting to achive more than just “getting by”. For me, what keeps me going is the continuous pursuit for job satisfaction. Not everyone achieves this. Every step I take, I take it as a challenge to myself to set a goal and achieve it.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years’ time?
In a senior management position in a multinational environment. Or hopefully, I would have gone down the entrepreneurial route again by then. Or maybe, retired??

His other half…

Now time for some love story… Hehehe… Please share with us how you met your wife?
Well, we’ve been married for 1 year, 11 months and about 20 days *laughs*. Anniversary plans ah? I don’t know what to do yet lah *laughs*.

How I got to know her? Hmmm… dating lah! *laughing out loud*. I met her through a mutual friend after graduation. We were only friends at that time. Then a year after graduation, (I was already back here), she came back during the holidays and that was when we hit it off. The first year we were together, it was a long distanced relationship as she had to complete her studies after the holidays ended. And a few years later, it was also a LDR when I flew off to US to do my MBA. During that time, we kept in touch via phone calls. We dated for 6 years and got married in 2004.

How did you propose?
Aiyoh! Must tell ah? Hahahahhahahaaa…. In 2003, I was already confirmed going off to do my MBA so I quit my job and we went to Bangkok for a holiday. I proposed to her in an Italian restaurant in Bangkok. It was quite funny actually because before I popped the question, I had eaten black ink squid spaghetti and then realized that my mouth was all black! So I had to make a quick dash to the washroom to gargle and clean my mouth first.

When I came back to the table, I just took out the ring and proposed to her. Did I go down on my knees ah? Errr.. no loh because of the way we were seated, I couldn’t really find a spot for me to go down on my knees! *laughs*.

So, any plans to start a family soon?
Soon, soon *laughs*. We speak about it once in awhile, but nothing firm yet.

“Behind every successful man, there is a woman”. Is your wife the one?
If it means that she changes me to become a better person and to achieve greater successes, then yes, she is! *smiles*.

A brief recap on the forum…

There is a saying that 80% of jobs are never advertised. To find out these requires networking which might eventually lead to those jobs. There is another saying that it’s not important what you know but it’s who you know. Do you agree?
It’s really a combination. Let’s put it this way. There are certain jobs that are advertised and some are not. I guess networking in this sense does help to uncover those unadvertised ones. Networking helps to expand your scope and opportunities available for you. It is good when you have the advantage of getting insider-knowledge of opportunities that are not advertised. However, you can still survive without being a good networker. At the end of the day, if you do not have the knowledge nor the means to actually do the job, then it all means nothing too.

My advice is for a person to focus on building competencies first. Networking is not critical but will help you. It’s also something which you should not force yourself to do, but just do it because you want to meet people of like-mind, and your expanded network is really the outcome – not the means to an end.

Does MBA provide greater success? Will my MBA investment pay off? You also shared with us the reason you did an MBA. Share it here again with us…
My first question would be, why do you want to do an MBA? Ask yourself this question. Is it for the paper? The overseas work opportunities? Or just want to study again? Here, I wouldn’t encourage or discourage people to do MBA.

It’s really up to one’s personal reasons. For me, I did it is because I wanted to be student again and I wanted to learn more of business management and finance. I also wanted to be internationally mobile, hence my preference to do this at Oxford.

Investment paid off or not ah? Very tricky to say lah! It often takes many years to know the actual pay-off, as the “returns” may only manifest in the later years and even then through many immeasurable areas of your life. But I think it’s enriching and it opens you up to see a lot of things, to widen your approach to business and management.

Editors note:
Since the interview, every time we had a question and needed an answer, we would say “Ask Hanson lah!” ? (in other words, just Google search it). Talking to you was very much like chatting with an old friend and going down memory lane. In fact, we enjoyed the chat so much, that the night seemed too short (even though we were chased away from a restaurant as they were closing and had to adjourn to a different venue to continue). Well Hanson, thank you for the very fun and enjoyable chat. Thank you for sharing with us and being just who you are. We would like to wish you all the very, very best in your future endeavors ahead.