Singapore entrepreneur Olivia Lum's

Singapore entrepreneur Olivia Lum's ‘rags to riches' success story can be likened to her home nation. As an independent country back in 1965, Singapore lacked resources. Under the guidance of the country's first prime minister -- the recently deceased Lee Kuan Yew -- the nation fostered multinationals and educated its workforce, mandating that English was taught in schools. Today it's a thriving, self-sustaining economic hub in Asia.
The entrepreneurial spark
And the well documented rise of Hyflux's CEO is a similarly impressive tale. Adopted at birth, Lum didn't have it easy. "I went through a very poor childhood," she tells me, referring to a time when she grew up in difficult conditions.
Yet it was this period that could be attributed to the entrepreneurial spark that marks the difference between the good and great CEOs. "Earning your own pocket money was something that you really had to do -- otherwise you had no money," she says. "So, as a child how do you earn money? You sell papaya or fruit along the street. Maybe that was my training as an entrepreneur.
"It trains you how to approach customers. It trains you how to have a certain discipline that if you don't sell, you probably won't have money to get through the day."
From selling papaya many years ago, last year her company generated group revenue of S$321.4 million for the year ending December 31, 2014. Profit was S$57.5 million. The journey from survival to becoming one of Asia's top business women running a multi-million dollar business however was not all smooth sailing.
After graduating from the National University of Singapore in 1986 with an honours degree in Chemistry, Lum was picked up by Glaxo Pharmaceuticals as a chemist, where she was tasked with looking after wastewater treatment.
Two and a half years later "having no contact and not knowing the outside world", as she describes it, Lum moved forward with her dream to start her own business. Armed with only S$20,000 in 1989, she offered her services as an agent for large water companies.
She describes it as a "hard sell" knocking on people's doors and although wanting to give up in the first and second year, she never did. Despite selling other companies' products into Malaysia and Indonesia, Lum wanted to create and sell her own technology.
"During that time nobody had heard of membranes and I told myself that I needed to get into the membrane business because membranes are the most energy efficient operation compared to many operations, like distillation and evaporation and so on," she says. "I saw it as the most effective way to clean up water."
Membrane pilot and public listing
After getting support from her lecturers at the National University of Singapore, she built a small membrane-based pilot project in 1992. It was this foresight with a then unproven technology that could be attributed to much of Hyflux's success today.
"That's how I started water recycling in Singapore. People did not want to build a large scale plant because it [membranes] were still not tested," she says.
After nearly bankrupting the company by venturing into China, now offering built systems such as water filters and softeners, Lum survived the Asian financial crisis in 1997 while many of her competitors, involved in the Thailand, Indonesian and Korean markets, took a big hit.

Powering ahead: The opening of the Tuaspring 318,500 m3/day project - Singapore's second desalination operation. A co-located 411 MW power plant, due to be commissioned later this year, will supply 50 MW to run the desalination plant
It was then in 1998 that the Singaporean government starting promoting water recycling. The companies "remembered us", Lum says, from her earlier work doing pilot plants and demonstrations, which she says "got us in". Lum then helped implement water recycling in Singapore for various industries.
In 2001 the CEO raised between S$6-$7 million from listing Hyflux as a public company, despite what could be called bad timing. "It was another financial crisis," she says. "It was the dotcom bubble burst. So nobody wanted to subscribe to my shares. We had to sell it very cheaply to the market."
SingSpring/Magtaa breakthrough
Four years later and in 2005 Hyflux was put on the map. It built and opened Singapore's first major desalination plant -- the 136,380 m3/day SingSpring project. "At the time I can claim I built the largest desalination plant globally," Lum says proudly.
"SingSpring was a real breakthrough for us," she adds. "It was a huge risk but because we had been handling membrane systems for a long-time from 1992, we had nearly nine years' experience. Membranes are a very scalable technology. It's like a fridge: you can build one fridge, you can build 10 fridges to 1000 fridges -- you just put them together. This project was the breakthrough for us -- we accepted the challenge and built the first one."
Pre-empting the needs of water supply utilities and communities falls in line with Lum's success. For SingSpring, she insisted that a membrane plant of this scale would work, despite the doubters and critics. The result? The largest membrane-based desalination plant in Asia at the time.

This was the same for Hyflux's winning bid for the Magtaa desalination plant in Algeria, North Africa. Lum insisted that a 500,000 m3/day plant using membranes would work for the region. The result? The largest membrane-based desalination plant in Africa. Notice a pattern here?
Despite delays, including a warehouse fire, Magtaa was inaugurated in November 2014. Water will be supplied to Oran, Algeria's second largest city and neighbouring provinces under a 25-year water purchase agreement with L'Algerienne Des Eaux and Sonatrach.
"We are now on the road to operating the Magtaa plant," the CEO says. "It's not 100% fully operating yet -- we are waiting to tie up with the main water pipeline but I expect full flow to be anytime."
Investing in Oman
In March Hyflux signed a water purchase agreement for its 200,000 m3/day independent water project (IWP) in Qurayyat, Oman. Construction of the US$250 million plant is expected "soon" with the project scheduled to start operation in May 2017. Water will be supplied to the Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP) under a design, build, own and operate model (DBOO).

Going big in Africa: the inauguration of the 500,000 m3/day desalination plant in Magtaa, Algeria. Lum says Hyflux is waiting to tie up with the main water pipeline
"We're not new to Oman," says Lum. "We built a smaller plant as an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor a couple of years ago for Salalah. We look to Oman as a very progressive country when it comes to water conservation and management. Winning Qurayyat gives us more confidence in that country and also from Oman, we'll be able to launch into other countries nearby."
She adds: "We saw the [membrane over thermal] trend coming a couple of years ago but because of the Arab Spring and financial crisis, they have slowed down progress. Now there is pent up demand in the desalination market and membranes will be the choice compared to thermal."
The CEO believes that future desalination projects will be delivered across MENA as both mega plants -- at the scale of Magtaa -- particularly in industrial areas where water is needed but also smaller desalination plants, ranging from 10,000 m3/day -- 50,000 m3/day for coastline communities.
Three out of three in Singapore?
Singapore's second desalination project -- the 318,500 m3/day Tuaspring -- was also delivered by Hyflux as a DBOO project with a fixed low price of S0.45 per cubic metre for the first year. Uniquely, in the company's bid, Lum included a promise to build co-located a 411 MW combined gas turbine power plant.
The plan was that around 50 MW would be used to power the desalination plant with the remaining 361 MW being exported to the grid. This marked Hyflux's entry into the power project segment. The water production element of the project started operation in September 2013, with the power side expected to be delivered later.
"The power generation is now on track to start commissioning the second half of this year," adds Lum. "Next year will be full flow."
Power generation to one side, WWi recently reported how Singapore will soon be looking to build a third desalination plant, after SingSpring and Tuaspring. Will the CEO be looking to make it three out of three bid wins for Hyflux?
"Of course," she adds confidently. "We are keen on any large scale desalination plant, not just in Singapore but worldwide as well. The tender is not out yet so it's still too early to talk about it."
Insight on India
The start of engineering, procurement and construction of Hyflux's venture into India --a 336,000 m3/day desalination plant being delivered in partnership with Hitachi -- was highlighted in the Annual Statement as a reason for "lower revenue".
Lum is cautious when commenting on this project, saying "Dahej took longer than expected to close" and that partner Hitachi "is the one driving the project and they are still working on it with the Indian government". Naturally, the CEO does not want to put a timeline against the Dahej development at this time.
International revenues
Looking at the bigger picture, Hyflux to date now claims to have more than 1,300 membrane products and systems installed in over 400 locations worldwide. In FY2014, Singapore contributed 72% of total revenues, with China contributing 15%, MENA 7% and others 6%. Lum says with revenue dominated by EPC rather than operation and maintenance (O&M), this is reflected in the figures.

"The Hyflux business today is dominated by EPC revenue," says the CEO. "We do have O&M revenue but this is small and relative to the EPC business. It all depends on where the demand is. For example, when we have a big project like Tuaspring and we are executing the EPC phase, the revenue from this region will dominate."
Lum goes onto add: "Asia h

Hasil (Bahasa Indonesia) 1:

Singapura pengusaha Olivia Lum 'kain untuk kekayaan' kisah sukses dapat disamakan dengan bangsa rumah nya. Sebagai sebuah negara merdeka kembali pada tahun 1965, Singapura kekurangan sumber daya. Di bawah bimbingan Perdana Menteri pertama negara--baru saja meninggal Lee Kuan Yew--bangsa dipupuk perusahaan multinasional dan berpendidikan tenaga kerja, mandat bahwa Inggris diajarkan di sekolah. Hari ini adalah pusat ekonomi berkembang, mandiri di Asia.Spark kewirausahaanDan munculnya didokumentasikan dengan baik Hyflux's CEO adalah kisah juga mengesankan. Diadopsi pada saat lahir, Lum tidak memiliki itu mudah. "Saya pergi melalui masa kecil yang sangat miskin," dia memberitahu saya, merujuk kepada waktu ketika ia dibesarkan dalam kondisi sulit.Namun itu adalah periode ini yang dapat dikaitkan dengan percikan kewirausahaan yang menandai perbedaan antara CEO baik dan besar. "Uang saku Anda sendiri adalah sesuatu yang Anda benar-benar harus dilakukan - jika Anda tidak punya uang," katanya. "Jadi, sebagai seorang anak bagaimana Anda memperoleh uang? Anda menjual buah sepanjang jalan atau pepaya. Mungkin itu pelatihan saya sebagai seorang pengusaha."Melatih Anda bagaimana mendekati pelanggan. Melatih Anda bagaimana untuk memiliki disiplin tertentu bahwa jika Anda tidak menjual, Anda mungkin tidak memiliki uang untuk mendapatkan melalui hari. "Dari Jual pepaya bertahun-tahun lalu, tahun lalu perusahaan dihasilkan kelompok pendapatan sebesar S$ 321.4 juta untuk tahun yang berakhir 31 Desember 2014. Keuntungan adalah S$ 57,5 juta. Perjalanan dari kelangsungan hidup untuk menjadi salah satu Asia bisnis atas perempuan menjalankan bisnis multi-juta dolar namun itu tidak semua halus berlayar.Setelah lulus dari National University of Singapore pada tahun 1986 dengan gelar kehormatan dalam kimia, Lum dijemput oleh obat-obatan Glaxo sebagai seorang ahli kimia, dimana dia bertugas dengan menjaga pengolahan air limbah.Dua setengah tahun kemudian "karena tidak ada kontak dan tidak tahu dunia luar", sebagaimana ia menjelaskan, Lum bergerak maju dengan mimpinya untuk memulai bisnis sendiri. Bersenjata dengan hanya S$ 20.000 di tahun 1989, ia menawarkan jasa sebagai agen untuk perusahaan-perusahaan besar air.Ia menggambarkannya sebagai "menjual keras" mengetuk pintu rakyat dan meskipun ingin menyerah pada tahun pertama dan kedua, dia tidak pernah melakukan. Meskipun menjual produk perusahaan lain ke Malaysia dan Indonesia, Lum ingin membuat dan menjual teknologi sendiri."Selama waktu itu tak seorang pun pernah mendengar membran dan aku berkata pada diriku sendiri bahwa saya perlu untuk mendapatkan ke bisnis membran karena selaput sebagian energi efisien operasi dibandingkan dengan banyak operasi, seperti distilasi dan penguapan, dan seterusnya," katanya. "Aku melihatnya sebagai cara yang paling efektif untuk membersihkan air."Membran pilot dan pencatatanSetelah mendapatkan dukungan dari nya dosen di National University of Singapore, dia membangun proyek percontohan berbasis membran kecil pada tahun 1992. Itu adalah pandangan ke depan ini dengan itu belum terbukti teknologi yang dapat dikaitkan ke banyak keberhasilan Hyflux di hari ini."Itu adalah bagaimana saya mulai air daur ulang di Singapura. Orang tidak ingin untuk membangun pabrik skala besar karena itu [membran] tidak masih diuji,"katanya.Setelah hampir membangkrutkan perusahaan oleh menjelajah ke Cina, sekarang menawarkan membangun sistem seperti filter air dan puasa, Lum bertahan krisis keuangan Asia tahun 1997 sementara banyak dari pesaing nya, terlibat dalam pasar Thailand, Indonesia dan Korea, mengambil hit besar.Menyalakan ke depan: pembukaan proyek m3/hari Tuaspring 318,500 - operasi Desalinasi kedua di Singapura. A collocated 411 MW pembangkit listrik, karena akan berjalan pada akhir tahun ini, akan memasok 50 MW untuk menjalankan Tanaman DesalinasiItu kemudian pada 1998 bahwa pemerintah Singapura memberi mulai mempromosikan air daur ulang. Perusahaan "ingat kita", Lum mengatakan, dari padanya sebelumnya bekerja melakukan pilot tanaman dan demonstrasi, yang katanya "punya kita". Lum kemudian membantu melaksanakan air daur ulang di Singapura untuk berbagai industri.Pada tahun 2001 CEO mengangkat antara S$ 6-$7 juta dari daftar Hyflux sebagai perusahaan publik, meskipun apa yang bisa disebut buruk waktu. "Itu adalah krisis keuangan yang lain," katanya. "Itu dotcom gelembung meledak. Jadi tidak ada yang ingin berlangganan saham saya. Kami memiliki menjual sangat murah kepada pasar."Terobosan SingSpring MagtaaEmpat tahun kemudian dan di Hyflux tahun 2005 adalah meletakkan pada peta. Dibangun dan dibuka di Singapura pertama utama Desalinasi--136,380 m3/hari SingSpring proyek. "Pada waktu itu saya dapat mengklaim saya membangun pabrik Desalinasi terbesar secara global," Lum mengatakan dengan bangga."SingSpring adalah sebuah terobosan nyata bagi kita," tambahnya. "Itu adalah risiko yang sangat besar tapi karena kita telah menangani sistem membran lama dari tahun 1992, kami telah hampir sembilan tahun pengalaman. Membran adalah teknologi sangat scalable. Seperti lemari es: Anda dapat membangun satu kulkas, Anda dapat membangun 10 kulkas untuk 1000 kulkas--Anda hanya menempatkan mereka bersama-sama. Proyek ini adalah terobosan bagi kita - kita menerima tantangan dan dibangun pertama."Pre-empting kebutuhan air bersih utilitas dan masyarakat jatuh dengan Lum yang sukses. Untuk SingSpring, dia bersikeras bahwa tanaman membran skala ini akan bekerja, meskipun ragu dan kritikus. Dan hasilnya? Terbesar berbasis membran Desalinasi di Asia pada saat.Ini adalah sama untuk Hyflux's memenangkan tawaran untuk Magtaa Desalinasi di Aljazair, Afrika Utara. Lum bersikeras bahwa 500.000 m3/hari tanaman menggunakan membran akan bekerja untuk wilayah. Dan hasilnya? Tanaman berbasis membran Desalinasi terbesar di Afrika. Perhatikan pola di sini?Meskipun penundaan, termasuk kebakaran gudang, Magtaa diresmikan pada November 2014. Air akan diberikan ke Oran, Algeria terbesar kedua kota dan provinsi-provinsi tetangga di bawah 25 tahun air pembelian perjanjian dengan L'Algerienne Des Eaux dan Sonatrach."Kami adalah sekarang di jalan untuk operasi Magtaa tanaman," kata CEO. "Hal ini tidak 100% belum sepenuhnya beroperasi--kami sedang menunggu untuk mengikat dengan pipa air utama tetapi saya berharap full flow Kapan saja."Investasi di OmanPada bulan Maret Hyflux menandatangani kesepakatan pembelian air untuk proyek 200.000 m3/hari independen air (IWP) di Qurayyat, Oman. Konstruksi pabrik US$ 250 juta diharapkan "segera" dengan proyek yang dijadwalkan untuk mulai beroperasi pada Mei 2017. Air akan diberikan kepada kuasa Oman dan air pengadaan perusahaan (OPWP) di bawah Desain, membangun, memiliki dan mengoperasikan model (DBOO).Akan besar di Afrika: peresmian pabrik 500.000 Desalinasi m3/hari di Magtaa, Aljazair. Lum mengatakan Hyflux yang menunggu untuk mengikat dengan pipa air utama"Kami tidak baru untuk Oman," kata Lum. "Kami membangun sebuah pabrik kecil sebagai teknik, pengadaan dan konstruksi (EPC) kontraktor beberapa tahun yang lalu untuk Salalah. Kita melihat ke Oman sebagai sebuah negara yang sangat progresif ketika datang ke air konservasi dan pengelolaan. Memenangkan Qurayyat memberi kita lebih percaya diri di negara itu dan juga dari Oman, kita akan mampu meluncurkan ke negara-negara lain dekat."Dia menambahkan: "kami melihat tren [membran atas termal] datang beberapa tahun yang lalu tapi karena musim semi Arab dan krisis keuangan, mereka telah memperlambat kemajuan. Sekarang ada adalah pent permintaan di Desalinasi pasar dan selaput akan menjadi pilihan dibandingkan thermal. "CEO percaya bahwa proyek-proyek masa depan Desalinasi akan disampaikan di MENA sebagai kedua mega tanaman--pada skala Magtaa--khususnya di kawasan industri yang mana air yang diperlukan, tetapi juga lebih kecil Tanaman Desalinasi, mulai dari 10.000 m3/hari--50.000 m3/hari bagi masyarakat pesisir.Three out of three in Singapore?Singapore's second desalination project -- the 318,500 m3/day Tuaspring -- was also delivered by Hyflux as a DBOO project with a fixed low price of S0.45 per cubic metre for the first year. Uniquely, in the company's bid, Lum included a promise to build co-located a 411 MW combined gas turbine power plant.The plan was that around 50 MW would be used to power the desalination plant with the remaining 361 MW being exported to the grid. This marked Hyflux's entry into the power project segment. The water production element of the project started operation in September 2013, with the power side expected to be delivered later."The power generation is now on track to start commissioning the second half of this year," adds Lum. "Next year will be full flow."Power generation to one side, WWi recently reported how Singapore will soon be looking to build a third desalination plant, after SingSpring and Tuaspring. Will the CEO be looking to make it three out of three bid wins for Hyflux?"Of course," she adds confidently. "We are keen on any large scale desalination plant, not just in Singapore but worldwide as well. The tender is not out yet so it's still too early to talk about it."Insight on IndiaThe start of engineering, procurement and construction of Hyflux's venture into India --a 336,000 m3/day desalination plant being delivered in partnership with Hitachi -- was highlighted in the Annual Statement as a reason for "lower revenue".Lum is cautious when commenting on this project, saying "Dahej took longer than expected to close" and that partner Hitachi "is the one driving the project and they are still working on it with the Indian government". Naturally, the CEO does not want to put a timeline against the Dahej development at this time.International revenuesLooking at the bigger picture, Hyflux to date now claims to have more than 1,300 membrane products and systems installed in over 400 locations worldwide. In FY2014, Singapore contributed 72% of total revenues, with China contributing 15%, MENA 7% and others 6%. Lum says with revenue dominated by EPC rather than operation and maintenance (O&M), this is reflected in the figures."The Hyflux business today is dominated by EPC revenue," says the CEO. "We do have O&M revenue but this is small and relative to the EPC business. It all depends on where the demand is. For example, when we have a big project like Tuaspring and we are executing the EPC phase, the revenue from this region will dominate."Lum goes onto add: "Asia h