Eeleen Tan is the Chief of Global Expansion at Ninja Van and is accountable for Ninja Van’s growth across all operating markets. She plays a lead role in creating alignment across business units, countries, and regions in order to optimize resource allocation and jump-start innovation. In her role, she balances up the urgency of Ninja Van’s business demands with the strategic focus to build long-term sustainability.

KrASIA (Kr): Hi Eeleen, what has been the most rewarding part of leading the charge on global expansion? What has been the most challenging? 

Eeleen Tan(ET): One of the most rewarding experiences is seeing Ninja Van grow from a one-city operation based in Singapore to a regional logistics giant with a presence in almost every city, town, province, or village across Southeast Asia. It’s not just about growing our network but also how we’ve managed to effectively change and improve people’s lives by allowing equal access to e-commerce opportunities, allowing even villagers to be a part of the global digital evolution through the buying and selling of goods online across Southeast Asia. This amazing progress is all thanks to our Ninjas in Singapore and across the region, and it’s truly inspiring in what we achieve as a team when we set our minds to it.

Of course there will always be challenges. The biggest one for me has to be juggling between keeping in mind our broad-based solutions and approaches to our regional operations and looking at problems through the eyes of a local. People across Southeast Asia value convenience and hassle-free solutions, and that commonality is shared among all countries. We need to translate that into on-the-ground solutions, that’s where we can’t afford a one-size-fits-all approach.

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