Life Philosophies That Illuminate the Path Forward
“To be happy and content.” These are the values that have guided Freddy’s philosophy to life and shaped the way he works and play. Finding joy in the simple pleasures in life, Freddy enjoys listening to music across all genres and is an avid music CD collector in his free time to help him take a step back to clear his mind after all the hustle from the day’s work.
Since a young age, Freddy has always faced challenges with gusto – building his mental and physical resilience. When he was barely a teenager, at 11 years old, Freddy seized an opportunity to shift to Singapore to continue his education, living away from the comforts and safety of home and family.
Outside of work, Freddy also challenges himself with an ambitious goal of completing a marathon within two hours and recently has completed a 50min 10km and 22min 5km run.
Freddy’s ability to challenge himself while keeping team morale high with his jovial personality has shaped his leadership style. In his role as an Infrastructure Managed Services Lead for Cloud Op at NCS, Freddy manages platform providers and operators of the Government Private Cloud Services as well as the managed services teams working on public commercial cloud on the public sector platform and enterprise public cloud for key NCS customers. He brings that same spirit and can-do attitude into how his leads his team to success. While it might be a cliché to some, but for Freddy, work is not just a job but something that he truly enjoys.
Turning problems into learning opportunities
Being at NCS for almost two decades, Freddy has had the privilege to be part of the NCS’s evolution into the technology consultancy and innovation hub it is today. Coupled with his experience of leading a 200-strong team at a Japanese-multinational technology conglomerate in Singapore, it has added even more depth to his experience, weaving in learnings into the way he works and leads his team at NCS.
The IT industry landscape has evolved significantly over the last few years, calling for greater flexibility and adaptability to create solutions at speed. This has not deterred Freddy, but rather, set his gears into high motion. He feels that it is important to be constantly learning, evolving, and formulating contingencies to match this speed of innovation – an expectation he holds for his team and himself.
While technology and automation are being increasingly integrated into our lives, Freddy is a strong proponent of customer-centricity. Being able to understand the real issues that customers are facing before creating solutions that address their pain points should be a central pillar for problem solvers.
To gain a better perspective on the issues he needs to solve, Freddy likes to take a step back to get a sense of all the potential problem areas that could crop up. In fact, as someone who believes in a flat hierarchy, he values the opinions of his peers and juniors for a diversity of viewpoints. Armed with foresight and perspectives, Freddy and his team are able to navigate around most challenges that arise. By being able to provide a strong and secure infrastructure base for innovations to be built upon, Freddy is excited to see all of these huge transformations unfold in front of him on the daily.
Looking to the Tech Talent of Tomorrow
Despite his seniority and experience, Freddy is still very much guided by one key attribute when working with his team or finding solutions for our connected world. He leads with a servant leadership mindset.
From guiding and nurturing his team to unlock their potential and enabling them to perform at their highest levels to having his ears on the ground to understand challenges first-hand in order to create solutions that can bridge the gaps when it comes to cloud infrastructure. Freddy believes that there is no substitute to rolling up his sleeves and leading by example.
As he continues navigating the dynamic technology landscape, Freddy hopes to serve as a mentor to the next generation of NCS members family and play a part in shaping them into leaders in the technology space. With much unrealised potential in using technology for good, Freddy has faith in the next generation to bring NCS and the wider industry to even greater heights.