Eaton’s Jimmy Yam wins top award for successful business growth in East Asia

His leadership led to Eaton's record 22% revenue growth in 2021.

By capitalising on the global growth trends of electrification and digitalisation, Eaton is helping accelerate the planet’s transition to renewable energy.

Eaton, an intelligent power management company, is guided by its commitment to doing business right, operating sustainably, and helping its customers manage their use of power.

At the helm of Eaton is Jimmy Yam, its current Vice President for East Asia, who joined the company in August 2016. He is an accountant by training and is armed with over 25 years of experience managing leading technology organisations such as Dell, EMC, and NEC.

Under his leadership, Eaton accomplished industry innovations and significant breakthroughs across its electrical business in East Asia amidst the 2018 financial crisis and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

This includes clinching the region’s first containerised energy storage system project, introducing the first data centre lithium-ion battery installation in Singapore, and capturing nearly 50% of the nation’s hyperscale data centre market from an almost zero market share.

Eaton has added new employees and expanded its regional team by 10% since January 2020 to maintain momentum during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jimmy made bold decisions to re-establish Eaton’s leadership in specific segments and build up sales and support teams to fuel the company’s growth, all whilst navigating the organisation through commodity inflation, material shortages, and logistical constraints.

Jimmy actively drove regular communications across the region to ensure that people remain connected and well-supported amidst continued remote working and lockdowns, and he continued to invest in building people and strengthening Eaton’s growing teams.

To bolster employee safety and wellbeing during the pandemic, Jimmy championed various internal communications, development, and wellness initiatives across the region, ranging from leader workshops and inclusion and diversity programs to CSR team bonding activities.

He also pushed for talent development initiatives, such as the Early Career Roundtable and the APAC Digital Accelerator Program, allowing Eaton to continue building on past successes.

For these efforts, Eaton was given the Executive of the Year - Power Technology award in the recently concluded Singapore Business Review Management Excellence Awards.

The awards program honours Singapore's most outstanding leaders for their hard work and dedication that has resulted in tangible contributions to their businesses. It also honours employee engagements and COVID management initiatives that made a positive impact on its workforce or customers.

In granting the award, the judging panel took into consideration three significant achievements of Jimmy as a top executive of the company who helped Eaton achieve its current success. First is that he was able to re-establish Eaton’s leadership in the East Asia data centre segment over three years, capturing nearly 50% of the hyperscale market share from the ground up.

Second is that the team size grew by 33% over the past five years by attracting and nurturing industry talents to support Eaton’s mission and transform the industry. Lastly, the company gained over US$100 million in incremental revenue by making bold decisions to invest in specific sectors and rallying the team around a renewed purpose.

In totality, Jimmy was able to put his vision to work, navigate challenges brought on by the pandemic, and ultimately set Eaton on the path for future growth in the East Asia region.

The SBR Management Excellence Awards is presented by Singapore Business Review Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2023 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company's employee engagements and management initiatives, please contact Julie Anne Nuñez at [email protected].