RMS Marine & Offshore Service’s Gabriel Hong receives the Executive of the Year accolade at the SBR Management Excellence Awards 2022

The managing director’s people-centred and visionary approach led to the profitable growth of the business across talent development, new businesses, and operational excellence.

Taking over the role as the General Manager at the age of 31 right before the onset of COVID and accelerating to Managing Director in 2021, Gabriel steered the company’s direction towards a clear and defined five-year strategy. Within a short span of three years of spearheading the company, the company has more than doubled its revenue to $70m SGD and has seen profitable growth. Despite inheriting a host of legacy issues that needed immediate and strenuous attention, most of the milestones in his five-year strategy are on track and or have been achieved ahead of time.

In 2019, the company has ship chandlering as its only core business. Gabriel seeks further business expansion by looking at synergies in its vertical and horizontal supply chain. Gabriel elevated the company’s resilience by creating a total of 7 key business revenues whilst weathering the Covid challenges. RMS Singapore now prides and commits themselves to be a one-stop marine service provider, which includes Ship Chandlering, Marine Agency, Safety, Engineering, Logistic, Spare Parts and Dry Dock Support.

In light of his esteemed achievements, Gabriel has been awarded the prestigious “Executive of the Year—Marine Services Award” in the recently concluded Singapore Business Review Management Excellence Awards.

The awards program recognises excellent executives, innovators, and teams, as well as HR and company initiatives that promote the well-being of employees.

In granting this award, the judging panel considered three major achievements. First is talent development across the organisation such as yellow ribbon projects, education sponsorships, and graduate management programmes. Second is fastest growth in sales amongst peers with over 250% increase. The third is participation in industry projects and making sure Singapore’s tertiary education stays relevant by sitting on the NYP supply chain industry panel board of advisors.

Established in 2015, RMS Marine & Offshore Service (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. specialises in providing reliable and responsive marine services to its customers. With strong support from their headquarters and parent company in Shanghai, Singapore plays an important hub port office amongst RMS's other existing offices in China, Korea, and Rotterdam.

The company’s rapid revenue growth and having costs controlled in an inflationary environment are largely attributed to his strategy which places a strong focus on its people, customers, and growth in its supply chain. 

Gabriel has also established a cohesive management team and a working environment where ideas can form and thrive. With the success of a very driven and talented management team, they continue to find ways to reinvent traditions. 

The dynamism in the team coupled with the strong foundation laid has fueled their business growth tremendously and propelled RMS Singapore into becoming one of the fastest-growing marine service providers with profitable growth. With an increased bottom line, the company takes absolute pride in sharing its achievements with all staff by sharing back its net profit with them each year, in addition to annual bonuses and rewards.

Not only has Gabriel kept his promise to his employees that their jobs would be safe during the COVID uncertainty, but he has also increased the number of employees from 58 to over 120, with career paths laid out and staff satisfaction as a top priority.

Gabriel is a strong advocate for giving back to society and has enacted an active corporate and social responsibility outlook by working closely with many charities. RMS plays an active role in the yellow ribbon projects by giving ex-offenders employment opportunities in their organisation. According to Gabriel, some have excelled and are already playing key roles in the organisation. 

Apart from this, Gabriel also provides education sponsorships to local tertiary institutions such as the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) and Nanyang Polytechnics (NYP) to continue developing the next generation of talents in the marine industry. Gabriel sits on the board of NYP’s supply chain management industry panel to provide industrial advice and to validate that Singapore’s tertiary education stays relevant to the ever-changing business landscape. RMS Singapore has now fully funded several of their employees' diplomas through work and study schemes with ITE, as well as numerous scholarships and bursaries for the NYP School of Business. He has also worked with the NYP School of Business to give industry and business challenges for the students to propose ideas to solve as part of their curriculum.  

At the end of it all, Gabriel commented that his greatest gratification is being able to build a successful business and bless the employees and the community during this journey. “Our efforts to groom the next wave of leaders also mean that our future success is secured, and this journey will continue for many more years to come.”

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].