Yio has no doubt he will get his Class 2 licence at 52 because once he sets his mind to something, he never gives up (Picture: Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore)
SINGAPORE (EDGEPROP) - Simon Yio, COO of OrangeTee & Tie (OTT), had always wanted to get his motorcycle licence. “I’ve had this dream since I was 18,” he says, although he failed the riding test thrice at that age.
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When he started working, he had to put his goal of getting his licence on the back burner. But eight years ago, he made a fresh attempt and succeeded in getting his Class 2B and 2A licences.
Now, at 52, Yio is pursuing his Class 2 licence, which will allow him to ride motorcycles with an engine capacity exceeding 400cc. He has little doubt he will accomplish his goal, noting that once he sets his mind to something, he never gives up, even when it takes a longer-than-expected route to get there. “You might have to delay your plan or adjust it, but you cannot give up,” he emphasises.
This relentlessness is a cornerstone in Yio’s approach to everything in life, including his work at OTT, where he joined as a realtor more than a decade ago before subsequently carving out a career in the company’s management team.
Yio started not as a property agent but as an interior designer. At 22, he took a leap of faith and started an interior design company. “I was very naive because I thought that starting a business would be simple,” he laughs.
His journey as an entrepreneur was certainly eventful. At one point, the company prospered to the extent it had its own carpentry shop and partnerships in related businesses such as curtain-making and lighting supply. But the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 and the Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak in the early 2000s severely impacted the company.
By that time, he had already established a side career as a property agent, which he viewed as complementary to his design work. “I would help people buy or sell their properties, while also offering my ID services,” he explains.
In 2006, he decided to become a full-time realtor. Just a few years later, he would join OTT, which was then known as OrangeTee. He quickly became a team leader, amassing a team of around 250 agents in just 1½ years, which made management sit up and take notice. Not long after, he was invited by the company to join the management team.
When Yio joined management, one of his first tasks was to set up the training department, which the agency did not have at the time. Building it up from scratch, Yio established training programmes and development activities for OrangeTee agents. “It’s one of my biggest achievements,” he says.
As COO of OrangeTee & Tie, Yio (centre) plays a large role in mentoring staff and agents through his work (Picture: OrangeTee & Tie)
His other significant contribution was growing the agency’s headcount by attracting new talent to the firm. Apex Achievers Group (AAG), a division founded by Lester Tan, is now the largest in the agency.
Another recruitment coup came in 2017 when five founders from two different divisions — ERA’s Property Navigators (Navis) and Savills’ East Living Group — left their respective agencies to join OrangeTee, forming the Navis Living Group (NLG) division under the agency.
Not long after, OrangeTee announced its merger with Edmund Tie & Co (ETC) to create OTT, resulting in a salesforce of over 4,000 agents and making it the third-largest agency in Singapore.
Yio, by then OrangeTee’s director for the agency department, oversaw the integration of the incoming pool of agents as part of the management team. He celebrates the fact that through his work, OrangeTee was able to convince the majority of branch leaders under ETC to cross over, bringing their team members with them. “We got over 95% of their agents to cross over,” he says.
Today, OTT has over 3,000 agents parked under AAG. “We are trying to amalgamate everyone [under one division] so that we can move together as one team,” Yio says, adding that the company has a target of reaching a 5,000 agent headcount by 2024.
When Yio is not in the office, the avid sportsman can often be found on the golf course. “I like golf because it’s something that needs a lot of patience and skill development,” he says — a philosophy he applies to work, too.
Yio also credits his leadership skills to his involvement in sports coaching. He served as a bowling coach for over a decade, training students of various ages. Many of the values he promotes while coaching applies to the mentoring he provides in the office. “As a sportsman, you must have an excellent mindset to win any competition you are in,” he says. It is also vital to have good etiquette and sportsmanship. “We have to know how to accept things even when we experience defeat.”
In his role as COO or coach, Yio views it as his calling to be a talent builder. “I will always do my best to help my staff and mentees achieve their goals,” he surmises.
Yio, an avid sportsman, counts golf as one of his current favourite pastimes (Picture: Simon Yio)
Douglas Chew, an associate district director and agent leader at OTT, attests to Yio’s care and concern, adding: “He takes the effort to come down to most agents’ level and understanding to see what we face on the ground. Be it good or bad; he is always ready to listen.”
Sharon Han, who works under Yio as vice-president for OTT’s administrative and operations department, echoes the sentiment, adding that his never-give-up spirit rubs off on his colleagues. She says: “He is a very self-motivated, self-disciplined and self-directed person, and we have been influenced by all his virtues.”