At 16, I worked as a cashier during the school holidays and quickly realised how much went on behind the scenes to make a restaurant run seamlessly. I also began to notice that families were not just coming to Yum Cha to eat. They were celebrating, meeting relatives and creating memories around the table.
Today, Yum Cha is 26 years old and my focus is on taking that heritage forward. While we care about the craft of dim sum and Chinese dining traditions, preserving tradition does not mean keeping everything the same. We have to find new ways for the next generation to connect with it.
That is why we have expanded beyond our restaurants in Chinatown and Changi into catering and OEM, while creating experiences like Mahjong Social Fridays. My role today is asking what a 26-year-old brand can become next without losing what people have always loved about it.
Our restaurants will always be at the heart of Yum Cha, but we see significant potential in areas such as OEM and catering, the latter which was introduced last year. These two business verticals have grown to contribute around 10 to 15 per cent of our overall revenue, and we expect that to reach about 20 per cent by the end of 2026.
Catering, in particular, has made us think about how far the Yum Cha experience can travel. We can bring dim sum to homes, offices, weddings, and events while retaining the quality, presentation, and sense of occasion. There is an opportunity to share this part of Chinese food culture more widely, beyond the restaurant itself.
Outside Yum Cha, I also lead JC Packer’s System, my family’s interior fit-out business, which I joined in 2018. It was a very different world from F&B — highly technical and traditionally male-dominated. I went into it knowing there was a great deal I had to learn. It taught me to be comfortable asking questions, seeking advice, and relying on people with deeper expertise than my own. Running two very different businesses has broadened the way I think about leadership, people, and growth, and taught me that you don’t have to know everything to lead well.”
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