Halogen’s management movement

The time has come for leadership renewal as Halogen Foundation Singapore reaches its 10th year mark. Martin Tan, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Halogen hands over the baton to Sean Kong, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, a promising self-starter who has trained more than 30,000 youths over the past 5 years. In this issue, we find out their thoughts on the transition process.

Interview with Martin Tan
Co-Founder and Executive Director, Halogen Foundation Singapore 

Halogen360 (H360): When did you start thinking about finding a successor? What prompted this decision?
Martin Tan (MT): About two years ago, I started the conversation with our Board about the need to prepare the organisation for the next phase of growth after our 10th year mark. Every organisation goes through key growth phases; I wanted to make sure we started to plan for Halogen’s next 10 years early. That was when we started our conversation on the need for succession planning, finding the right person and having me step down so that Halogen has a new team for a new season.

H360: What is your approach to succession planning?
MT: My approach for succession planning is very much the same as all staff hires, that is to find the best person possible and trust them to achieve great things beyond what you and they can imagine. We do not have a full-fledged fifty page paper on this but we took the necessary steps we believe to be important – to make a deliberate decision to step aside for the next generation of leaders to lead, to go all out to find the right person for the job, to induct the person early in key positional rotation so that he has an overview of the organisation, and most importantly, have them work with the rest of the team to create new synergies and camaraderie which is essential in building great teams.

H360: Why did you select Sean to be your successor?
MT: My successor must, first and foremost, be a person of good character and right values. He must possess the relevant competencies that can lead a team of highly dynamic individuals and have the ability to mobilise young people towards their own aspirations. I see all of the above criteria in him. I have confidence in his character and values and quite importantly, the youths love him. He connects with them through his wit, dry humour and at times, lame jokes (that actually works). I have seen him in action and judging by the reactions of the youths, this quality satisfies a key aspect of what we look for in the role of a CEO of Halogen. Also, as with how I have learnt through all the good and bad decisions I have made since day one of working at Halogen, Sean will also grow into managing a youth organisation.

“My successor must, first and foremost, be a person of good character and right values. He must possess the relevant competencies that can lead a team of highly dynamic individuals and have the ability to mobilise young people towards their own aspirations.” –  Martin Tan

H360: What processes did you put in to ensure a good platform for Sean to stand on?
MT: I put Sean through key rotations through the different aspects of the organization and also increased his involvement in management decisions over time. I coached him through his thought processes, and continue to spend enough time with him individually and as a management team in order to answer all the questions he has as he goes along.

H360: What is the transition process like? What are the key challenges you faced?
MT: It is almost like planning for your funeral. You think of all the things that need to be taken care of when you are no longer around. you then set in place precedence to ensure that certain thought processes are sound and ingrained. Like all transitions, the hardest part is really the chain of command. As time goes by, I slowly relinquish more and more responsibilities to Sean and quite often, the staff still come to me for decisions. It is part and parcel of the succession process and it is really up to me to make sure I refer them back to him for the final say. It is hard but it needs to be done.

H360: What is your vision for Halogen after you leave?
MT: My vision for Halogen remains the same now as when we first started: that the organisation will be a thought leader in youth leadership development around the world. We will develop young leaders who will practically change the world in issues they believe in. We must continue to innovate and create new ways of inspiring young leaders towards social change. It may be through new technologies that we dare not even dream of today. That would be an awesome future. Sean is well-placed to lead us there.

Interview with Sean Kong
Deputy CEO, Halogen Foundation Singapore 

H360: Why did you agree to take up the baton from Martin?
Sean Kong (SK): When Martin shared the vision of Halogen to me, it was very compelling. Having been in the education industry for three years, I was looking for an avenue that can produce longer-term results that is more sustainable and holistic. Being a charity, Halogen offers such a space to create this impact, as we are not driven largely by a bottom line and have the freedom to pursue other objectives.

H360: What are some key challenges you faced as you underwent the transition process?
SK: My biggest challenge is not having the knowledge of what I do not know. When I first embarked on the transition process with Martin, I did not know where to begin asking