Charles Tan Chia Lih, DTM

Relevant work experience and how it relates to Toastmasters and your role as a Board Member:

In his 26 years of corporate experience, Charles has helmed numerous roles across multiple disciplines including in sales, business development, B2B marketing, B2C marketing, customer experience, customer success, C-Level in a SME and his current role is in regional learning and development. His experience were gained in multi-national companies from Japan, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia. With a diverse experience, Charles could add value to the Board by sharing his knowledge and skills gained with other Board Members.

In his present role, he is the Regional Learning and Development Manager of Seek, a global leader operating in the recruitment and employment services sector. He strategizes the development and deployment of unique training programs for employees in 6 countries and leads the training and the instructional design team.

For the past 2 years, he led his team from different countries to train over 1,400 employees of all levels from the six countries. This experience will enable him to provide a real-life and current perspective to the Board focused on Toastmaster International’s envisioned future as the first-choice provider of dynamic, high-value, experiential communication and leadership skills development organisation.

What experience do you have in strategic planning?

3 years ago, the current organization started a transformation program to unify all the teams. Charles was involved with the planning for learning programs. It was unprecedented as it was the first time that this is attempted for the organization which was then operated separately. Charles played a critical role in identification and validation of outcomes of the learning program prior to the development of all the relevant modules.

Charles has three start-up experience where he had to strategically plan for the business continuity of the organizations. For example, there was one which was deciding whether or not to close down the branch office due to business potential. Charles provided the inputs to the management of the different possibilities. Another one was strategically planning for a transformation of a small local business to become a dominant business in the region it was operating in.

What experience do you have in the area of finance?

Charles was running offices and held the P&L for the offices when he was the Head of Northern and then Southern Malaysia for PropertyGuru. Academically, Charles has a business degree and an MBA and has taken numerous finance related modules such as Corporate Finance and Financial Accounting.

What experience do you have in developing policies?

When Charles was the chief operating officer for a local start-up in Malaysia, he drafted policies and procedures for the organization because there were none at that time. When he was running the offices for PropertyGuru, he also drafted sales incentives policies.

What lessons did you learn from previous leadership positions?

Leadership is a privilege, and it is earned.
I learnt that influencing effectively is by far more long lasting than using authority. The former meant acceptance leading to willingness and thus less need for constant monitoring. The latter meant compliant and this will require a never-ending monitoring because the team did not do it because they understood and agreed but because they received orders.

Diversity is to be cherished and a source of strength.
As the regional leader for a team from different countries, background and cultures, I learnt that one size does not fit all. A leader must have the self-awareness to know one has limitations and be open enough to accept different opinions because this will lead to new learnings for the person and the team.

Inclusion and not division.
As a leader of the team, there must not be ‘my team’ and ‘their team.’ There is only one team and a leader should do best to pull everyone together so that teamwork creates dreamwork. It is never easy but we should never start on the wrong foot by only being nice only to our own team while ignoring the others.

What experience and key strengths would you bring to the Board of Directors?

As I have held roles across multiple disciplines including in sales, business development, B2B marketing, B2C marketing, customer experience, customer success, C-Level in a SME and current role as a regional learning and development manager, I bring a wide range of knowledge and skills gained over the past 26 years to the Board.

These experience and skills were gained from multi-national companies from Japan, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia and thus I also bring into the Board how differences could be managed to become a course of strength and need not always be seen as more work or problem.

Key strengths I bring into the Board include Situational-Awareness. Working with people of different countries, cultures, age groups and position levels has helped me gain the ability to be more self-aware and I think this is a key strength I bring into the Board of people from different backgrounds.

I also bring into the Board the Collaboration Skills which I have gained through working with people of diverse backgrounds. I am able to work with people with different personalities and have gained lots of understanding of inter-cultural differences and sensitivities. As an example, trying to achieve the same outcome with two teams from different countries may require different approach.

Why do you want to serve as an International Officer/Director?

After spending over 19 years in Toastmasters and over 26 years in the corporate world, I believe it is an opportunity to combine all these learnings from my Toastmasters’ journey and corporate experience and skills into a role which will have a bigger impact on how Toastmasters program could become a brand synonymous with the best provider of dynamic, high-value, experiential communication and leadership skills development organization.

More importantly, I am looking forward to continuing my growth in my leadership journey while at the same time performing a role with a noble cause; improving lives for the better when they improve their communication and leadership abilities. I would love to work with the board on strategies which could help lay the foundation for Toastmasters for the next 100 years.

What volunteer experience do you have outside of Toastmasters?

I am part of the core team for my university alumni association and we organize events which helps to prepare new students as they start their studies and for the alumni members, an opportunity to network and build potential new connections.

I have also volunteered to be a career counselor and resume review in my current organization where I help anyone who likes some advice on their career or to better their resumes.

I have spoken in many university campus events helping the students be ready for the working world when they graduate.

Have you worked with other Boards of Directors outside of Toastmasters? If so, describe your experience.

No I have not.

In your opinion, what are Toastmasters International’s major objectives and how would you work to achieve them?

In my opinion, there are four areas of focus when it comes to Toastmasters International’s major objectives,

They include Club Excellence, Member Achievement, Awareness and Engagement and Operational Effectiveness. We must achieve these objectives while staying true to our values which are Integrity, Respect, Service, and Excellence.

In order to achieve our objectives, I would first engage all Board Members to understand the reasons why these objectives are critical and important. Discovery is very important to allow me and the other Board Members to strategize and decide on the urgency and how much effort, time and budget we may want to allocate to the objectives.

Once I have a better understanding of the big picture from the Board Members, I could then propose potential strategic approaches for some areas which the Board may then decide which could be the one(s) which I could lead or working closely with other Board Members as I / we build the methodology to achieve the objectives.

When I have the finalized methodologies, I could then propose potential tactical strategies which could now form the basis of how we could operationalize our approach. These potential tactical strategies will include measurements and evaluation so that we are able to know if we are on track or need adjustments along the way.

Additional information about candidate:

Charles has already obtained approval from his home minister also known as wife for this 2-year assignment if he is elected.

Charles has a good sense of humor and subscribes to the belief that when we enjoy what we do, we will be passionate and do our best.