A life in motion
A scrolling biography told through images, milestones, turning points, and the long line that connects them.
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Born on October 25, 1975, at Gleneagles Hospital in Singapore, on the grounds of a former colonial-era hotel with the same name, The Gleneagles Hotel, my story began in a place shaped by hospitality, long before I knew it would shape me.
My time in Hong Kong became a defining chapter - living in Sai Kung, crossing into Kowloon for school, and filling the days in between with endless adventures that shaped a lasting love for the place.
Leaving Hong Kong was the first real goodbye—trading a place I loved for a new beginning in England, where everything felt both familiar and unknown.
In 1990, I arrived in America as a teenager, carrying with me a mix of excitement and anticipation for a future that suddenly felt limitless.
It's about as close to Ivy League as I ever got, but since the commencement was held at Princeton Unviersity, Is it really a lie when I tell people I graduated from Princeton?
This was the chapter where I learned as much outside the classroom as in it—and where I first stepped into hotels, discovering the path that would shape everything that followed.
Philadelphia was where everything started to feel real. My first apartment, my first real independence, and my first job in a hotel—working as a minibar attendant. It wasn’t glamorous, pushing a heavy cart down long hallways and stocking rooms one by one, but it gave me a front-row seat to how hotels actually run, and so began my career in hotels and hospitality.
Moving to New York City to join the opening team at the Mandarin Oriental, New York felt like a defining leap. It wasn’t just another job—it was the debut of the first new five-star hotel in the city in over 15 years, and I was right in the middle of it, joining as a Front Office Manager. The energy was unmatched: building something from the ground up by day, and stepping into everything NYC had to offer by night. It also marked the beginning of something I didn’t yet fully realize—a run of hotel openings that I would come to love. After Philadelphia, this felt like arrival. I had made it.
Opening project for Mandarin Oriental Tokyo in Nihonbashi. This was a fantastic experience in an amazing city.
Moving back to Hong Kong to work at the Landmark Mandarin Oriental
Back to New York and Gramercy Park Hotel
When the 2008 recession hit, I pivoted to the open seas where i worked for Royal Carribean as a GSM on Freedom of the Seas and Grandeur of the Seas
Back to New York and the opening of The Surrey Hotel on the upper east side of Manhatten
After the Surrey opening I returned to where it all started, unsure of what to do next I settled in to a brief period of uncertainty, until my life took a turn in an entirely new direction. I met my future wife and started a whole new adventure.
Back to New York and the opening of The Surrey Hotel on the upper east side of Manhatten
After the Surrey opening I returned to where it all started, unsure of what to do next I settled in to a brief period of uncertainty, until my life took a turn in an entirely new direction. I met my future wife and started a whole new adventure.
After years in hotel operations, I made the decision to pivot—leaving behind the glitz and glamour of hotels for a world of offices and cubicles. Starting over in distribution and marketing meant learning a completely new side of the business, but it opened the door to a broader, more strategic view of how hotels truly drive demand and revenue.
I came to America as a teenager, full of excitement and possibility, stepping into a future I could only imagine. Over time, through school, work, and experience, that unfamiliar place became home
