Gan Fock Wai, Stephen

Gan Fock Wai was born in Hong Kong in 1961. After attending secondary school in the Territory, he went to the UK in 1978 to complete his matriculation before studying food process engineering at Loughborough University. He returned to Hong Kong in 1984 after graduation and began working as a technical salesman at Edward Keller. There he was responsible for selling vitamin raw materials and spices to food factories and pharmaceutical companies. In early 1986, Gan Fock Wai joined Hoe Hin Pak Fah Yeow Manufactory Limited (Hoe Hin) to help manage the family business. At that time, Hoe Hin was a small company with a small 8-10 staff in the office. As such, it did not provide systematic training like Edward Keller. After joining Hoe Hin, Gan Fock Wai was initially responsible for marketing and planning simple media publicity. He also helped develop a new product – White Flower Throat Lozenge. The production for the new product was subsequently ended due to sales losses. While not heavily involved in the production, Gan Fock Wai gained invaluable insights into Hoe Hin’s operations. He later admitted that by 1990, he had lost whatever capital he had inherited from the estate of his father, Gan Geok Eng, in currency exchange speculation. As a result, he began to concentrate on developing Hoe Hin’s business. Since then, Gan Fock Wai has helped to reform and restructure the company. Overseeing its successful listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1991, he assumed the role of a listed company director. In promoting Hoe Hin’s development, Gan Fock Wai has not only helped to improve the company’s profits but also his own wealth. Over the years, Gan Fock Wai has accumulated extensive experience of Hoe Hin's marketing strategy of promoting corporate image and product image. At the same time, he played an important role in managing the company’s funds and exploring different investment projects.

Over the years, Gan Fock Wai has also participated in many community activities. Specific examples included serving as a director of Po Leung Kuk from 1986 to 1990 and as an executive committee member of Helping Hand for many years. He has also developed an amateur career in music, recording an album which did not sell well when released in 1986 or 1987. He subsequently released another album in 1994 and continued to record and participate in various music activities.
 

Gan Fock Wai has always believed that Hoe Hin’s long history has been one of its greatest strengths. Simplicity is another reason why the company’s products have a long life and sales remain good. Hoe Hin’s best-sellers include Hoe Hin White Flower Ointment, Hoe Hin Strain Relief, Fook Zai 239 and – most profitably of all – traditional Hoe Hin Pak Fah Yeow White Flower Embrocation (Pak Fah Yeow). Fewer product types ensure simpler, more streamlined management and operational procedures that offer Hoe Hin many benefits. In terms of production, the company’s warehouse does not need to maintain a vast inventory and there is no need to store different types of packaging and raw materials. When procuring raw materials, it is also easy to understand price movements. The process of buying packaging materials is equally straightforward. As production processes are also simple, manpower control is easy. In marketing, focusing on developing a product whose characteristics are well known and widely accepted greatly simplifies marketing strategy. It is also much easier to grasp market pricing. Gan Fock Wai has always been a firm believer that the many meritorious deeds Hoe Hin has done in the past helped to ensure its products enjoyed a long life. When his father Gan Geok Eng was managing Hoe Hin, the company had already actively participated in charitable activities that made many positive contributions to the community. Having learned from his father, Gan Fock Wai also took a keen interest in public welfare activities. To this day, Hoe Hin has sponsored deserving local welfare organisations with company products for many years.

Gan Fock Wai stressed that to achieve sustainable development, it was essential that Hoe Hin not only contributed to society, but also happily shouldered its social responsibility. As a result, he insisted that staff adopted eco-friendly practices in key operational areas such as production and sales. To this end, Hoe Hin did not participate in Hong Kong Product Expo for many years, considering that the booths there were made from materials which could not be recycled, resulting in creating a lot of garbage and waste. That said, Hoe Hin continued to participate in the Lunar New Year Fair since the design of its booths there was both simple and recyclable. Charity sales were also conducted from these Lunar New Year Fair, with all funds raised being donated to voluntary organisations such as the Senior Citizen Home Safety Association and the Society for Abandoned Animals. To achieve the goal of environmental protection, Hoe Hin needed to find consensus within the company. For example, Gan Fock Wai once proposed simplifying Hoe Hin’s product packaging in order to reduce waste. In doing so, he was faced with concerns that this might not be welcomed by consumers. When it came to marketing, Gan Fock Wai opposed the marketing department’s idea of running advertisements on paper pads in fast food restaurants considering such pads a waste of precious limited resources. He also suggested turning off Hoe Hin’s branded neon signs earlier in the evening to save energy. Here again, the company’s marketing department had different views from his.
 

As a child, Gan Fock Wai occasionally came to visit Hoe Hin’s Pak Fah Yeow factory. At that time, the plant was located on the third floor of the present Hennessy Centre in Causeway Bay. After the factory moved out, its floor was taken over by a department store and eventually became a food court. Pak Fah Yeow’s iconic signs can still be seen on the exterior walls of the Hennessy Centre to this date.

At that time, the production processes of Pak Fah Yeow were so simple that even a child could carry them out. The specific steps included injecting the medicated oil into bottles by syringe, immediately screwing on each bottle’s cap and then folding the printed cardboard packaging into boxes. Gan Fock Wai helped out at the factory when he was just aged 6 to 7. To make his time there more enjoyable, he turned humdrum tasks such as injecting medicated oil into bottles with a syringe into games and competed with workers to see who could fold boxes fastest.

Gan Fock Wai knew that many Hoe Hin workers retired at a very old age, but he had never heard of any of the company’s workers having occupational diseases. No matter whether the Hoe Hin factory was located in Causeway Bay or Quarry Bay, its production lines always produced a fragrance! When the plant’s windows were open, the scent would fill the neighbouring streets! Today, Hoe Hin’s plant has different clean rooms to filter odours, and has an ventilation system to purify the air. The current plant also utilises an enclosed design which stops aromas from spreading to outside the plant. As a more eco-friendly note, the plant processes waste materials according to environmental regulations and insists that all waste is recycled by waste management companies.
 

As his father, Gan Geok Eng, had to travel frequently when Gan Fock Wai was small, the boy only saw his father about twice a month. His father had more time to stay at home later and loved to hear his children recite the poems of “Awaken The World” to him. These poems were created and printed by his father with his own money and covered topics such as filial piety, brotherhood and social manners. Gan Fock Wai’s father served as the honorary president of Chung Sing Benevolent Society (CSBS) and arranged for his children to recite the “Awaken The World” poems during the celebratory activities on Mother's Day organized by CSBS. While a child, Gan Fock Wai frequently read the “Awaken The World” poems before going for further studies in the UK. Gan Fock Wai thought he had learned a lot from his father about the beauty of truth in daily living. Sadly, his father died the year before he passed his GCE A-Level examinations in the UK. As Gan Fock Wai had not received much guidance from his father as to how to run a business, he did not have a strong impression of his father’s entrepreneurial style.

Gan Fock Wai lived on Electric Road when he was child. Bearing a Hoe Hin Pak Fah Yeow sign at its entrance, the residence was small and was eventually demolished. To this day, Gan Fock Wai remembers that his father's car was an American model whose rear seats had two cushions with the Hoe Hin Pak Fah Yeow sign on them! While there were frequent violence like burning cars and planting bombs on the street during the  1967 riots, Gan Fock Wai’s father's car was spared any damage as he said the people burning cars would know he was Boss of Pak Fah Yeo when they saw the two cushions in the rear seat! Gan Fock Wai believed that the rioters’ respect for his father was because the older man had done many good deeds and was well respected by most Hongkongers.

Gan Fock Wai also remembers that Hoe Hin’s business was not affected during the 1967 riots. In those uncertain times, his family was very alarmed and was afraid of running into any unexpected parcels lying at the staircase that might be bombs, when they returned home in the evening. While the situation was vulnerable and it was dark and quiet at night, Gan Fock Wai’s mother and father continued to send rice and buns to the beggars on the streets.
 

While there are several stories about the origins of Hoe Hin’s Pak Fah Yeow formula, no one knows which – if any – is true. One version has it that the formula was handed down by the family of Gan Fock Wai’s father's first wife, Low Khoon Choo. While still a boy, Gan Fock Wai also heard different versions from his father. They included a story about getting the formula from a friend whom Gan’s father got to know on board a boat while travelling overseas to sell biscuits. Another version says that Pak Fah Yeow’s formula was passed from Gan Fock Wai’s grandfather to his father.

Over the years, Hoe Hin made very few changes to its Pak Fah Yeow formula. The formula for white flower products to be exported was modified in order to comply with the regulations and specifications of the different regions for whence it was headed. In the Colonial past when the British still ruled Hong Kong, they did not control traditional Chinese medicine and many export regions did not regulate such products. Today, Hong Kong has implemented a stringent registration system for Chinese medicines. Countries around the world have different regulations for regulating traditional Chinese herbs and natural herbal lotions, potions, creams and infusions, etc. Nowadays Hoe Hin also complies with the latest pharmacopoeia standards when procuring different natural raw materials each year. Taking lavender oil as an example, Pak Fah Yeow once used to feature synthetic lavender oil, but now complies with the latest British Pharmacopoeia standards governing the procuring of such oils. In buying natural raw materials, Hoe Hin insists on globally-recognised pharmacopoeia standards. Specific examples include the Chinese, British, U.S. and European Union Pharmacopoeias. The aim is the constant improvement of its products’ quality.

The natural raw materials that Hoe Hin uses are all purchased overseas and many factors are considered before importing into Hong Kong. Nowadays, the price of natural raw materials are very high due to many different reasons. Pollution causes climate change, affecting cultivation and leading to soring prices of many natural products. For example, when the Australian weather becomes increasingly dry, locally produced natural raw materials diminish in quantity and the prices rise. As a result, farmers prefer to grow agricultural products that are easy to sell and can make profits. To this end, they grow fewer medicinal plants such as mint, causing prices to rise due to the short supply of medicinal plants. As the prices of such plants increase, there are farmers who switch to grow medicinal plants to meet demand. Even so it may not be able to relieve the problem because it takes time for the soil to become suitable for growing medicinal plants within a short period of time. Other factors such as excessive harvesting of wild cordyceps sinensis causing desertification, affecting agricultural harvests and also pushing up the prices of natural raw materials. U.S. dollar exchange rate fluctuations, inflation, metal prices, energy charges and other factors such as the cost of producing glass bottles, plastic caps and packaging all have direct impacts on prices. Each variance has a “knock on” effect that affects prices at every stage of the production chain.

Aside from directly importing from Australian farmers, Hoe Hin generally imported raw materials through intermediary trading companies. Gan Fock Wai believed that for Hoe Hin to achieve sustainable development, it would have to put sound environmental protection measures into practice and make every effort to protect the natural raw materials. He hoped that in addition to achieving Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) compliance, Hoe Hin would also adhere to the principles of fair trade in its future sourcing of raw materials in order to protect the livelihood of the farmers who produced them.
 

Gan Fock Wai took pride in introducing GMP into Hoe Hin. Studying food engineering in the UK in the 1980s, he learned that food factories there had to achieve minimum GMP standards. Returning to Hong Kong after graduation, he began to work as a technical salesman with Edward Keller, noticing that many pharmaceutical or food factories in Hong Kong did not meet the GMP minimum. After joining Hoe Hin, Gan Fock Wai did his utmost to introduce the concept of GMP into the company. When Hoe Hin subsequently implemented Australian GMP in 1996, it was at a time when Hong Kong people knew very little about the standards.

At the beginning, Gan Fock Wai introduced GMP standards Hoe Hin step by step. It was only when the company sought to export its products to Australia and the Australian authority inspected its factory that it applied in full the GMP standard to its production management. The company hired an American engineer and moved to a new factory premise. The hardware facilities were completed upgraded to meet the GMPrequirement. In addition to upgrading its hardware, the company also attended to its software requirements. Specific examples included documentation system, testing of raw materials, production process and products as well as recycling measures should problems arise in product quality.

Gan Fock Wai believed that factories using fully manual operations could also satisfy the requirements of GMP and create no pollutants. When a factory applies machinery in production, it should clean the machinery parts thoroughtly and frequently. Otherwise the residues of raw materials left in the machines would combine with each other and produce unexpected pollutants. As Hoe Hin’s products use natural raw materials such as strong antibacterial materials like eucalyptus and lavender oil and its products are comparatively simple, production processes and quality are easy to control. Even the company adopted purely manual production processes, it seldom had the problem of producing unexpected pollutants..

To meet GMP’s requirements, Hoe Hin had to provide training for all of its workers at every level. It was the responsibility of factory manager and quality assurance manager to provide training and to remind the workers of what they had to pay attention to. For example, workers should wear sanitary caps to keep their hair from exposing in the air; after using the washroom workers had to clean their hands and apply sterilizing agents before going back to the workshops;  packets had to be discarded if they had fallen onto the floor and workers had to wash their hands again.

After obtaining GMP certification in 1996, Hoe Hin became a role model in Hong Kong, with many local schools asked for organizing visits to Hoe Hin’s factory for their students. When the Department of Health arranged visits to local pharmaceutical companies for foreign organisations and company representatives, they frequently picked the Hoe Hin plant as a point of visit. Dr. Margaret Chan, the then Director of Health had invited Gan Fock Wai to join the Chinese Medicine Council of Hong Kong after she visited Hoe Hin’s factory.
 

Gan Fock Wai was expected, particularly from his mother, to take over the Hoe Hin business. While still young, Gan Fock Wai was aware that he might one day take charge of the family business, but did not think about how he would run it while studying in the UK or working at Edward Keller. Rather than immediately joining Hoe Hin, he studied for a Bachelor’s degree in food engineering in the UK. When he later enrolled for a Master’s degree in pharmacology, he again did so with no definite plans about how to take over Hoe Hin should he become a successor. When Gan Fock Wai returned to Hong Kong after finishing his studies, he got a summer job in Edward Keller. He had worked there for one and a half years and did not started his studies for a Master’s degree. Instead he had studied for non-degree courses in various areas like Chinese medicine, pharmacology, marketing and trading in the following years.

The main reasons Gan Fock Wai joined Hoe Hin were not only to comply with his mother’s wishes, but also because he found working as a technical salesman for Edward Keller too demandingHe had to visit the badly polluted industrial areas such as Kwun Tong, Kwai Chung and Sha Tin, to promote the company’s products. When he first joined Hoe Hin, Gan Fock Wai thought the company provided him with a comfortable environment to settle down, to nurture his talent and to test out new ideas. At that time, Gan Wee Sean, who is Gan Fock Wai’s nephew and company’s managing director, allowed him to try a new product, the Hoe Hin’s White Flower Throat Lozenge. Nowadays, Gan Fock Wai was also open to let the fourth generation (Gan Wee Sean’s son) to try out new ideas.

In retrospect, Gan Fock Wai thought the longer he spent time to earn experience at the outside before joining the family business, the better it would be. Nowadays he felt he had not earned enough experience to run the company. He was not aware enough that wealth had to be accumulated rather than passing on from generations to generations. He said so because in the first few years he joined Hoe Hin, he was devoted most of his energy to foreign exchange speculation and lost the entire estate his father had left him. Gan Fock Wai believed that when working in one’s own family business, it was easy to become lazy and lack discipline. Working for one’s family also makes people reluctant to learn as they are likely to be at high positions and the company staff seldom confronted the family members even when they were wrongful.
 

Keeping products looking and feeling young remains Gan Fock Wai’s core principle in developing Hoe Hin’s products to this day. In his early days, Gan Fock Wai had developed some new products, but none was very successful. As a result, he thought that prolonging the life of existing products was a far more solid foundation for the future than investing a lot of resources in developing new and therefore untried products. In addition to promoting the image of Hoe Hin’s brands and establishing stable sales channels, Gan Fock Wai set out to raise the standard of the company’s entire production process. His aim was to ensure a good product quality that would prolong the life of both the company and its products.

When it came to sales channels, Hoe Hin used to have eight wholesalers who directly distributed its products in the local market. As a result, the company earned more profits because it did not have to pay intermediaries. Each of these wholesalers was a large pharmacy. Many of them had ceased operation when the proprietors grew old. Today, only a few like Chung Ching Dispensary are still operating. Hoe Hin now uses DKSH Hong Kong Limited (DKSH) as its sole distributor locally. Gan Fock Wai felt that DKSH worked well and had developed a successful, comprehensive marketing strategy for Hoe Hin products. With the markets changing over the time, there are now a variety of outlets selling medicines in Hong Kong. Apart from drug stores, people could buy medicines from supermarkets, convenience stores and personal care shops. It is difficult for Hoe Hin to manage different types of sales outlets and not efficient to rely on a number of distributors. It has now become much simpler and easier to let a single distributor to manage the entire sales operation. As a result, although DKSH’s distribution charged higher costs for marketing, it remains more cost-effective for Hoe Hin to use them to handle the local distribution of its products.

Hoe Hin’s sales network in Hong Kong has always been comprehensive and its distribution strategy continues to be based on the interests of both large and smaller-sized chain stores, pharmacies and herbal shops. In doing so, the company has been careful to avoid letting a few merchants monopolise the sales ofPak Fah Yeow products. Gan Fock Wai says that the company wants shops and pharmacies of whatever size could survive and sell Hoe Hin products. Aside from large chain stores, Hoe Hin’s distributor must also take care of pharmacies of every size. Hoe Hin carefully controls the sales ratio at specific sales outlets and has in place different strategies to balance them out in cases some larger stores exceed the set percentage.

With regard to the brand image, Hoe Hin has long used different promotion methods such as aromatherapy, celebrity endorsers, music and medicinal functions. The company recently launched a trailblazing series of “Go! Go! Go!”-themed ads that show its products’ wide range of applications among users of different nationalities. Hoe Hin also continues to use various products to sponsor different functions such as Cantonese operas, operas, young people's concerts, sports, online games, product expos and charity events. The use of a variety of promotional media ensures that each type of Hoe Hin products image can reach every level of society. Music is often used to make brands look and feel more appealing to younger consumers. Gan Fock Wai himself was a keen singer and contributed vocals to songs such as “Go Fly” and “Love 80 Years More” that won Hoe Hin’s image a place in the hearts of a younger target audience. His efforts proved so successful that even primary school students knew how to sing “Love 80 Years More”! When he recently gave a series of talks at local universities, Gan Fock Wai was delighted to find that university students still loved Hoe Hin products. In addition to Pak Fah Yeow, the students’ top favourites included “Fuzai 239”. At the other end of the age scale, Hoe Hin is tackling the many problems old folks face with their joints by launching the targeted Hoe Hin Strain Relief product.

In the past, Hoe Hin’s overseas marketing was done by the local agents there. As each agent promotes Hoe Hin in different ways, Hoe Hin products had different images in different markets. Hoe Hin now requires that local agents had to adopt the Hong Kong approach with a few local features in designing the promotion and advertising plans. When marketing overseas, Hoe Hin has always stressed that its products are manufactured here in Hong Kong, to gain users’ confidence of the source of ingredients. In addition, Hoe Hin is also concerned about brand image. While Hoe Hin products in more mature markets such as the US and Canada are not considered expensive, they are viewed as being  pricy, high-end goods in developing countries such as China and other Southeast Asian countries. Gan Fock Wai has always believed that a brand represents the value of a product. A product with a history has higher value. This is especially true to Chinese pharmaceutical products because a long history means the brands are effective and safe and the company who makes them is trustworthy and reliable. Besides drug resistance seldom happens to products made from well established formulas. For Chinese pharmaceutical products with a long history like Pak Fah Yeow, they were sold at a higher price than newer brands.
 

In 2000, there were no Chinese medical hospitals in Hong Kong. As a result, once he had completed his Chinese medicine studies here, Gan Fock Wai sent Hoe Hin’s products to the Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine for clinical examination. The aim was to obtain verification from an authoritative independent institution of the effectiveness of the products. The preliminary results of these clinical tests indicated that Pak Fah Yeow had a highly efficacious curative effect on wind-heat, headaches and nasal congestions. Sending Hoe Hin’s products to scientific tests not only helped the product to gain recognition, but also showing to the younger generations that Chinese medicines are susceptible to scientific tests. This helps users to understand the curative effect of Hoe Hin Pak Fah Yeow from a new perspective. It also enables Hoe Hin to promote and develop its products based scientific evidence.

When it came to developing new products, Gan Fock Wai admits that he and the company had different philosophies. Before launching a new product, Hoe Hin first carried out extensive toxicological tests, usually on animals. Hoe Hin had conducted such tests when it launched its Hoe Hin Strain Relief product and also in the year it began exporting Pak Fah Yeow to Canada. At the beginning, Gan Fock Wai had no objections to animal tests, but over the years he had learned that animals also had a right to life. Knowing that any animals used for skin tests would be killed after the tests , he began opposing these tests. At one point, he stopped developing new products and even refused to read company documents relating to animal tests. In the system of Registration of Proprietary Chinese Medicines in Hong Kong, traditional medicines only required temporary registration and did not need to pass toxic examination. Because of this, Gan Fock Wai focused on developing Hoe Hin products that had a long history and did not have to go through any toxic tests, so that he would not have to do any tests that might hurt small animals.

Hoe Hin had particular designs in product packaging to attract different groups of customer. For products which used to have a good sale record, Hoe Hin kept the original packaging design that loyal consumers were well familiar with. Pak Fah Yeow’s floral scented variants were rebranded and repackaged into the “Fuzai 239” to attract the younger consumers. As the company’s floral scented series only had a history of 10 to 20 years, its change in packaging had little adverse effect on sales.
 

In the old days, Gan Fock Wai’s father had good connection with many Cantonese opera artists and movie stars such as Sun Ma Sze Tsang, Chan Po Chu and Wu Fung. He even pledged brotherhood with top film directors who were happy to allow Pak Fah Yeow billboards to appear in their movies, as a way to promote the product brand. Back then, a lot of Cantonese opera artists and movie stars loved using Hoe Hin products. Those who are still alive today remain very supportive to Pak Fah Yeow. In the 1970s, Hoe Hin invited Teresa Teng to serve as Hoe Hin’s Charity Queen. Teresa was about 17 years old at that time and had just come to Hong Kong for further development not long after she started her career in entertainment. Gan Fock Wai knew Teresa well and the two young people had played table tennis together when Gan was in Primary Five and Six. Gan Fock Wai thought his father had a very good business mind and used a lot of progressive ideas to successfully transform a simple medicated oil into a best-selling brand.

In order to successfully market Hoe Hin products such as Pak Fah Yeow, Gan Fock Wai began trying out new ways of promotion. To this end, he put more emphasis on repositioning Pak Fah Yeow as a multi-purpose product whose usefulness went far beyond that of regular pharmaceuticals. In expanding its uses, Gan Fock Wai explained that if Pak Fah Yeow was marketed as a medicine, people would use it every time they felt unwell because of headaches, mosquito stings or insect bites. Going beyond a purely pharmaceutical positioning, Gan Fock Wai told people that Hoe Hin’s star product could be used to refresh the complexion, relieve emotional tension and even soothe heat stroke or dizziness while one waited for the bus or did the Christmas shopping! In Hong Kong, Hoe Hin had registered Pak Fah Yeow as a proprietary Chinese medicine. While it focused on the product’s extensive applications in its promotional efforts, the company never exaggerated its curative effects. Gan Fock Wai hoped to expand the uses of the brand so that consumers would pop a bottle in their purse or pocket to take with them for their own use or even help others while out and about. Examples of the latter type of usage could include giving some Pak Fah Yeow to a stranger in the street who was feeling discomfort or heat stroke. Emphasising such versatility was a sure way of helping to increase sales.

Gan Fock Wai describes that he had inherited his father's practice of never forgetting to convey a positive message in Hoe Hin’s promotional materials. About 10 years ago, Hoe Hin launched a series of TV commercials which were on show immediately before the news reports on two free-to-air local TV stations. Each day Hoe Hin sent a message featured a slightly different jingle such as “Letting Go Is Happiness”. The company also sponsored 13 episodes of Commercial Radio Hong Kong’s popular Spiritual Environmentalism programme. Occasionally, Gan Fock Wai hosted the show himself, inviting different guests to share uplifting spiritual stories and their wise advice about life.

Many years ago, Gan Fock Wai served as the lead singer on popular Hoe Hin commercials, such as “Go Fly”. Four years ago he returned to the recording studio to record “Love 80 Years More” to celebrate Hoe Hin’s 80th anniversary. Beginning in the 1980s, Gan Fock Wai had released several albums, initially singing for fun. He later learned to love music even more and began using it to convey positive messages. In last  Lunar New Year Fair, Gan Fock Wai sold an album called “Music Recycle” to raise charity funds for Friends of the Earth. The album mainly featured him re-singing old songs aimed at reminding fans to recycle and reuse. The song “Go! Go! Go!” was intended to convey a message about the environment. Gan Fock Wai later planned to record a new album on behalf of the Society for Abandoned Animals to help call for the better protection of animals.
 

Gan Fock Wai admitted that he had changed a lot in the way of thinking since he first joined Hoe Hin at a young age. Back then, he was eager to show off himself and his abilities. After he lost a lot of money from speculating on the foreign exchange market, he began to commit himself to making Hoe Hin a listed company and improving the company’s performance. This had brought him a good sense of achievement. Then as now, he recognized the contribution of every staff in the company. Today, Gan Fock Wai no longer thinks so high of his status in the company and becomes more aware of environment protection. For example, he regards advertising by neonlight signboard as a waste of energy. He also proposed to banish shark fin from the menu in Hoe Hin’s annual dinner or the feast meeting to entertain trading partners. Gan Fock Wai wants to earn more income so that he can work for his passions to protecting marine life and donate money to deserving voluntary organisations and charitable projects locally and overseas. Today, Gan Fock Wai is delighted that Hoe Hin has minimised waste in most of its operations. He now looks forward to the day when the company can be even more eco-friendly by further reducing product packaging.

Gan Fock Wai is a Buddhist who tries to apply the religious philosophy in running Hoe Hin. To this end, he respects all forms of life and has tried to convince the company from using animals in toxic tests. In encouraging Hoe Hin to undertake better practices for environmental protection and to eagerly show its corporate responsibilities, he hopes these will gain merits for Hoe Hin and help to reduce social inequalities. Gan Fock Wai believes that staff should be trained to be careful and remain alert in their work so as to avoid making mistakes. He also feels that Hoe Hin needs to take more lightly its past achievements, its history and its mistakes, so as to move forward and to do what it has to do presently.
 

In the past, Hoe Hin was a family business. When Gan Fock Wai’s father, Gan Geok Eng, founded the company, the board of directors was formed by many family members including Gan Fock Wai’s mother and sister. Gan Fock Wai remembers that as no family member was ever involved in Hoe Hin’s daily operation, some family members got paid without doing any actual work. After the company became a listed company in 1991, Gan Fock Wai and Gan Wee Sean were the only Gan family members left on Hoe Hin’s board of directors. Now that the company is no longer a family business, the shareholders are the bosses of the company while Gan Fock Wai is the executive director managing the day-to-day operation of the company. Gan Fock Wai sees himself as just another employee of the company whose job is to make money for the shareholders.

Gan Fock Wai believes that there is no need to retain the family culture in Hoe Hin’s present development. Pak Fah Yeow, for example, had already been registered as a proprietary Chinese medicine so its formula was made public and was no longer a secret. For this reason, its blending no longer needed to be carried out by a Gan family member for it to be accurately done. As long as there are no errors in the blending procedures and production systems, and the employees are adequately rewarded, the company can run well by mutual monitoring based on common sense .

Gan Fock Wai still holds a management position in Hoe Hin, insisting that environmental protection and social responsibility are the company’s corporate goals. He feels that as Hoe Hin is very stable in respect of operation, sales and property rental income, it is unlikely that there will be any sudden, major expansion in the future. Gan Fock Wai is staying with Hoe Hin to ensure that the company continues to adhere to the corporate values of environmental protection and social responsibility. If Hoe Hin employs another chief executive officer to manage Hoe Hin and changes its corporate policy just to increase profits, Gan Fock Wai thinks he will withdraw from the company.

Gan Fock Wai is responsible for several major investment projects of Hoe Hin, and feels stressful about this job . Gan Fock Wai believes that in trying to earn more profits for Hoe Hin, he may become too agreesive and made bad investment decisions. Today, he often reminds himself that Hoe Hin’s investment strategy need not be too aggressive, as security and stability are the most important factors in wealth accumulation step by step.