User:Imbluey2/George Quek

George Quek is a Singaporean businessman.

George Quek
Born	George Quek Meng Tong
Alma mater	Singapore Arts Academy
Occupation	Chairman of Breadtalk Group
Known for	Singaporean businessman
Spouse	Katherine Lee Lih Leng
Children	3
Honours	Honourary PHD in business by the University of Wisconsin

Early Life

George Quek's father was a vegetable farmer and later became a seaman whilst his mother was a housewife. The family had 3 other sons and lived in an attap house in Hougang. As a child, Quek's father would instill the phrase of "no one owes you a living" to him, which would be Quek's business mantra.

Quek reportedly was "soft...and introverted" when he was young and was displeased with the discipline of his school. He was talented in art, such that he won awards from art competitions for his sketches of the rural landscape around his home. When he graduated from Xinmin Secondary School, Quek enrolled in the now-defunct Singapore Art Academy whilst working as a cable technician to pay for his school fees. He later joined the Singapore army as a regular before being being conscripted for national service, where he credited the army for 'toughening' him such that he became sergeant major after 5 years of service.

When Quek left the army, he went to work in a handicraft store in Parklane Shopping Mall, Hong Kong where he met his future wife, Katherine Lee Lih Leng, as her supervisor. He did wood carving, metal engraving, and dragon's beard candy woving during his tenure in the shop.

Business Ventures

George Quek and his wife left Hong Kong for Taiwan in 1982. Initially wanting to enroll in a prestigious Taiwanese art university, he instead found himself along with his wife selling dragon's beard candy (a novelty in Taiwan at the time) kiosk in a major Taipei shopping centre. The couple setted up the kiosk using a loan of a few thousand dollars from Quek's father, with Quek himself designing the signage and marketing the candy as "the original Chinese emperor's snack". Initially, business was slow at first but due to intensive marketing, improved presentation and price changing, the couple's business expanded within a few months to five kiosks with sales of over $240,000 a month.

Seeing his success with his dragon's beard candy business, Quek decided to introduce the Singaporean hawker dish bak chor mee to the Taiwanese market as a snack with his new business Singa (short for Singapura) in Taipei. He went back to Singapore to learn to how to make bak chor mee from local hawker before going back to Taiwan. Starting with $100,000, Quek setted up his first stall in a Taipei shopping mall. Despite working from 5 am to 10:30 pm,

External links

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