Kanna Karmegam, the Club’s Operations Director, is less than a year old at the job, but is well on his mission from the get-go to familiarise himself and also excel in his new surroundings.
Kanna has about 14 years of experience in the hospitality industry, having cut his teeth at a few luxury hotels, including the Park Hotel Group, M Hotel Singapore and Paradox Singapore Merchant Court. This is his first at a member-focused marina club, but the decision to move away from the very corporate and genteel hotel atmosphere was a conscious choice. “I have always liked hospitality,” he ventures, adding that it feeds his love for travel, culture and people. But “it came to a point where I do not know what I don’t know”, he says about the hotel industry with mysterious profundity.
The Kanna of today, who is certain of his career direction, is, by his own admission, a far cry from his younger days. “I didn’t know what to do with my life—as most of us. So I was doing all kinds of odd jobs,” he laughs. This included being a fish deliveryman for supermarkets and a stint with Cisco. It was at the latter that he realised that he was far from the career of his dreams—a fire that was ignited by the complacent contentment of his colleagues.
“The late Abdul Kalam, Indian aerospace scientist, statesman and former President, once said: ‘A dream is not that which you see while sleeping. It is something that does not let you sleep.’ It really spoke to me,” adds Kanna.
He toyed with the idea of opening a bar with his friend in search of that dream, but decided to gain a degree first on his brother’s advice. As the entrepreneurial venture didn’t sit well in the young graduate’s list of “calculated risks”, Kanna jumped head-on into his hospitality career, beginning with Park Hotel Clarke Quay. He quickly moved up the ranks within the hotel and others—from a bellman as a trainee, to Head of Department, to Director of Rooms, to his current role at the Club.
Kanna stepped foot into ONE°15 Marina Sentosa Cove for the first time in 2016 to attend his friend’s wedding. “I was at level three, and I recall looking around and thinking that the place was really ‘next level’—whoever owns this place was doing an amazing job,” he says. “I had no idea then that I would be working here.”
It wasn’t, however, purely happenstance; he willed it, through positive thinking. Looking back, he realises that it has always worked for him—for instance, as a trainee at Park Hotel Clarke Quay, he longed to work in the CBD and found himself soon transferring to Grand Park City Hall. “I am a great believer in the law of attraction; I believe that when the thing you desire is at the back of your mind, it materialises whether you consciously act on it or not,” he explains. “It has always worked like that for me. I was just thinking that hotel life was becoming monotonous and then a career at the Club opened up for me.”
Kanna credits his father for his attitude and ability to see the positive side of a bad situation. He recalls several incidents from his childhood when his father openly embraced life’s adversities and turned them into learning opportunities for Kanna and his brother. “How those incidents play into me right now is the way I look at challenges. I believe there is no challenge or problem that cannot be solved. It all depends on how you approach it. That is my endgame.”
This mindset has helped him tremendously throughout his hospitality career, especially when resolving guests’ issues. He makes it a point to always hear the guest out, rather than rush to quell the discontentment. This chat over coffee, lunch or even a beer invariably ends with Kanna learning more about the guest and their realisation that the issue was more of a concern than a complaint.
“All that guests want is to be seen and heard,” says Kanna and that is the mantra he works by for Members as well. “I always tell my front desk personnel that whenever a Member or guest approaches them to drop whatever they are doing and look the Member in the eye and first ask how they are doing. It’s a simple gesture but makes a big difference.”
Kanna also believes that his varied early work experiences—pre-hospitality— exposed him to people of different cultures and backgrounds, and have helped ground him, making him the team leader that he is today.
He recalls another valuable lesson the bell captain at Park Hotel Clarke Quay imparted to him as a trainee. “Here I was a sprightly graduate ready to take on the world, but he put me in my place. He said: ‘You’re a trainee right now, and you are listening to me. One day, you could become my boss, but it’s not until the time that I willfully listen to you that you will become a leader.’”
Kanna takes that to heart, more so in a Club atmosphere to ensure he is relatable to Members of all cultures and boaters equally. Being in charge of six departments including ONE°15 Charters Luxury Yachting, which is a new domain for him—he walks the talk with his team, and is ever ready to learn.
“In Singlish, they call it heng suay (luck or misfortune), but every place I go to, something will happen that has never happened before, which strengthens my learning curve,” he explains. At the Club, it was the unfortunate oil spill, which put Kanna front and centre of new modes of operations—and terminology. “I learnt about booms and their role in the cleanup of oil spills for the first time”, among other things being out on the boat with Marina Operations Manager Mohammad Tasrin.
Despite working in a marina, Kanna admits to not being much of a water person. He is more of a roadster. “I have always loved motorbikes and cars since I was a kid. Rather, their engines fascinated me. I used to love to disassemble a motorbike engine and put it back,” he says, although cars are a different ball game. Road trips with his childhood buddies and drives along lonely roads are his indulgences.
He does not dismiss the probability of that love turning towards the water. He has had his share of “firsts” at the Club, including the opportunity to work in a company where the owners were down to earth. “It would never be so in a hotel environment,” he says, with palpable admiration.
All things considered, a career at the Club may well be the realisation of a dream that kept him awake at night.
The original article was published on the September/ October 24 issue of Longitude, ONE°15 Marina’s Club magazine. Read it here.
