It’s a beautiful day, and the sight of the yachts at ONE°15 Marina Sentosa Cove, glistening in the drizzle, makes it even more so. At the time that I was meeting Sylvia Ng, Senior Manager of ONE15 Luxury Yachting and ONE15 Life, Singapore had just broken out of its Circuit Breaker—which meant that charter-yachts were getting back to business as usual, albeit with safety measures in place.
That was reason enough to bring a big smile to Sylvia’s already cheerful face. Sylvia is the person to add to your contacts in the Club if you want to charter a yacht to go around Singapore’s Southern Islands. She and her team are in charge of connecting the charter offers of independent yacht owners with your—read clients’—needs and wishes.
The division also recently launched luxury yacht staycation packages. Reaching that magical balance of a happy charter operator and satisfied customer, however, takes intense coordination and endless messages back and forth. “We are on our WhatsApp all the time, because we have over 20 different chat groups with all the different boats. I can’t afford to lose data.” jokes Sylvia.
Now that she has been on the job for over a year, Sylvia is able to make light of it. But when the marketing professional started out, she was moving into completely uncharted territory from a different kind of role at the Gardens by the Bay (GBTB). “I was one of the pioneer teams—I actually started two days before GBTB opened, so I’ve seen it when it was actually completely empty,” she enthuses. But Sylvia’s responsibility there was to find sponsors to support the daily operation and maintenance of GBTB, as well as its various initiatives. So venturing from that to an incentive-based job at the Club was a major shift—like “from land to water”, she recalls.
The opportunity to learn new things and overcome new challenges have always been a draw for the spirited 42-year-old, and motivated her to leave a job she had held for seven years. Sylvia spent the first few months here learning about the charter-yacht industry with her young (in experience) three member team. “There was a lot of learning to do. For instance, many of the basic rules that are taken for granted in the trade, we have had to learn from scratch,” explains Sylvia. “It also took us some time to learn exactly what each yacht can offer, because every boat’s pricing tier and offerings, as well as capabilities are different. So we actually have something like a menu for each yacht, detailing their type, size and how much they charge for actual services.”
“I have a good team. They are young and very willing to learn. In fact, we are all learning together.”
That’s easily 40 different products (read yachts)—with 40 different product specifications—she and her team are expertly negotiating with. But, despite staying on top of things and tying all loose ends, unforeseen mistakes and last-minute cancellations and postponements happen, and Sylvia has to often use her people skills to clear the air. This is where her years of experience in accruing sponsorships come in handy, she says. “It has helped me read people better,” she says. “You come to realise that not one method fits all and learn to adapt to each individual person you work with.”
Although new to this industry, Sylvia channels the wealth of her past experience into the job. She takes it upon herself to mentor and train her team to be better communicators and sales professionals. “I have a good team. They are young and very willing to learn. In fact, we are all learning together,” she says. And in the process, the team has managed to establish good friendships with the boaters—some of them even bring them Christmas presents.
After such high-intensity action every day at work, Sylvia enjoys winding down with a glass of wine with her musician husband. Another thing she finds equally therapeutic is cooking. There’s also the immediate gratification of seeing her foodie teenage
son tucking in her food. But when it comes down to a traditional family meal on Christmas, nothing brings out the holiday spirit at home than steak with Mac & Cheese, she says. Although Christmas was a not a tradition that Sylvia followed growing up—as her parents are non-Christians—now that she has her own family, they started a tradition of their own.
That tradition begins with a Christmas tree that Sylvia gets to unleash her “inner artist” decorating. The family also spends every Christmas Eve at a staycation, and indulge in a buffet lunch—with free flow of wine, of course—to celebrate the end of the year. “One of the things we would do over lunch is share with one another our highs and lows of the year, and what we wish to achieve in the coming year,” she adds. That said, living in the moment is equally important to Sylvia. “I’m not a planner. I live day by day. And I try to live every day with no regrets.”
