by Shameera Nair Lin

‘I’ve spent my whole life in power generation.’ Admittedly, these are not words I encounter often, if ever. Khai Hor Quek stepped down from his role as the Technical Group Director of YTL PowerSeraya – one of Singapore’s main electricity generators – after heading the power plant since YTL’s takeover in 2007. His career is one of tenacious longevity, and the story begins in September 1980.

After graduating from university, Khai Hor forayed into a career as an engineer under PUB Singapore, the public utilities board. Years later, he moved on to head boiler maintenance at the newly formed Jurong Island plant and proceeded to spearhead quality assurance from 1996 onwards. When PUB was divested, Khai Hor moved into corporate development. He recalls having to set up the corporate services system from scratch, having had no prior experience in doing so.

The journey is one of his best memories of the job. He tells me about learning from the job, speaking to people, and, above all, bringing a shift in work culture to one of proactivity. He is someone whose work style is firmly planted in the training and development of people – ‘as a manager, you must be aware that you’re building a team for continuity,’ he maintains. Such values, as I discover moments later, undergird his personal life. In his capacity as a mentor to various young people over the years, he has a wider desire to help those in their early days to grow. Carrying that belief into the professional arena, he based his leadership style in the power plant on his religious grounding.Considering his longstanding experience in his field of expertise, I ask him about the experiences he cherishes most. Khai Hor mentions many moments, though two particularly stand out: working on a longstanding project in Jordan and a 22-day negotiation process to close a contract in Guangzhou. After he stopped travelling to Jordan in January 2020, and when the pandemic struck, Khai Hor found a way of navigating the final year of his tenure at PowerSeraya through a set routine. He was able to reorganise life entirely, preparing him well for a life in retirement. Between long stretches of work throughout, he found that he lacked time to do other things outside work hours. Now, this is not the case.

As we speak on the phone, he is looking at his investments on computer screens. Such is retirement to Khai Hor, who admits that he is busier than ever. He is enrolled in a one-year Bible course, shuffles between three monitors monitoring stock investments and golfs regularly. There is absolutely no shortage in discipline and determination in Khai Hor’s professional journey, one that has inspired colleagues and mentees alike.