IN THE decade that Arthur Chua has been chief executive of Goldbell Group, the second-generation owner has transformed his traditional vehicle-leasing family business into a suite of companies comprising venture capital firms, venture builders and startup accelerator programmes.
Founded in 1980, Goldbell operates around South-east Asia and is already the largest distributor and lessor of commercial vehicles and industrial equipment in Singapore. Despite this, Chua firmly believes that businesses should always challenge themselves to find new growth drivers.
“As with every traditional business, if you don’t innovate, the (lifespan) of the business will be much shorter. I do believe that only through innovation can you extend the shelf life of the business,” said the 41-year-old, whose company bagged the Enterprise Award at this year’s Singapore Business Awards.
Today, Goldbell Group has multiple venture builders under its two core divisions of mobility and financial services.
The group has founded or co-founded several companies under its mobility vertical. Examples include Swat Mobility, a demand-responsive, ride-sharing technology provider, and XSquare Technologies, an intelligent warehouse automation solutions provider.
It also established MoveSG – an accelerator that has since supported over 70 early-stage startups in the mobility, transport and logistics space – and acquired electric-car-sharing company BlueSG.
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Together with his older brother Alex Chua, who was a banker prior to joining Goldbell, Arthur Chua also set up a financial services arm, Goldbell Financial Services.
Succeeding in innovation
To succeed in innovation and navigate uncertainty, a company has to build a strong culture of resilience and risk tolerance, said Chua. Such a culture was started by his own father, who wished for it to be passed down to later generations.
“It doesn’t take a few years – it may take a decade. The leadership style and the leader of the company play a very important role in repeating that success,” he said.
Chua was 31 when he took over the company from his father, who was 58 at the time. While his father stepped down at a relatively young age, Chua noted that this was a wise decision, as it meant that the elder Chua could coach him if he were to make mistakes.
He also said that his father had given him a “very free hand” to innovate, yet also emphasised that his exploration of new business interests should not put too much stress on the core business.
“One of the key values he would always tell me is: ‘It’s good to be excited, but not too excited. Because when you’re overly excited, you jump into problems or start new things too fast,’” said the CEO.
During the early 2010s, Chua visited Israel, where he became fascinated by the degree of innovation there. The trip not only inspired him to become more involved in understanding the technology industry, but also sparked his interest in innovation.
Not long after, he decided to try his hand at venture capital investments and venture-building enterprises.
Noting that Goldbell had years of experience and expertise in the mobility sector, Chua said that his goal now is to build an ecosystem of companies within the mobility space that is capable of going global, to boost growth for the group.
Such an undertaking is not without its risks and challenges, he said.
As an SME, Goldbell naturally has fewer resources to spend on innovation compared with multinational companies, which means there is less room for failure.
It was therefore essential for the group to take the right bets and allocate resources smartly.
He also recalled other sacrifices he had to make, including being unable to spend more time with his wife after she suffered a miscarriage, due to the number of meetings he had to attend.
Enduring such difficult times was part of his duty to the company, said Chua. “These are things that I believe all successful businessmen must have been through.”
Risk tolerance
Looking back on his years of managing various ventures, Chua is especially proud of those businesses which he has managed to turn around from the brink of death.
One example is Swat Mobility, which started as a business-to-consumer enterprise, but was burning through cash too quickly. Led by Chua, the company pivoted to target public transport operators, where it found success within the bus transport segment in Japan.
When bus ridership plunged during the Covid-19 pandemic, the company pivoted once again, this time to focus on the logistics industry. Swat Mobility is now serving large logistics companies in countries including Malaysia, Thailand and Japan.
“Risk tolerance is the ability and willingness of a company to accept risks and losses. If you do not have risk tolerance or accept failures (too readily), it’s very, very hard to innovate,” said Chua.
Citing a Chinese proverb by the Confucian philosopher Mencius, he said that wealth will not pass on beyond three family generations, but that values can last in the family for more than 10 generations.
Thus, he believes that success depends heavily on the values that are inculcated into and passed down within the company. These include qualities such as contentment, humility, gratitude, positivity and resilience.
In Chua’s eyes, the company is still “extremely far from success”. Still, he finds meaning in handing something down for the next generation of leaders to build upon. “That’s a meaningful purpose, and why I work hard,” he said.
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