Kopi with LHUBBERS - From Sky-High Dreams to Paving the Way for Others

Kopi with LHUBBERS – Turning Curiosity into a Career

A cup with Xian Wei, Senior Product Manager, Business and Digital Skills, NTUC LearningHub By Steven Lee, Brand & Communications, NTUC LearningHub Xian Wei is the kind of person who listens to understand, not just to reply—turning even an interview into a genuine exchange. Over kopi, she quietly flipped the dynamic, asking thoughtful questions of her own. It was a small moment that revealed her attentiveness and curiosity. Xian Wei is a Senior Product Manager at NTUC LearningHub, where she oversees a suite of courses tied to Human Resources (HR) and people-related skills. But behind the job title is someone whose real fascination lies somewhere deeper. "There’s always been one thing I keep coming back to, she says. Understanding people. Why they do what they do, what drives them, and how they find their way to work that truly aligns with who they are.” Her career, on paper, looks like a constellation of unrelated points: technology solutions consulting, automotive, financial consulting, a mental fitness startup, and now adult education. But after sitting down with her, the lines begin to connect. Every chapter was its own quiet study of human behaviour. The Making of a Curious Mind  Xian Wei graduated from the National University of Singapore with a degree in Communications and New Media, at a time when social media was just beginning to take off.   Her initial career path, however, had little to do with communications. She joined a car dealership and was eventually promoted to the regional office covering Southeast Asia over the years. It was a steep learning curve, but one she remembers fondly.  "I really had fun there, she says. But I've always had this instinct to keep growing, and exploring what else is out there. So when the right moment came, I took it."  What followed was a stint in full-commission financial consulting: a sales-driven environment that gave her an early, visceral understanding of how motivation shapes human behaviour.  "That experience taught me a lot about what makes people tick, she reflects.  It was an intense season, and one she does not romanticise. But looking back, she recognises it as the first time she began paying close attention, not just to clients and targets, but to the underlying psychology of why people behaved the way they did under stress.  After leaving financial consulting, it was not long before a different kind of opportunity found Xian Wei. She joined a small startup built around a mental fitness app, working alongside a founder whose background was in neuroscience.  Together, the founder combined hard science with positive psychology, creating a profiling tool that helped people understand their own behavioural patterns, grounded in how the brain processes thought and emotion.   It was her first real glimpse that the mind could be studied rigorously—and applied to genuinely improve lives. Almost by accident, she had found the closest thing to her true calling.  “That’s when it clicked,” she says. “I wasn’t just interested in sales, marketing or strategy. I wanted to understand why people behave the way they do, and how that insight can optimise their talent in life, especially at work.”  However, this chapter came to a natural close, as she felt it was time to pursue a different direction. It became an opportunity for her to explore a new path, but her first time stepping away from a stable job role.   "It felt like forever, she says of the few months that followed. Every day felt uncertain. But looking back, it gave me time to reflect and rediscover myself, and where my aspirations were."    Landing and Learning at NTUC LearningHub  When NTUC LearningHub was looking to fill a product manager role focused on HR-related courses, Xian Wei's background did not tick the conventional boxes. But what she lacked in formal HR experience, she made up for through a sharp instinct for people and what drives them.   "I had no experience as a product manager, she admits. A lot of it, I had to learn from scratch."  She discovered quickly that HR was not the simple, administrative function it is often assumed to be. "Everyone thinks they know HR because they've experienced onboarding or benefits as an employee, she says. But understanding what actually motivate people to be productive is a completely different skill."  Now in her fouth year, Xian Wei has grown increasingly invested in the bigger question: how do you help people discover what they are genuinely good at, rather than what they have simply fallen into?  "If a team already knows their individual strengths, who's great at strategy, who's better at execution, who naturally leads, that's when one plus one becomes far more than two, she explains.  It is this continuous interest in human potential that eventually led her back to the classroom but this time, as a student.  Where Psychology Meets the Stars  Xian Wei is undergoing a Master's degree program in Industrial-Organisational Psychology, known in some parts of the world as Work Psychology, a field dedicated to understanding human behaviour within organisations.  "I wanted to go deeper, she says simply. Singapore is already trying to find the right jobs for people. I want to help people find out what their interests actually are, because I believe if you have a genuine interest in something, the skills will follow naturally."  She likens her own journey to the well-known story of Steve Jobs, who once attended a calligraphy class with no clear purpose in mind, only for that seemingly unrelated skill to shape the typography of the first Macintosh more than a decade later. "I didn't always know why I was doing what I was doing, she says. But looking back, I can see how trusting my curiosity would help."  "It's not about being defined by a company or a job title, she says. It's about helping people define themselves."  Xian Wei's fascination with human behaviour does not stop at formal psychology. In her own time, she has also become interested in astrology and family constellation: practices she approaches not as fixed predictions but as another language for the same questions she has spent her career circling.  "I don't see it as 'this will definitely happen to you', she clarifies. I see it more as references. It's a way of looking at patterns: your tendencies, your blind spots, what you naturally gravitate towards. Then it's still entirely up to you what you do with that information."  She now reads birth charts for friends, family, and by her own cheerful admission, even her pet hamster, purely for fun.  "A birth chart is really just a snapshot, she explains. It's a way of organising a lot of different traits and tendencies into something you can actually reflect on. The houses represent different areas of life, the planets represent different qualities, the zodiac signs represent the clothes of the planets’ qualities. Where all of them sit can tell you something about how a person naturally shows up in the world."  What draws her to it, she says, is not so much the mysticism, but the structure it offers for self-reflection, very much the same draw that pulled her towards psychology and behavioural profiling in the first place.  "Through this, I actually noticed certain patterns in myself, she shares candidly. Like a tendency to want to empathise with others, to solve their problems, and sometimes to my own detriment. Once I became aware of it, I could choose differently."  It is this same instinct, turning a tool for self-understanding into instruments for self-improvement, that runs through everything she does, whether it is a formal psychometric framework, a Master's thesis, or an astrology constellation.   "At the end of the day, whether it's psychology, astrology, or just a good conversation, I think it's all trying to answer the same question, she says. Who are you, really? And what creates your law of large happiness?"  It is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the same question she is now trying to help others answer through her work at NTUC LearningHub.    The Exploration Continues  Xian Wei's curiosity does not switch off when she leaves the office. Her hobbies reveal the same exploratory instinct that defines her career, from open-world video games that reward discovery, to contemporary dance moves, which she is preparing to perform in a recital later this year.   Perhaps most unexpectedly, Xian Wei once took part in thirteen live improvisational theatre shows and performed in front of a real, ticketed audience.  "That was something I did to heal, at a time when I needed it, she says. Improv, she explains, demands complete presence. You cannot plan what to say. You can only listen and respond spontaneously.  Towards the end of our conversation, I asked Xian Wei what she would say to someone who feels lost about their career.  "You don't always need to know the ‘why’ straight away, she said with a smile. Sometimes you just need to follow what genuinely interests you, even if it doesn't make sense yet. The understanding usually comes later."  It strikes me that this is the same philosophy she brings to her own work. Whether she is shaping a course or reading someone’s birth chart over coffee, what might appear from the outside as a scattered set of experiences is, up close, a coherent whole.  Whatever the next chapter holds, you sense she will embrace it with openness—curious, clear‑eyed, and unafraid of where it may lead. 

Kopi with LHUBBERS – Beyond Digital: Why People Still Matter Most

A cup with Joe Loy, Assistant Chief Executive & Managing Director, Digital Business & Corporate Solutions, NTUC LearningHub By Steven Lee, Brand & Communications, NTUC LearningHub As I sat down with Joe over kopi, one thing became clear. His passion for technology was never just about a job. It was a quiet, persistent curiosity—one that began long before digital transformation even became a buzzword. Joe is part of the NTUC LearningHub senior management team, where he leads the organisation’s digital business and corporate sales teams. His career stretches across decades and industries from telecommunications, banking, insurance and the wider financial sector. Today, his work unfolds at the crossroads of technology, partnerships and workforce transformation, where progress and evolution are continuous. “There has always been one constant for me,” he says. “Digital.” His journey into the digital world began at a time when the landscape looked very different. “I started before smartphones existed. Before the iPhone. Before Facebook. Back then, when we talked about digital, it meant websites, system integration, and forums.” He chuckles softly. “People used to ask, ‘What’s a forum?’” Back then, what counted as “digital innovation” was far simpler. Yet even in those early days, Joe was fascinated by how technology could reshape the way people worked and communicated. What began as an interest soon became the thread that would run through every stage of his career. &nbsp; Growing Up Digital Starting out in the late 80s and early 90s, Joe entered the workforce just as the internet was beginning to emerge and digital systems were rapidly gaining momentum. Over the years, each career transition brought new challenges. His interest grew as he learnt more about how digital tools and platforms can reshape the way organisations operate. His early years in the startup space taught him important lessons about adaptability and problem-solving. “In a startup, you learn very quickly that things rarely go exactly as planned,” Joe reflects. “You often have to figure things out as you go along.” The experience required resilience and a willingness to experiment—skills that would later prove invaluable as digital technologies continued to evolve. Later, when Joe moved into the financial sector, he found himself navigating yet another new environment. The pace, processes and expectations were different, but the role that digital technology played in shaping business outcomes remained just as, if not more important. Looking back, Joe sees these transitions not as detours, but as valuable experiences that helped him understand how technology evolves and how organisations and people adapt with it. &nbsp; Learning Across Borders Yet for all the technological changes he witnessed across industries over the years, one realisation stayed constant for Joe. “Technology moves very quickly,” he says. “But at the end of the day, it’s still about people working together to solve problems.” That lesson became especially clear during one of the most enriching phases of his career—when he found himself working on a global programme alongside colleagues from more than 20 nationalities. The pace was demanding, but the experience proved rewarding. Working alongside colleagues from Europe, Asia, and other regions exposed Joe to a wide range of perspectives. Beyond technical knowledge, Joe learned how to collaborate across cultures and navigate complex team dynamics. Each team member approached things differently, shaped by their cultural norms and professional experiences. “In some cultures, people are very direct when they communicate. In others, they are more diplomatic or consensus-driven,” he explains. “You learn quickly that there isn’t only one way to solve a problem.” “It was an eye-opening experience,” he says. “Technology connects people, but the work still depends on human relationships.” &nbsp; The Mentor Who Made a Lasting Impact When I ask Joe about defining influences, he doesn’t mention accolades. For Joe, the most important lessons in his career did not come from titles or achievements, but from people who took the time to share their experiences and guide him along the way. In the early 2000s, shortly after joining Hewlett Packard, Joe met someone who would quietly shape his professional approach—an Italian colleague based in the Netherlands. “There wasn’t any formal mentorship programme,” Joe explains. “We just happened to work on similar projects and travelled frequently together.” But the senior colleague noticed that Joe was new and navigating a large organisation for the first time. “He had already been in the company for more than ten years,” Joe says. “He understood the culture, the processes, and how things worked.” Gradually, he began offering guidance. Sometimes it was practical advice about how to navigate projects and internal systems. At other times, it was simply a perspective on how to approach challenges. Those conversations helped Joe acclimatise to a new corporate environment that might otherwise have felt overwhelming. Early in his career, Joe’s mentor played a key role in guiding him through moments of uncertainty, encouraging him to step back and reflect on the motivations and priorities of different stakeholders. “That changed how I approached challenges,” Joe says. Those small shifts in perspective gradually helped him grow more confident in navigating large organisations and complex projects. “When you’re new, you sometimes second-guess yourself,” Joe says. “Having someone more experienced to talk to makes a big difference.” Over time, the professional relationship evolved into a genuine friendship. “When you travel together frequently, you naturally get to know each other beyond work,” Joe says. Even today, they remain in touch. Looking back, Joe believes the mentorship played an important role in shaping how he views leadership today. “It showed me how valuable it is to share experiences with others,” he says. &nbsp; Paying the Lessons Forward Those early experiences are one reason Joe believes strongly in mentoring younger professionals today. “I was fortunate to have someone guide me when I started out,” he says. “So naturally, I feel it’s important to do the same for others.” At NTUC LearningHub, this philosophy aligns closely with initiatives like the Career Mentorship Programme (CMP), which connects experienced professionals with individuals seeking guidance in their careers. Joe sees mentorship not as a formal obligation, but as a meaningful exchange. “When people first start working, they often have many questions,” he says. “They’re figuring out what direction they want to take.” “Sometimes all it takes is a conversation with someone who has walked a similar path.” Joe believes mentorship can shorten the learning curve for younger professionals. “If someone can avoid a few mistakes and reach their goals sooner because of guidance, that’s valuable.” Just as his own mentor once helped him navigate unfamiliar environments, Joe now hopes to offer that same support to the next generation. “Mentors will appear at different stages of your career,” he says. “The important thing is to stay open-minded and learn from them.” &nbsp; Learning Beyond the Office Outside of work, Joe’s approach to life mirrors the same philosophy that has guided his career—learning never really stops. “I read quite a bit,” he says, though he is quick to clarify that he does not mean reading thick books cover to cover. Instead, Joe prefers absorbing information in small, consistent ways. He regularly reads articles across business, finance and technology through platforms that curate news based on his interests. “These small pieces of information help me keep up with what’s happening,” he explains. “You pick up something new here and there.” For Joe, learning does not have to come from formal training programmes or structured courses. “People sometimes think learning means attending a three-day course,” he says. “But what happens in between?” His belief is simple—small efforts add up over time. “Learn one or two things this week. Next week, learn another one or two. Over time, it accumulates.” Consistency, he believes, is the key. This mindset extends naturally into how Joe spends his time outside work. He enjoys wine and dining with family and friends, not for the prestige of fine restaurants, but for the experience of spending meaningful time together. “The best dining experiences are really about the company,” he says. Joe makes a conscious effort to keep those moments free from distractions. “If you take the time to meet someone, you should make the time count.” For him, shared meals are opportunities to reconnect, to talk, exchange ideas and learn from one another’s experiences. Travel is another way Joe enjoys learning outside the office. He values taking trips with his children whenever possible, seeing it as a chance to both explore new places and spend time together. One particularly memorable trip brought the family to Abu Dhabi, where they visited the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. “My kids enjoyed it a lot,” he recalls. “Travel is also a chance to learn more about each other.” Even activities like running, something Joe used to do regularly in the early mornings, reflect the same philosophy of consistency. Whether it is staying active, reading widely or sharing conversations over meals, Joe believes these everyday habits help keep the mind open and engaged. <p style="text-ali

Kopi with LHUBBERS – From Barracks to Boardrooms: Leading with Purpose, People and Perspective

A cup with Tay Ee Learn, Assistant Chief Executive and Chief Sector Skills Officer, NTUC LearningHub By Steven Lee, Brand & Communications, NTUC LearningHub What does it take to steer workforce transformation in an era marked by uncertainty and change? For Tay Ee Learn, Assistant Chief Executive and Chief Sector Skills Officer at NTUC LearningHub, the answer lies not merely in strategic foresight or business acumen, but in an enduring belief in people, purpose, and the quiet discipline of continuous learning. From military barracks to corporate boardrooms, his journey traverses different terrains. Yet, what binds it together is not just a distinguished resume, but an unrelenting curiosity and a steadfast conviction that lifelong learning is not an aspiration, but something we can all strive towards. When you think of a senior leader in a local training provider, you might expect someone methodical and perhaps a little distant—but meeting Ee Learn quickly dismisses that notion. His assured presence, shaped by years of leadership, is matched by an unmistakable ease in the way he speaks: witty and approachable. “I was one of those playful students,” he says with a grin, when asked about his childhood. “Not exactly top of the class. But I always tried my best.” In that humble moment, I realised—this is not a story of someone who always had a master plan, but of someone who kept showing up, learning, and never turning down a good challenge. Lessons Beyond the Classroom In revisiting his youth, Ee Learn paints a portrait that feels refreshingly candid and grounded. He was, in his own words, “one of the boys who should have studied harder.” In school, he often found it difficult to focus on academics, more drawn to football and time with friends than to textbooks. “I was easily distracted, and definitely not at the top of the class,” he admits. “Sometimes I scraped through, sometimes I fell short—but I always tried to give my best. I wasn’t failing badly, but I wasn’t excelling either,” he shrugged. “I was just coasting along.” Yet, what stayed with him were the teachers who refused to give up on him. “I still remember one teacher pulling me aside and saying that I can do better if I just put my mind to it,” he says. Those moments, though small, gave him confidence that he was capable of more than his report card suggested. Interestingly, leadership was never the end goal during his early years. “Not really,” he admits with a smile. “I was more focused on being a team player and helping the team succeed, rather than the role I played.” These early experiences laid the foundation for his lifelong belief that education is more than just the transfer of knowledge. It is about belief, opportunity, and unlocking human potential. That perspective would later become central to how he leads. Leadership Forged in the Field After his studies, Ee Learn signed on with the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), beginning what would be a 20-year military career. There, he learned to lead not through authority alone, but through adaptability, empathy, and strategy. His perspective truly shifted. “My outlook about growth and responsibility changed somewhat, as I was no longer just representing myself but that of the SAF—and even Singapore,” he reflects. That realisation pushed him to take his development seriously. One mission in particular still stands out vividly in his memory. “When I was a young officer, my small team was attacked, and we lost all our equipment,” he recalls. “Our mission was critical to the success of the entire battalion, and I had to step up and find a way to lead the team, solve the problem, and complete the mission.” Against the odds, he managed to rally his men, recover the necessary equipment from the enemy, and see the mission through. “We pulled it off, and the battalion achieved success.” Moments like this forced him to transition from simply doing his role well to taking ownership of others’ success. Yet Ee Learn downplays it with humility. “I’m not sure how it happened,” he said with a laugh. “I guess I just had to step up, do my best, and not let the team down. Lucky for me, my team always stepped up to cover my six whenever I didn’t meet the mark.” “In life, you don’t always get the luxury of choosing your team. You work with who you have,” he explains. “That taught me a lot—especially about people motivation and resourcefulness.” His military career saw him move across domains—from infantry to artillery, logistics to IT, training to transport. The variety gave him a breadth of operational exposure. “It was never just about systems,” he says. “It was always about the people.” It was not just the scale of responsibility, but the clarity with which he recognised that even in structured institutions, leadership is deeply human. It made me reflect on how often we overlook the emotional intelligence needed to lead effectively. Leaping into the Private Sector Many might have expected him to remain in the comfort of a familiar system. But for Ee Learn, growth came from the willingness to start over. After two decades in uniform, he stepped into the private sector. “I wanted to try something new, to experiment and learn. The private sector was a new oasis.” It was a deliberate pivot, one driven not by dissatisfaction but by curiosity. His next chapters spanned industries as diverse as aviation, logistics, sustainability, and consultancy. He remembers sitting in meetings where acronyms flew past him, the jargon of business strategy and shareholder reports making him feel like a rookie again. “It was like learning a new language all over,” he says. There were moments of doubt—times he wondered if he had made a mistake. But instead of retreating, he reframed the discomfort as fuel. Every new project, every corporate culture shock, became another learning curve he was determined to climb. “It wasn’t easy,” he reflects. “But I wanted to start over. Embracing the discomfort made me sharper. It gave me a much wider lens on how the world operates.” Purpose in Action at NTUC LearningHub At NTUC LearningHub, Ee Learn has found not just a platform, but a purpose to weave together his wealth of experience in service of workforce transformation. Today, Ee Learn brings together all the threads of his experience to drive sector-based upskilling strategies across industries like healthcare, sustainability, retail, and more. But he sees his role as more than strategic. “My real role is to find the social motivation behind learning,” he explains. “It’s not just about skills. It’s about helping workers move forward in life.” His core belief? That business transformation must precede workforce transformation. “We can train all we want, but if the business isn’t changing, then it’s just transactional. We must design learning to move with the business. That’s when it sticks.” This perspective has guided how NTUC LearningHub engages with employers, regulators and unions to ensure training solutions are relevant, practical, and future-focused. It also reflects a deeply human view of upskilling—not as a checkbox, but as a lever for social mobility. Embodying the spirit of lifelong learning, Ee Learn chooses to remain a student of the world. Despite his position, he doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. In fact, he considers himself “a jack of all trades, master of none,” and says so without apology. “That’s the challenge at the top. You have to stay curious,” he says. “Especially here at NTUC LearningHub, where every sector we serve teaches you something new. That’s why you need to stay hungry. Because once you stop learning, you stop growing.” For Ee Learn, being a generalist isn’t about knowing less, but about being curious enough to know more. It’s about connecting the dots across disciplines, industries, and people. And it’s also about encouraging others not to get stuck in their silos. “Many people get so caught up in their own domain or specialisation that they forget to look up and see the bigger picture,” he observes. “Lifelong learning keeps you adaptable, and adaptability is what makes you valuable.” As leaders we must evolve too. “We can’t fall into the trap of thinking we’ve arrived. We need to adapt not just for the job, but for ourselves.” The Man Off-Duty Beyond the boardroom, Ee Learn remains anchored by simple joys—chief among them, football. Ee Learn finds balance on the football pitch—or these days, in front of the screen as a lifelong Liverpool fan. “It keeps me grounded. Football reminds me that you don’t win alone,” he shares. It’s a sentiment of teamwork that echoes through his story. Finally, his life philosophy? “YOLO,” he says, smiling. “You Only Live Once! Life’s tough. But it’s a series of choices. You just have to live it—with no regrets.” As our conversation drew to a close, I asked him what lies ahead—and as always, his focus remained outward, not inward. “It’s always about the people,” he says. “About helping others discover what they’re capable of. That’s what drives me.” Just like his teachers once did for him. One thought stayed with me: in a world that’s always racing toward the next milestone, perhaps the most powerful thing a leader can do is to slow down, listen, and help others move forward. Reach out to our&nbsp;Skills Consultants&nbsp;to find out more about how you can transform your life through learning today!