Testimonials

When I took Tom was my second coach, since my previous coach had taken another assignment, I was just expecting to continue as I was doing with the former coach.

During the coaching sessions, from the beginning, I was very comfortable with Tom’s approach. We had always discussed on the ‘case to case’ basis and just not theories. I was also feeling that I can share any information with Tom to get different effectie leadership qualities. With that approach, always there is a pause in reacting and think on the long term effective solutions. He was always making me to think various options and find out the ‘win-win’ solution, which gives an immense self-confidence in me.

I strongly recommend Tom as an executive coach to all budding leaders and leaders in new role to add different dimensions, effectively.

I sincerely thank Tom for coaching me for about 8 months.

Chandrasekar Jayaraman

Regional Coordinator & Head of Operation Support [Asia-Oceania]
HTC, HeidelbergCement Asia Pte Ltd

What sets Thomas apart from others is his consistent effort in encouraging me reaching deeper and further into motivation and drivers, to help me crystalize the principles that guide my life, both professionally and out of work. By setting up the goal post from the beginning, I find the coaching experience with Thomas rewarding in both resolving short term challenges, and more importantly, anchoring myself to the true principles in life that shall be able to stand the test of time. In this, I am extremely thankful to Thomas’ help and also the opportunity to know a great friend!

Charles Liu

Transition Advisor, ExxonMobil

Having Tom as a coach is a gift that I am ever so grateful for – our interactions have been so much more enriching than I would have ever imagined.

As a European expat in Asia, I found it immensely valuable to be able to speak to Tom who understands both the Western and Asian culture and has been an expat himself in other markets.

He is more than a top-class executive coach with a rich set of techniques and extensive business experience to draw upon. He is a life coach who makes you feel so at ease, it’s like talking to a trusted old friend. Yet, he is happy to challenge you, whether to bring a new perspective or to help you push your boundaries.

Tom, you are a wonderful person with a magical touch. Thank you!

Ebru Dorman

VP Strategy, Maxis.

Worked with Thomas from Sep 2011 to Sep 2012

Demonstrates active and focused listening skills. Able to “catch” the underlying issues and frame them before moving on to the next steps.

Able to identify immediate training needs. Practical person. Shares his toastmaster experience and that develops an interest for me to want to take the plunge and join a club.

Respect differences. Understood my discomfort with certain drills and proposed alternatives.

Uses humor to ease tension. As this is my first executive coaching, Thomas put me to ease very quickly. He is humble and easy to relate to with his corporate experience.

Uses technology effectively. The video recording sessions were very effective in helping me with my presentation skills.

Both a coach and a mentor.

Hong Howe-Yong

Profitability Improvement Manager, ExxonMobil

“It has been great time interacting with Tom. He was a coach who had genuine interest in human being and focusing on “me” as a person. He always looked for reasons instead of rushing into the solution and helped me looking at myself before the objectives. He not only provide coaching in words but also helped me centering myself by some activities and introducing books. He offered extra time whenever needed and I felt he is very responsible and trustworthy. Appreciate the coaching time with Tom.”

Kay Chung

Standard Chartered Bank

I worked with Thomas over the past 6 months, and he helped me a lot to understand myself and my company. From the very first moment he established a very personal relationship which was fully trust based and allowed for a safe room to discuss really all aspects of my issues. This was at the same time maybe one of the most important lessons I learned: put a lot of effort into managing personal relationships – once the chemistry between two person works, all issues can be addressed heads on and have already lost most of their threatening power.

As a coach Thomas was a perfect match to me. He understood my problems almost immediately and guided me through questions and self-reflections on my quest to find the right answers. He showed a lot of empathy, was full of motivation, and was at the same time though enough to prevent me from sidetracking and avoiding the confrontation with me real self. I want to thank him for his guidance as coach and the insights we gained together. Going on that journey with him as a trusted partner was a great experience I would never like to miss.

Manfred Weintich

Bayer Business Services, Head of AP-IT Operations

I approached the coaching program with my usual reservations thinking I was enrolling in yet another self-help program loaded with a lot of theory.

From the first session I could gather Tom was genuinely interested in helping people truly improve from the “bottom up” and set a behavioral change in me, and after several sessions I was very confident he knew what he was talking about. This confident in his avilities gave me further motivation to work with him to achieve these changes.

Tom has an affable character, and totally down to earth in his approach to difficult topics of managing people and managing oneself to change for a better of one’s life and career. It’s a holistic approach he takes to going about how to change for the better and his years of experience in corporate world shows in his ability to size up situations and gie advice on how to do the right things, for the long term.

Certainly some of the key elements to becoming a better manager of my own life and career I’ve learnt from Tom’s coaching include things that seem so common-sense in hindsight, but putting in to practise was the key to getting it to be second-nature and part of parcel of my life and my work – things like breathing and centering, responding to people, how to mana stressful situations, etc. And Tom knew how to get these to the top of my mind and my actions, again, with the basic idea of creating permanent behavioral shifts.

Thanks Tom for a great start to a new journey!

Paul Yeo

Regional Director, Estee Lauder Companies
April 15, 2013

In the past year since early 2013. the Senior Leadership Team of Maxis has embared on the Executive Coaching and development programme.

For this programme, I personally selected Thomas Chen, to be my appointed Executive Coach over all other as I found him to be a very pleasant gentlemen with am amiable personality. During the course of the programme, I found my sessions with Thomas to be extremely helpful in both my personal and professional development.

Not only does Thomas bring with him vast experience in executive coaching, he also demonstrates strong capabilities to grasps work issues/challenges quickly. He is an extremely good listener who never fails to ask prompting questions at the right time and manner. Through his questions and our open discussion, I was guided to seek answer or solutions to any issues/challenges I was facing. I found it useful to discuss ‘almost anything’ with Thomas be it on a personal or professional level. He conducts himself very professionally and never fails to offer support and assistance required.

Thomas is also a very proactive coach who provides useful guidance tools in the form of videos, which I personally find extremely enriching and insightful.

I would highly recommend Thomas to any other professional executive who is in search of an Executive Coach.

Sophia Lim

Senior Vice President,  Maxis
Head of Sales & Service

Tom Chen was truly a great coach for me. I believe that the most important thing he helped me with was how to address issues at the core with “centering techniques”. This was a different approach from my previous coaches, who would work to help me address specific activites (e.g. specific presentations). By being able to center myself, I am able to address issues under any circumstances. While helping me work on areas to improve my professional life, he was able to show me how to apply them in my personal life as well. This has been a tremendous help to my overall well-being.

Tom is always available and willing to meet and discuss my issues. He’s very flexible and willing to accomodate conflicts with my busy schedule. He was also very effective at coaching using different mechanisms (F2F and via skype). I truly appreciate his candidness and willingness to share his personal experiences with me as well. I believe that this coaching experience has taught me to be more empathetic towards others, more authentic with my colleagues and an overall better leader.

I would recommend Tom to anyone who is serious about trying to get ahead in their careers, and who is serious about working on improvements at the core.

Tony Lewis

Global Marketing & Growth Manager, Exxonmobil
Global Marketing Organization (GMO)
Houston, TX. 77043

“Thomas Chen is not a big man, that is, he has a slight, wiry, athletic frame. As it turns out, that is the only thing small about Thomas. To begin with he has an immense heart, and as you will learn, you cannot be a coach if you don’t care deeply about your ‘coachee’…Thomas Chen is a Master Coach.

Thomas spent a large portion of his working life in the Corporate suites of several illustrious multi-nationals around the globe. The personal experiences and insights he gained, add not only credibility, but enable Thomas to almost effortlessly, engage in deep, meaningful conversations that have immediate relevance to your needs.

Coaching as you will learn, is a journey of self-discovery guided by the insightful questions of your coach. Every minute I spent with Thomas was spent on valuable conversation where Thomas never ceased to amaze me with his ability to frame or re-frame the issue at hand with thoughtful, precise and accurate questions.

I will stop here, because there are not enough words to express my everlasting gratitude to Thomas. It is not exaggeration when I say, Thomas has made a difference to me in deep, fundamental ways.

Thank you Thomas, my Master Coach and friend.”

Faiz Kunju

Project Director, Exxonmobil