Steven Sim Leong Thun

Dato’ Steven Sim is the Malaysia Food and Beverage (F&B) group president and CEO of Secret Recipe. There are currently 160 outlets all over the Malaysia and 50 outlets located in others countries. Secret Recipe served over 20 types of fusion food, 40 different type of cake creation with a range of ice-creams and beverage.

Proactive - creating or controlling a situation by causing something to happen

An entrepreneur with proactive, they will try to make something happen instead of waiting for them happen to them. They will poss a vision of what they want and work in a directed way to achieve it. Dato’ Steven is one of the entrepreneurs who has proactive trait. He was a marketing director before he started his own business. On that time, he noticed that the cafe culture was slowly moving into major Asian countries. Then, he started to spot on creating a new brand with his three nephews in the food and beverage (F&B) industry.

They named their brand as Secret Recipe as it has the potential to be recognized globally and unique compared to other competitors. They only used their self-funded to build up the business and created their own menu that contains the local cuisine combined with the western cuisine and mostly is notably cakes. He did his own marketing by offering free coffee to customers because lack of capital for promote on the first shop. This promotion was very successful that customers trying to enjoy free coffee with the cakes sold there.

Moreover, there was a team of franchise managers who are responsibility to check the outlets regularly for product quality, conduct staff training and company worked more systematic and smoothly. His business slowly became famous throughout Malaysia and expanded to other countries like Thailand, Pakistan and Australia. Based on this, we can see that Dato’ Steven Sim have proactive trait. He dares to take action and challenge situations, particularly when he perceives opportunity. He also manages to transform a small cafe into an international well-known brand. At the end, he achieved his goal.