Clarence Chew takes off his T-shirt to show me the tattoo on his back — a stylised Queen of Hearts. We were seated at his dining table, nursing our second bottle of wine, and I had asked him what his favourite tattoo was. “It’s from the song Desperado. There’s a verse that goes, ‘Don’t you draw the Queen of Diamonds, boy. She’ll beat you if she’s able. You know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet.’ The tattoo reminds me to never fall for someone materialistic,” he explains.
Chew has lost count of the number of tattoos he has. Even so, he remembers each one. His first tattoo: butterflies flitting across flowers representing his initial taste of freedom as a young adult. Another across his left hand, between the thumb and the index finger, says ‘Rent’s Due’. It prompts him to work hard and to not let the good life seduce him.
And the 35-year-old is indeed living the good life now.
He runs ALXZA Holdings mostly from his beautiful home in a quiet, upscale neighbourhood. It’s a private investment firm focused on sustainability, renewable energy, and healthcare. Its investments include the GoTo Group at pre-IPO stage, the wellness and preventive care medical group RMDY, and sustainable financing firm An Living.
Additionally, he runs The Queen Consulting Group, which helps companies optimise their marketing and technological capabilities.
However, life hadn’t always been so kind to him. Other tattoos are physical reminders of the struggles he faced in his early years. “Every time I struggled and then had a breakthrough, I got a tattoo because I wanted to immortalise that memory through the pain of ink.”
Broken Fences
Photo: Joel Low.
Chew could have been the poster boy for a model Singapore family. He is the son of a doctor and high-ranking public servant. His mother rose through the corporate ranks, too, before becoming a homemaker after giving birth to Chew’s younger brother.
As for Chew, he studied in Raffles Institution before going to Victoria Junior College. However, still waters run deep. He admits he was always restless, raised by a father who believed he deserved obedience and respect due to his blood relation and his mother who had to juggle two boisterous children. He was happiest with his grandmother.
“She taught me mahjong and Chinese chess,” Chew laughs. “More importantly, she taught me patience.” She also constantly reminded him that her time in this mortal coil was finite, and he had to learn how to fend for himself.
When Chew dropped out of a local university — a combination of disinterest and a fervent desire to go into business — he disappointed his traditionalist father, who had never approved of his overseas university aspirations and entrepreneurial spirit. As a result, he left home to strike out on his own. His grandma’s lessons came to the fore and Chew grew quickly.
Chew was then running a moderately successful female accessories business with his girlfriend at the time. Department stores such as Isetan and the now-defunct Metro stocked their items. When he left home, he knew he had to, in the immortal words of rapper Rick Ross, hustle every day. So, he expanded into clothing. He would fly to Thailand and China to buy stock from wholesalers and bring them back to sell to wholesalers in Singapore. He operated as the middleman before Amazon and Taobao ever existed. The business slowly expanded, with Chew operating two stores at City Plaza and one at Fashion Platinum Mall in Bangkok. The business did well enough for Chew and his partner to open two retail stores in Haji Lane and Far East Plaza.
Trial By Fire
Photo: Joel Low.
While everything seemed to be smooth sailing, Chew would tell you otherwise. He remembers his first time at the wholesale clothes market in China when he was 21. It was 2008. At 6am, it was teeming with other buyers. Trying to remain polite, he slowly waded through the wall-to-wall crowd, but he made little progress. Around him, people jostled, shoved, and elbowed their way through, social graces be damned.
“China taught me a lot and shaped me as a businessperson. I respect the people a lot because they are true hustlers,” says Chew. The experience also taught him the power of compartmentalising his emotions. China, he admits, initially broke him, leaving him stressed and overwhelmed. One of his business partners in the country, a rough-and-tumble older woman from the peasant region of Henan, pulled him out of his negative spiral.
“She told me that there are useful and useless emotions. Unlike the latter — disappointment, sadness, and more — the former, like anger and happiness, empowers you. If I want to survive in business, useless emotions cannot bog me down.” Chew heeded the advice and still follows it today.
Mismanagement and disagreements with the then-girlfriend eventually shuttered the apparel business. It was a messy affair. The vendors they worked with demanded money the company didn’t have for goods and services rendered. Even though he tried his best to pay everyone back, it was financially impossible. They ended up going to the press to air the dirty laundry. It was like China all over again, but Chew didn’t let the emotions bog him down this time.
Learning From Failure
Photo: Joel Low.
The failed business taught him the critical importance of choosing the right partners, and it was a reliable partner who pushed him to take the next step — becoming Decathlon Singapore’s head honcho for marketing — that turned out to be a pivotal moment in his journey.
“I’ve been advised that if I want to be a good boss, I must learn what it’s like to be bossed around. Working in Decathlon made me see what it’s like to be managed,” Chew grins.
He was the second employee in the company and oversaw its meteoric growth, thanks to initiatives like the Experience stores and the click-and-collect system. Both exemplify his hybrid approach to retail — blending the convenience of e-commerce with the tactility of shopping. Of course, consumers took to it like flies to honey. Today, his legacy remains.
Chew is thankful for his Decathlon experience. It enabled him to make mistakes at the expense of his company, he laughs, and honed his business sense. It also refined his leadership approach, mainly because of one man — Bastien Grandgeorge. “He was amazing. He never took credit for any of the company’s successes and empowered everyone. His only rule: decide. If you want to have a meeting, make sure that it results in a decision. Don’t talk for nothing.”
While his marketing decisions catapulted Decathlon to the top, the company’s success ironically transformed it into the very thing Chew didn’t like — a sluggish bureaucracy beset by paralysis analysis. He loved building something from scratch. Maintaining a well-run ship, however, was not his strong suit. It was time to leave.
Coming Home
ALXZA Holdings is the culmination of everything he has learned in his life and business: independence, resilience, emotional management, partner selection, decision making, and more. In the ultimate show of support, Chew’s father now advises him on healthcare-related investments.
His investing thesis? Time and money, preferably the former. The past five years have seen a dramatic influx of cash from venture capitalists (VCs), family offices, and investment firms, sending valuations skyrocketing. Chew believes that time is more valuable, since he can create a bigger impact on the business with it. He also prefers companies with positive cash flow that disrupt current mentalities without necessarily being in the technology space.
Photo: Joel Low.
With rising interest rates crushing large loss-making tech firms, Chew’s approach is prescient.
“The crazy VC spending of the last decade has propagated this idea that you don’t have to be profitable. You just need to generate enough growth to get to the next fundraising round until you can go for an initial public offering, or IPO. It’s just about passing the bag,” says Chew.
His distaste for undisciplined valuations also extends to his process for selecting founders. Chew is a fervent surfing enthusiast and hits the gym regularly. He believes the entrepreneurs he partners with should be similarly motivated to take care of themselves. “If you have no self-discipline, how can I trust you to have discipline in your company?”
Chew also raises his children with a firm approach. He initially hadn’t given much thought to this stage of his life. Now, he cannot imagine a life without his offspring — “I live for them now.”
Before, he would devote maniacal hours to work. To spend more time with them as they grow up, he has cut back.
He turns thoughtful when I ask if his relationship with his parents influenced the way he’s bringing up his two daughters and one son. “Having them made me realise the importance of building a bond. I never had that with my parents, and I never spent much time with them.”
Every day, he sends his brood to school and picks them up afterwards. To avoid clashes with this daily schedule, he avoids lunch meetings. His mantra is simple: the kids don’t see the work he does, only the time that he spends with them.
Chew doesn’t blame his parents. They grew up, he says, in a different time and social environment and raised him and his brother as best they could. During his father’s time, what society now views as toxic masculinity was simply regarded as masculinity.
Chew has faced adversity that would have crumbled many. Negativity, however, fuelled the investor. Another verse from Desperado goes ‘Your prison is walking through this world all alone’. For a long time, Chew preferred that path, believing it would strengthen him. Well, not anymore.
He says he doesn’t have any more tattoos to remind him of pain. Instead, his latest ink jobs memorialise happiness. His third child’s name is the most recent addition. In memory of his grandmother, he’s thinking of adding one more — a mahjong tile blended with a Chinese chess piece.
Now Chew is happy.
Photography: Joel Low
Videography: Marcus Lin
Styling: Chia Wei Choong
Hair: Christvian Wu
Makeup: Wee Ming
Photography Assistant: Eddie Teo
Styling Assistant: Nicholas See
