63 Years On: Celebrating the People Who Made It Possible
In 1963, a small outfit called K C Dat & Co Ltd began packing, shipping and moving belongings around Singapore: a handful of people, one truck, and a promise that other people’s most important things would be treated like their own. Sixty-three years, five brand refreshes and a great many houses moves later, that same company carries the name Asian Tigers Singapore. The truck has changed. The promise hasn’t.
This year, we marked our 63rd anniversary the way we always do: not with a big campaign, but by thanking the people who built it. At our 2026 Long Service Awards, we honoured colleagues whose careers with us span everywhere from 7 years to an extraordinary 50.
Topping the list is Eric Lim – Chairman, celebrating 50 years of service, half a century spent helping Singapore move house, office, and everything in between. Close behind are Rose Fauzian and Ruth at 45 years, and Abdul Karim and Selamat at 40. Between them, these four colleagues have seen the company through five brand identities and a great deal of Singapore’s own transformation.
Then there’s John Lim – Managing Director. His Long Service Award officially marks 30 years, but his story with the company runs deeper than that. John first walked through our doors in April 1978, a young man taking on what he thought was a part-time job. Life took John elsewhere for a time, before he returned to the company for good in December 1995, which is where his official 30 years is counted from. The truth is, his connection to this company goes back 51 years, almost to the day the current logo’s earliest ancestor was still wet paint on a delivery truck.
It’s a fitting story for a company built on people who made it possible.
The 2026 Long Service Award Roll of Honour
Congratulations to every colleague recognised this year:
- 50 years: Eric
- 45 years: Rose Fauzian, Ruth
- 40 years: Abdul Karim, Selamat
- 35 years: Kathleen, Augustine, Mohd Kamal, Abu Bakar
- 30 years: Mohd Nor, Rossy, John, Mui Peng, Roslan, Andrew, Leong
- 25 years: Yen Feun, Imah, Abdul Rahim, Sudin
- 20 years: Fong Ling, Yussoff, Ismail
- 15 years: Sanni, Eng Sen
- 10 years: Sunthera, Rashidi, Fauzi, Yusri, Asri, Rafi
- 7 years: Ashit, Wei Kit, Saba, Adeline, Jan
Thirty-four people. Nearly nine centuries of combined service between them, if you’re counting. That’s not a statistic we say lightly. It’s the reason customers who moved with us in the 1980s still call us by name today.
Among our 202-strong team today, 34 proud individuals took home Long Service Awards. They join a deeply rooted culture of belonging where 120 of our colleagues have served up to 15 years, 49 serving 16 to 30 years, 25 serving 31 to 45 years, and 8 remarkable employees dedicating over 45 years to the company. It’s this reason customers who moved with us decades ago still call us by name today.
A Very Singaporean Way to Celebrate
The formalities gave way to something more fitting: a good bento lunch with a durian party in the yard, trays passed around between warehouse teams, drivers and office staff alike. Colleagues from across our wider network, including friends from Lotus Fine Arts Logistics, joined in, a reminder that the relationships this company runs on extend well beyond our own four walls.
Looking Ahead
Sixty-three years in, Asian Tigers Singapore is still, at its core, the company K C Dat helped build: independently minded, deeply local, and part of something larger through the Asian Tigers Group network across Asia. The next chapter is being written by the same kind of people who wrote the first, which, if John and Eric are anything to go by, means we’re in very good hands.
Congratulations to all of this year’s Long Service Award recipients, and thank you to every employee, past and present, who has contributed to our remarkable 63-year journey.
