OUR PARTNER: KHNG EU MENG

Eu Meng spent 10 fruitful and enjoyable years in journalism (1980-90, New Nation and The Straits Times). Throughout his journalistic career, he worked at various Desks, including commercial news, foreign news and lifestyle. He spent six years as a reporter and feature writer and another four as a sub-editor. While cutting his journalism teeth at the Singapore Press Holdings' School of Journalism, he topped his class in Leader Writing.

Wanting to build upon his suite of communication skills, Eu Meng embarked on a career in public relations in 1990. He was appointed by Mobil Oil Singapore as a public affairs advisor.

From 1994-96, Eu Meng further honed his PR skills at Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's leading public relations consultancies. There, he was placed in charge of regional accounts such as Cable & Wireless and large multi-nationals such as General Electric and British Airways. As a PR consultant, he regularly found himself in all kinds of situations that required different skill sets, including crisis communication and management, perception management, brand positioning and media relations.

Eu Meng re-entered the corporate world when he joined the newly formed Lucent Technologies when it separated from its parent company, AT&T. He was hired as Lucent's public relations director for the ASEAN region. He had an additional responsibility as head of media relations for Asia Pacific.

In 2000, when Lucent divested its business solutions arm, Eu Meng decided to follow the latter which was named Avaya. He was appointed their Asia Pacific public relations director. He led a team of PR professionals who planned, managed and executed media relations, government relations, community relations and analyst relations in 14 Asia Pacific countries. Key achievements and highlights included managing the communications surrounding 9/11 as Avaya quickly installed communication links for businesses that were affected by the terrorist act; and the FIFA World Cup 2002. Avaya was one of the main sponsors, and communications provider, of the event.

Eu Meng retired in September 2004. He has, however, not remained idle. Among his current activities – done on a part-time basis – are: