Leonard Tan (entrepreneur)

Leonard Tan Khang Hwee (; born 3 August 1978), commonly known as Leonard Tan, is a Singaporean entrepreneur, best known for being the founder and Chief Executive Officer of PurpleClick Media Pte Ltd--the first and only company in Southeast Asia accredited by Google, Yahoo! and Baidu.

He was appointed to be the 28th SEA Games Steering Committee, chaired by Chan Chun Sing, Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports.

Tan is also a member of the Youth Business Leader (YBL)--the first major initiative of the Youth Network (YN) Committee, which is chaired by Chairman (National Youth Council of Singapore) and Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development Youth and Sports and Transport Teo Ser Luck.

In 2008, Tan was nominated by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as "Asia’s Top 25 Best Young Entrepreneur" for his strong entrepreneurial vision, creativity and ability to overcome challenges with innovative solutions.

Tan's ability to create a successful and profitable enterprise that is socially responsible also garnered him the "The Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2009" and "Entrepreneur of the Year Award for eCommerce 2009".

His recognition as a successful young entrepreneur in Singapore continued in the following year. Tan was awarded the Singapore Youth Award (SYA) 2010 for entrepreneurship category in July 2010. This highest national youth accolade in Singapore marked imperative milestones for Tan, in recognition of his remarkable achievements and prospective future.

Not long since 2011 began, Tan created another history by securing an Exclusive Partnership with Baidu--the largest search engine company in China with a market share of over 75%. He proceeded to set up DigiChina Pte Ltd to focus his efforts on marketing Baidu.

Early life and career

Tan was born into a Chinese family in Singapore. His family was not well-to-do during his younger days and he learnt to earn his pocket money through buying and selling of erasers when he was in primary school. His first experience in setting up a business entity came about when he was studying for his Bachelor of Business in the National University of Singapore. He set up a tuition agency with his schoolmate when he saw an unmet demand of university students who wanted to earn an extra keep by giving tuition. They later shut it down after they graduated from school to pursue their individual careers.

Tan then went on to the Illinois Institute of Technology in the United States for his Master of Commerce in eCommerce and started his second business – an online bookstore. After graduation, he took up a job doing door-to-door sales for Standard Chartered Bank. Thereafter, he joined Yahoo as a Sales Account Manager to re-launch a product and do sales for the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) markets.

Business

On 17 January 2006, Tan incorporated PurpleClick Media Pte Ltd with the support of the top management of Yahoo as a 2-man team. Authorized resellers of both Yahoo and Google, PurpleClick is now a company with 22 staff and a compounded annual growth rate of 57 percent.

Tan ran PurpleClick as Managing Director until 2010 when he became Chief Executive Officer to focus on overall expansion plans.

Awards and recognition

Media Coverage