This Father’s Day, Alvin Ea, the co-founder and CEO of container haulage platform Haulio, discusses his father’s impact on his personal journey as a business owner
Five years ago, Alvin Ea left his position as CEO of his family’s business, Hub Logistics, to start his own company in the haulage industry. Along with his business partner Sebastian Shen, he established Haulio with the aim of helping to fully digitise the highly traditional sector across Southeast Asia by the year 2025.
Although, ask Ea if he foresaw becoming an entrepreneur a few years before that and he would have said no. “I’ve never wanted to be an entrepreneur. I never saw myself becoming a businessman when I was younger,” he says. “I only ended up becoming one because I was filial and decided to join my dad’s business as the eldest son.”
Inevitably, working side by side with his father for several years proved pivotal to his life. It not only brought him closer to the man he hardly saw growing up, it also allowed him to learn the ropes of building and running a company from the experienced entrepreneur that is his father.
Today, Haulio is one of Southeast Asia’s largest container haulage platforms. It uses technology to better connect global logistics players with first-mile partners in Southeast Asia. It has partnerships with 98 percent of Singapore’s container haulage companies, and is growing its presence in Indonesia and Thailand.
This Father’s Day, Ea recounts moments from his childhood with his father and the lessons from the latter that have contributed to his approach and understanding of business.
What was your relationship with your father like growing up?
Alvin Ea: As the breadwinner of our family and an entrepreneur for an essential industry that never sleeps, my dad was often busy working. At home, his parental approach was one of tough love, and although my two younger brothers and I didn’t see him much as kids, we deeply respected and looked up to him. Growing up, our love for each other was pretty much unexpressed and unspoken.
This started to change when I entered the family business. Our relationship improved, we communicated a lot more, and we saw each other every day at work. But back then, I was more idealistic and impulsive. And due to our generation gap and different business mindsets, there were moments of father-son disputes and familial tensions.
