Co-founder and CEO, Proof & Company and ecoSPIRITS
Paul Gabie is the co-founder of independent spirits distribution and bar-consultancy business Proof & Company. Named one of the 500 Fastest Growing Companies in Asia Pacific by the Financial Times, Proof & Company operates in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and China.
His career as a lawyer took him to Singapore in 2008, where he and a peer embarked on a quest to start a cocktail revolution in the Lion City inspired by his time in New York. Proof & Company’s bar and speakeasy projects include 28 Hongkong Street, Manhattan and Atlas in Singapore, Hong Kong’s The Pontiac, and Charles H in Seoul. Its establishments regularly make their way onto “best of” lists such as Asia’s 50 Best Bars; Manhattan was also named Asia’s Best Bar in 2017 and 2018, and clinched the Michter’s Art of Hospitality Award in 2020.
Gabie holds engineering and law degrees, and an MBA from the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. He has passed the baton of his Proof & Company CEO role to his successor Paul Broadbent. These days, he is primarily focused on the global expansion of ecoSPIRITS, a company that has developed a closed-loop distribution system almost eliminating packaging waste in the premium-spirits supply chain. “We are bringing a Singapore sustainability technology to the world—something we’re very proud of,” says Gabie, who also helped establish the Singapore Cocktail Bar Association in 2020 to help the industry navigate the Covid pandemic. That same year, he made it on to Drinks International’s Bar World 100, a list of the bar industry’s most influential figures.
“I am shifting the majority of my time to leading ecoSPIRITS, our low-carbon, low-waste technology that dramatically reduces the carbon footprint of spirits consumption.”
Awards
2020
Drinks International’s Bar World 100 2020
2021
PEA Awards 2021: Food & Drink Category
Did You Know?
Paul Gabie was inspired by New York’s cocktail culture when he worked in the city as an attorney in the early 2000s. He then transitioned from law to F&B after developing a soft spot for the scene in Singapore.