The Singapore Dream?

Calvin Soh is a real kampong boy made good. He lived in a 4-room HDB flat with his civil servant parents and brother, went to neighborhood schools and graduated with 4 ‘O’ Levels.

He joined O&M in 1991 as traffic and worked his way up. He was Ogilvy’s employee of the year in 1993.

He joined Saatchi and Saatchi in 1996 and by 1999 became Asia’s most awarded creative and ranked number 1 by Campaign Brief magazine. That year, he won an unprecedented 2 golds, 1 silver and several finalists in the NY One Show, the Oscars of the ad industry. The awards he won were for local clients like Singapore Navy, CapitaLand, Tan Chong motors and government boards like Gintic, dispelling the myth that you can’t do internationally recognized work for Singapore clients.

He quit Saatchi and went to the US to crack the world’s biggest advertising market. He became Singapore’s first Associate Creative Director in New York working for Fallon, which was arguably the world’s top creative agency then.

There he worked and presented to the board of Fortune 500 companies like United Airlines, Citibank, EDS, Johnson’s Controls, Timberland etc. He was given the H1B Visa, which is for persons of exceptional talent but didn’t take up the option of the green card because he is at heart a Singaporean.

He came back in 2002 to start Fallon Asia’s operations as President. One of the first things he did was work with the 4As to send the top Crowbar award winners (local student show) for a month’s internship at Fallon HQ in Minneapolis. It was a privilege that US students can only dream of. Proof that Calvin believes in the talent in Singapore and champions them. Fallon in the first year, became a top 7 agency in Singapore and quickly won acclaim for its work for United, Citibank, MTV and VW, (their regional win).

Then in 2007, Calvin as asked by parent company Publicis to be the Vice Chairman, regional Chief Creative Officer for Publicis Asia. He remains the only Singaporean in this position in the industry.

Calvin has lectured at prestigious institutions like Insead, given talks at SMU, NTU, NAFA, Ngee Ann, Temasek and Republic Poly and all around Asia. He’s also designed his own furniture, dabbled in art, grows his own herbs, an avid cook and his most notable achievement, a dad.

If you ask him, he’ll say all his success is because of his 4 ‘O’ levels. He remains a kampong boy at heart. Albeit one who can connect with the coffee shop uncle or a Fortune 500 CEO.