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Alvin Ea

Driving the Future of Haulage

Alvin Ea is the CEO and Co-Founder of Haulio, a container haulage platform based in Singapore. He has a diverse background in logistics and technology, having started his career in various roles including as an audit intern at KPMG Singapore and an intern at Citi. Alvin's professional journey includes stints at HUB Logistics Pte Ltd and HUB Express Singapore Pte Ltd, where he held positions such as CEO and Business Development roles.123

Alvin's education includes a Bachelor of Commerce from The University of Western Australia and an overseas exchange program at Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration). He also participated in the ASEAN CEO Program at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.1

Alvin's LinkedIn profile highlights his professional proficiency in Hokkien, Spanish, and German, with native or bilingual proficiency in Chinese and English.1 His work at Haulio aims to revolutionize international freight logistics by optimizing resources and promoting a collaborative and sustainable future for the industry.1

Highlights

Mar 30 · linkedin

7 years ago today, I embarked upon a journey that I’ll never forget. On the 30th March 2017, I formally became a Co-Founder of Haulio which was founded by my now brother from another mother Sebastian Shen (whom interestingly I’ve only first met less than 3 months ago).

Fast forward to my Haulio Day today, there’s simply way too many ups & downs in these 7 years of blood, sweat and tears but I will try to sum up my thoughts and compress them as much as I can:

  1. Be very clear about your “Why” should you ever decide to embark upon something - it could be as simple as taking on a new role/job or as difficult as giving up your job to become an “entrepreneur”

  2. Choose your partners wisely - starting from your Co-Founder (if any) all the way down to your every single hire and most critically, your investors (should you ever fundraise)

  3. Attitude > Aptitude - Core values and character traits are more important to me than what I read from your CV. Quoting what NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang’s latest sharing that “People with very high expectations have low resilience. Greatness is not intelligence, Greatness comes from character and character isnt formed out of smart people but people who suffered”

And I’ve been constantly saying this to many of my fellow founder friends out there who are going through the toughest times ever in our journey today, that it aint our fault that our Class of 2017 had to go through multiple “once in a lifetime” Black Swan events over the past few years, starting from Covid-19 to the Ukraine War and most impactingly the ridiculous changes in what investors perceive and want out of businesses given the rapid increase in the cost of capital.

If anyone can pull off and come through this still alive, I’m sure you are set for greatness ahead given the amount of mental torture and sufferings you’ve gone through.

A founder friend recently said this to me that hits me hard, is that “No one pointed a gun at you to do this, and ultimately at the end of the day, we chose to walk down this path. So stop wallowing in self pity, suck it up, man up and move forward”

Was there any regrets along the way? Making the decision to leave the warmth & cosiness of my family business as a 2nd gen business owner to embark on this by myself? There’re dark days that I questioned myself a lot, but it’s my own “Why Haulio” that kept me going and given the amount of battle scars & life lessons I’ve picked up along with the ridiculous amount of privileged opportunities that others can only dream to get at my age, I hold my head high with absolutely no regrets.

Co-founding Haulio could well be the best decision of my life ever.

To all those whom have witnessed my personal growth from Day Zero and everyone whom I’ve had the honour to meet along this journey, know that I’m super grateful to have met and connected with you, one way or another and I hope that through our interactions I’ve made a difference somehow.

#Haulio #Founders

Related Questions

What inspired Alvin Ea to start Haulio?
How did Alvin Ea's background in logistics influence his career?
What are some of the biggest challenges Alvin Ea has faced at Haulio?
How has Haulio evolved since its founding in 2017?
What makes Haulio different from other logistics platforms in Southeast Asia?
Alvin Ea
Alvin Ea, photo 1
Alvin Ea, photo 2
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Location

Singapore, Singapore