Guan Heng Tan (aka Guan): Academy, Certification and Resident Coach/Mentor

Guan spent the first ten years of his professional career in the MICE industry managing a host of proprietary exhibitions and conferences. Starting out selling booth spaces, sponsorships and advertising, Guan worked his way into project management and subsequently, several senior management positions. One thing that came out of the early years in exhibition sales was developing that thick skin to smile at the face of rejection. Well, sometimes it was more like trying not to lose sleep over a lost sale.

From late 2005 until 2015, Guan worked for a New York-based trade association, representing the global retail real estate business with over 110,000 members around the world, as its Managing Director for the Asia-Pacific region. Guan was responsible for opening up an office in Beijing to support the China market – the first time the organisation has had physical presence in the PRC – and staffed the office with a full-time team. All this was accomplished in a little over 7 months.

In 2017, Guan transitioned into adult education, which meant going back to school and learning (well, sometimes re-learning) skills… skills he thought he had. It was a humbling experience going through certification after certification, in order to really learn the basics of helping people develop and grow. It took hundreds of classroom hours (and two different coaching certifications) to learn how to ask questions; and hundreds more to get better at it. 

Which brings us to where we are today… At Gametize. There’s a story to how Guan and Keith met. Buy either one of them a drink and you might get to hear it.