Honestbee, the grocery and delivery start-up has announced the appointment of Mr Ong Lay Ann as its new CEO, taking over from interim CEO Brian Koo who assumed the post following the departure of former CEO and co-founder Joel Sng. The appointment was effective as of 15th Of Juy 2019 according to a statement by Honestbee.
Mr Ong main priorities is to restructure the company’s capital structure and resolve its debt issues among many things. Honestbee has been facing many issues the last 2 years and is showing signs as an ailing company.
Mr Ong, a Singaporean, currently also serves as director for ISDB Investments and also as director for Australia-listed Westar Industrial. He has over twenty years of experience in the IT, Commodities and real estate industries.
Another of Honest bee co-founder and CTO, Jonathan Low also resigned on July 11
th , which sources claimed as due to personal reasons. Mr Low co-founded the company in July 2015 and was instrumental in the company's growth over the last four years, leading the technical team in Singapore and Taiwan and supporting the development of the firm's product ranges over the years. A third partner, Mr Isaac Tay left the company last year.
In May, Mr Sng sent an e-mail to Honestbee employees announcing his intention to resign, saying the firm needed a reset and strategize and also focus more on its clients, partners and suppliers.
The company had suffered numerous setbacks despite a good start. In April 2019, the home-grown company said it was closing down some of its operations in Asia and cutting its global staff count by 10 per cent as part of its restructuring. On May 15th 2019, Honestbee announced that it was ceasing its food delivery service in Singapore. A further ceasing of all its laundry services was announced also in May 2019.The company was under fire in recent months for its cash crunch issues and had also been making headlines about layoffs, multiple pauses in operations and partnerships and even talks of sale of it company.
Its Thailand operations are also under performing despite praise from certain startup agencies and organizers of startup events where its local executives have attended giving talks about how “successful” the company was!
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