TiffinLabs cofounder Kishin RK.
TiffinLabs—cofounded by Singapore real estate billionaire Kishin RK—said Tuesday it has appointed Soon Sze Meng as CEO to lead the global expansion of the online meal delivery company.
Soon joins Singapore-based TiffinLabs from Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, where he served as president for Southeast Asia for the past two years. He also previously worked at Singapore telecom giant Singtel and online payments firm PayPal.
“With Sze Meng’s deep experience in the e-commerce and digital economy sectors, we see a huge opportunity to scale our unique offerings and evolve the traditional food ecosystem to be fit for the digital economy,” Kishin, chairman of TiffinLabs, said in a statement.
Soon Sze Meng
Kishin cofounded TiffinLabs in 2019 just before Covid-19 upended the global economy. Since the outbreak last year, digital adoption has accelerated across the region as consumers holed up at home due to pandemic-induced lockdowns turned to e-commerce and food deliveries. Revenue from online food deliveries globally will exceed $400 billion by 2025 from $270 billion this year, according to Statistica.com.
“The landscape has changed radically for traditional brick and mortar F&B operators and TiffinLabs is well-placed to help them align with consumer demands through our low-capex, plug-and-play solutions, to get a slice of this online delivery piece,” Soon said.
TiffinLabs differentiates itself from other online takeout companies. Rather than deliver food from brick-and-mortar restaurants, centralized kitchens prepare food that can be ordered from virtual restaurants. Last year, it leased more than 1,000 so-called cloud kitchens, aiming to reach more 10 markets worldwide.
Kishin and his father, Raj Kumar, are among Singapore’s leading landlords with their Royal Holdings/RB Capital property empire. Their prize holdings include the 442-room Holiday Inn Express at Clarke Quay and the five-star hotel Intercontinental Singapore Robertson Quay. With a net worth of $2.65 billion, the father-and-son duo ranked No. 14 on the list of Singapore’s 50 richest that was published in August.