WHO IS ALEX TAN?

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

This is a common adage that many of us know and understand. And in many great achievements we see around us in history, either recorded or otherwise, this maxim rings true even to this day.

Alex Tan, the Founder of Avidity International, would likely agree wholeheartedly to this very axiom as his experiences in life are a testament to the journey of building his very own legacy in the Leadership and Coaching Consultancy frontier.

Born and raised in Penang, he was molded from a young age with remarkable values that he would still wield as guiding hands for every decision made. Honor, loyalty, quality and pride were instilled in his very heart throughout his formative years in the prestigious Penang Free School.

Fortis Atque Fidelis,the motto of Penang Free School, which translates to ‘Strong and Faithful’, has been ingrained in his mind to this day. This had kept the Penangite moving forward through mountains to get to where he is now.

Alex Tan has always been fascinated in the many facets of human behavior and how it translates into the workplace. During his youth, Alex found himself naturally gravitating towards leadership roles. Among others, he was a basketball captain as well scout patrol leader. He was also a Student Representative Council member for two colleges. Due to these exposures, he cultivated the leadership skills that laid the foundation of his success in running a leadership consultancy. As one of the top scorers in Penang Free School, he was awarded a full scholarship by the Public Service Department of Malaysia to complete his Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, majoring in finance.

Trained in technical skills but passionate in art, Alex brought together all his early experiences, values and ideals together to develop his career path further to a specific goal, developing talents.

In 2002, he committed himself to the Learning and Development industry. 5 years was spent here for him to pick up and learn the twists and turns of leadership and talent development’s inner workings. It is there that he was taught mainly on people development and leadership development philosophies, methodologies and approaches. His exposure to these techniques and methodologies further solidifies his knowledge on people

At some point, Alex decided a change in career was inevitable. He landed a second stint at a human resource consultancy. He was exposed to the more technical and scientific methodological side of the scene. He delved deeper into psychometric assessments and profiling. He began to have a much clearer view of the human psyche, having been exposed to both its human and technical aspects. All that time working there, he started to specialize into “behavioral deduction”, a niche skill in which he profiles other individuals through behavioral and language patterns. He expanded the horizon on this exploration into people psychology.
With all the values and knowledge in him from the years of learning put forth front and center, he wanted his endeavors to wholeheartedly focus on the positive approaches in developing people.

2014 was the birth year of Avidity International. Staying true to his beliefs, this organization was built on the ideas of developing and helping people find meaning for themselves; not fixing them. Hence the name Avidity — meaning passion and enthusiasm.

Not even a full year after Avidity was established, 2015 became a mark in Alex’s journey that would solidify his position further in his ideals as a coach. With a gut-wrenching news that would put a stop to anyone in their tracks through life, Alex somehow pulled through.

While hiking up the challenging Mount Kinabalu, his vision started fading and giving way. Initially, he thought that it was just the altitude change, but it did not recover after he had descended from the mountain. In fact, it worsened and rendered him partially blind.

He decided to seek professional advice and the news that he received was not what he would have expected. He had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball in his brain, which was pressing against his optical nerves, causing his blindness. If he did not remove the tumor, the blindness would become irreversible and the tumor could potentially become cancerous. He was told that the surgery was high-risk. There was no doubt in his mind on what he needed to do. The next 2 years became a major test of his perseverance and grit.

He never asked ‘why me?’. Instead, ‘what now?’ would become his signature prompting question in any difficult time. He knew that a lot of people were depending on him and letting them down was last on the list, if it was even on it at all.

Fortis Atque Fidelis. Having strength and faith, he went through with the surgery. It was a success and the tumor was completely removed. The happiness was compounded when the biopsy showed that the tumor was benign and he regained his vision. However, he had to sacrifice his pituitary glands in the process. Due to that, he is afflicted with a rare disorder called Hypopituitarism, a condition where the body does not possess two or more functioning hormones.

As it stands, Alex Tan has had a fulfilling journey in his career. It landed him and the company multiple accolades throughout the years even before Avidity was born. From 2010, he was already a Certified Solution Focused Coach. And from then on, he never stopped learning and obtaining multiple awards and certificates to propel his credibility further. He became a Professional Certified Coach in 2016 and consequently won himself the 101 Top Global Coaching Leaders Award at the World HRD Congress in 2019. These were feats that many coaches would dream to achieve, and Alex was able to through his years of experience and wisdom.

The accolades did not end there as in 2019 and 2020, he was able to grab the silver and gold awards for the HR Vendor of the Year for Best Executive Coaching Provider. Up till this day, he never stopped venturing deeper into coaching. To him, gaining knowledge is crucial for him to grow as a coach. With that mindset, it landed him the title of Senior Practitioner by the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) as well as Master Solution Focused Coach (MSFC) by the International Alliance of Solution-Focused Teaching Institutes (IASTI) in 2023.

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