Today, Keppel is made up of three key businesses: Offshore & Marine, Property and Infrastructure. But these businesses alone span a huge variety of engineering and business operations, ranging from the construction and repair of rigs, production units and ships, to the development of premier properties for sale, as well as providing environmental solutions and engineering services.

More importantly, these businesses have taken Keppel to more than 30 countries around the world, from Germany, the USA, the Middle East, Azerbaijan, to Brazil and Nicaragua in South America.

Make no mistake, Keppel is BIG. It has become a multinational company in every sense of the word. When a company gets this large, it becomes more important — and challenging — to ensure that it conveys a consistent message about its various operations to investors and members of the public.

This is where 25-year-old Diana Chan steps in.

FOLLOW YOUR INTERESTS
Diana is a Keppel scholar, and she joined Keppel in June 2005 shortly after graduating from the National University of Singapore (NUS). Since then, she has been a part of the Keppel’s Group Corporate Communications department.

“At Keppel, corporate communications is a centralised function. Apart from being brand custodians, we strategise press outreach programmes and also drive the Group’s Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) and sponsorship programmes,” she explains.

If that sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is! Corporate Communications might sound “glamorous”, but in reality, it involves a great deal of walking the ground, keeping up-to-date with internal news, having a finger on the company’s pulse, making sure that queries from the public are quickly addressed, and doing your best to show that the company is a responsible corporate citizen.

Not surprisingly, corporate communication officers tend to have outgoing personalities. They also tend to come from a “liberal arts” background. Diana, for example, graduated with an honours degree in English Literature from NUS.

But you see, Diana could have become an engineer instead — she was in the Science stream in junior college.

“Most of my peers either did accountancy or engineering courses,” she observes. “Although I knew I could do well in engineering, I asked myself what I wanted to do. I’ve always loved to read and write, and I’ve always had an interest in the media industry.”

And so, she chose to study what she was interested in. That’s the same advice she would give any student who is currently thinking of what course to pursue or what career to take up after graduating from university.

“You have to know your own strengths and weaknesses. If you do a job you are not interested in, you won’t be motivated by your work,” she says.

BROAD-RANGED WORK
That motivation goes a long way. Yes, Diana worked hard at her studies, because as a scholar, she carried the responsibility of making the best out of the educational opportunity sponsored by her future employer. More importantly however, she simply enjoyed what she studied, and so, all the effort hardly felt like work at all.

There were other expectations to meet as well. Diana served her attachments at Keppel during her university vacations, while the rest of her friends were enjoying their holidays. These attachments served as opportunities for her to keep up with developments in the company.

“The benefit of working for a large company like Keppel, is that established industry standard practices and processes are in place from which one can learn. At Corporate Communications, I learn directly from veteran public relations practitioners. I benefit from their depth of experience and mentorship,” says Diana.

Now that she has worked for about two-and-a-half years, Diana readily admits that time management is her greatest challenge. “Keppel is expanding very fast, which means that the workload is similarly growing,” she says.

For Diana, there is no such thing as a “typical” day. Her job covers a variety of different roles. For example, she works on diverse projects from property launches to arts sponsorships, both in Singapore and overseas.