The EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2016 and Ceo of Futuristic Store Fixtures Tells Us How He Defied the Odds of a Rough Childhood to Turn Danger and Failure Into His Life’s Biggest Opportunities – Including Heading an Unstoppable Empire Serving Some of the World’s Retail Giants.
“I don’t tell this story to many people,” says David Low, as he rolls up his right sleeve to show us a scar running down his arm. The year then was 1978: Aged 16, Low’s childhood had been “nothing but work”, slogging long hours to support his family, and working odd jobs for his father who ran a carpentry business on Duxton Hill. On that fateful day, he was asked to transport a large piece of glass to a factory. “The professional way to carry a piece of glass is with a suction cap. Those years, we didn’t have any,” he recalls.
As Low was lifting the bottom edge of the glass piece, his co-worker, who was handling the top edge, hit the side of the truck. The piece slid and sliced Low’s arm. He ended up with 42 stitches and the arm in a cast for six months. The accident shook the youth to the core and made him question his future. He recounts: “I thought, ‘I am a one-armed man. What can I do with one hand?’”
In retrospect, the accident gave Low guts. “Because I survived and was given this second chance at life, I would be blessed and I had nothing to fear,” says the 55-year-old CEO of Futuristic Store Fixtures.
Recently awarded the EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2016 – Supply Manufacturing Chain, Low has had an unlikely and colourful resume lined with dangerous jobs: from descending four storeys deep and braving suffocating environments to clean an off-shore ship ( just to make $40 a day), to balancing on planks several storeys high as part of an electrical team. Through it all, he never forgot his accident. “I was determined to do something extraordinary.”
This story is from the February 2017 edition of The PEAK Singapore.
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This story is from the February 2017 edition of The PEAK Singapore.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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