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Succession planning is no longer a once-a-year leadership review. For Kemin Agrifoods Asia, it has become a living talent strategy – one that the team says builds readiness before the business needs it.
For Davis Foong, Vice President, Human Resources, and the HR team at Kemin Agrifoods Asia, the journey towards award-winning succession planning began with a clear business reality: in a growth orientated, specialised, science-based industry, leadership continuity cannot be left to chance.
Kemin Industries (Asia) Pte. Ltd. serves as the Asia Pacific regional headquarters of Kemin Industries, supporting operations across 13 countries and a diverse workforce across commercial, scientific, technical, operational and support functions. As the business expanded across countries and product areas, leadership roles became more complex, requiring stronger regional influence, cross-functional collaboration and the ability to lead across markets.
This was the challenge that sparked Kemin Agrifoods Asia’s Succession Planning 2.0 – a structured, enterprise-wide and data-driven approach that helped the organisation become one of Singapore’s top three companies recognised for succession planning strategy, winning the bronze award at the Employee Experience Awards 2026 – Singapore.
What sparked the initiative, and how did KAA know it was the right path?
The need was clear. Kemin operates in a niche industry where deep technical knowledge, long-standing customer relationships and strong leadership capability are critical to business growth and continuity. Previously, succession planning existed, but was often siloed within individual business units or functions, and development efforts were largely reactive, triggered mainly when leadership vacancies arose.
Succession Planning 2.0 was introduced to change that. Instead of replacing existing practices, it extended and standardised succession planning beyond individual business units, enabling enterprise-wide visibility of internal talent and stronger alignment across regions and business units.
What made the approach distinctive was its shift from “replacement planning” to a broader talent marketplace. Leaders could now look beyond their own teams and business units to identify potential successors across functions, geographies and business units.
This created a stronger, more transparent view of leadership readiness, and helped turn succession planning into a shared enterprise responsibility.
How was Succession Planning 2.0 brought to life?
The implementation was built around strong governance, structured calibration and disciplined development actions.
A key foundation was the People’s Board Meeting process, where managers identified talent using the 9-box framework, followed by review and calibration by the Business Unit Leadership Team and HR Business Partners. These discussions helped improve consistency, fairness and decision quality across the organisation.
To strengthen objectivity, Kemin embedded external psychometric competency and assessment center tools into the process. These assessments were used for senior leadership successors and emerging leaders. The insights from these assessments were then linked directly to Individual Development Plans, ensuring that development actions were targeted, evidence-based and aligned with future role requirements.
Another defining feature was execution discipline. All high-potential employees and identified successors were required to have Individual Development Plans that were specific, time-bound and focused on real capability building. These plans included targeted development experiences such as project assignments, job rotations, lateral moves across functions and geographies, business school programmes, coaching and role-relevant courses. The progress of each development plan are reviewed on a quarterly basis.
Kemin’s Winners Circle Programme also played a major role. Designed as an enterprise-wide leadership acceleration programme, it gives high-potential employees exposure to strategic projects, senior leader sponsorship, cross-functional problem-solving opportunities and increased visibility with global leaders across the organisation. In doing so, Winners Circle serves as a strategic feeder into Kemin’s succession planning framework, broadening leadership exposure, strengthening enterprise-wide networks and reinforcing the company’s commitment to growing leaders from within.
What challenge did the team face, and how was it overcome?
One of the biggest challenges was shifting leaders away from viewing talent as belonging only to their own business unit. Some leaders were initially reluctant to release high-performing talent, so HR played an active role in reframing success — from retaining talent within a team to developing talent for the wider organisation.
This mindset shift was supported through consistent leadership alignment, transparent enterprise-wide talent discussions, and accountability at the annual succession plan meeting with the business unit leaders and the global leadership team facilitated by HR leaders. Over time, the enterprise-wide approach helped leaders see succession planning not as an HR exercise, but as a business continuity strategy that benefits the whole organisation.
Reflecting on the journey, Tiffany Neo, Senior HR Manager, shares: “The biggest shift was moving succession planning from a business-unit exercise to an enterprise responsibility. By making talent visible across the organisation and investing in targeted development, we have strengthened leadership readiness while creating clearer growth opportunities for our employees.”
What impact has Succession Planning 2.0 created?
The impact was clear and measurable. For critical L2 leadership roles in Kemin Agrifoods Asia, there were no “Ready Now” successors under Succession Planning 1.0 in June 2024, while short-term coverage stood at 33%. After the implementation of Succession Planning 2.0, “Ready Now” coverage increased to 50% by July 2025 and reached 100% by January 2026.
This improvement was not theoretical. Between July 2025 and January 2026, an actual top Functional leadership vacancy was filled through the identified succession pipeline, validating the readiness assessment and development process.
Beyond leadership continuity, the strategy also strengthened employee experience. Clear readiness definitions, structured calibration discussions and mandatory development plans gave employees greater clarity on career expectations and progression pathways. Kemin Agrifoods Asia also achieved a Gallup engagement ratio of 32.5:1 and an engagement score of 4.4, both significantly above Gallup’s world-class benchmark ratio of 14:1.
The organisation’s broader talent strategy was further validated when Kemin Industries Asia Pte. Ltd. was ranked among the top 300 employers out of about 1,500 assessed organisations under the Singapore Opportunity Index, placing it in the top 20% of employers in Singapore. It was recognised as both a Career Builder and Career Anchor, reflecting strong internal mobility, career progression and sustained employee retention.
What is the golden nugget for the HR community?
Kemin Agrifoods Asia’s experience shows that great succession planning is not about names on a chart. It is about creating an authentic, visible and disciplined talent system that prepares people before roles become vacant.
The lesson is simple: succession planning is not a nice to have, it is mission critical of business continuity and long-term sustainable success.
When organisations make talent visible, development intentional and leadership accountability shared, succession planning becomes more than risk mitigation. It becomes a powerful engine for employee growth, business continuity and success and finally long-term organisational resilience.
Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets section!
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