Mac Chung Lynn, the director of Nando’s Chickenland, finds she is breathing, living and eating Nando’s — and loving every minute ofit! The mother of three talks to AGATHA MATAYUN about how she juggles her family life and her thriving business.
WHERE her personal life is concerned, Mac Chung Lynn normally prefers to keep a low profile.
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There’s no power dressing for this lady who is slender of form yet shoulders a huge responsibility both in business, where she heads a 500-strong staff, and at home as mother of three young children.
That she’s well versed with the media was obvious as, after the introductions, she said: “So, you want to start with the personal details?”
Taking a deep breath, she began: “I am 33. I was born in Petaling Jaya, and went to Methodist Primary School. At the age of 10, I went to Garden School to study, before going overseas at the age of 12. I went to England, to boarding school.”
It was like a recitation as she continued: “I was there for five years and then afterwards I went to university to study architecture at the university of Wales in Cardiff.”
Being sent to boarding school at 12, and so far away from home as well, must have made some impact on her. But Mac was reluctant to delve on this part of her life, saying only that she enjoyed her time there and that it “makes you independent and at the same time it also strengthened family ties.”
Adding a bit more to her family background, she said she has two younger siblings and that her mother is a housewife and her father is an engineer.
“Nando’s was started in 1998. I got married also in 1998. I have three children, a boy aged three and two-year old twins who know way too much for their age,” she said, laughing.
And then she was talking about business.
“My dad is the master franchisee and I run the company on his behalf,” she said.
This reticence to talk about personal things runs in her family, as those who know them are well aware of: her father is a recognised corporate figure who prefers to keep a low profile and he encourages his children to do likewise.
As for how the family became a Nando’s franchisee (Nando’s Chickenland Malaysia is in 60% partnership with Nando’s Resources Ltd, which is part of a public listed group of Nando’s Chickenland in South Africa), Mac said it was her father who went for it after tasting the food for the first time in London.
“We were sitting in one of the Nando's outlets near where I was living in Putney and he was so wild about the taste that he called the manager over and asked who owned the franchise and where the company was from. And within a month, my brother had written to the company.”
As one of the requirements of being a franchisee was that a family member must be in charge of running the company, Mac, who was then an architect, found herself assuming the role of director.
Sceptics would say that with her family background, she wouldn't have much to lose if the venture fell through compared to the ordinary Joe with limited financial resources, but Mac took it on as a personal challenge. However, she readily acknowledged the help that she received from her father and others.
“I was 25 when I first started, and I was really thrown in at the deep end, but the support the parent company gave was tremendous. My dad was also a big help,” she said, recalling the time when she first stepped into the food business. When Nando’s in Malaysia opened its first outlet in 1998, it was in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis and it not only had a stiff market in the casual dining industry to contend with but also a weak economy at that time.
A lot of people, especially the competitors, said there was no way Nando's would survive, Mac related.
“I would like to say that we are still here, eight years later,” she said with glee.
For the record, the company that entices customers to enjoy the “fiery taste of Afro-Portuguese Flame Grilled Peri-Peri Chicken”, its signature dish, now has 20 outlets in various locations in the Klang Valley, Penang and Malacca.
Being fully occupied in running Nando's, Mac has had to put architecture on the back burner but she still keeps in touch with her first vocation.
“My husband and I have an architecture company, and I still have a little say in the business,” she said. “But I am not involved in the running of the company.”
The way it is now, she said, she is “breathing, eating and living Nando’s. It's funny. It just gets to you.”
Mac hesitated in saying that architecture was her first love, but she said it gave her a good grounding in managing a business, especially where people were concerned.
“In architecture, you have to mediate between consultants and clients and so it was a good grounding.”
Her love for food also helps, particularly in the area of product development, she said.
“I love food, mainly Western, like pasta. I am not fussy, and I enjoy cooking. That in itself is an interest that helps in running the company, especially in product development. I am personally involved in that as well.”
Mac's entrepreneurial skills were recognised when she received the SMB Women Entrepreneur Award in 2005. It is given to non-listed SMIs or SMEs headed or founded by women entrepreneurs.
Despite the long hours at work –she leaves for the office at nine in the morning and comes back at 7pm – Mac said she makes it a point to spend time with her children.
“It’s been hard,” she admitted. “But the advantage of having your own company is, as long as you manage yourself well, you can have the flexibility of spending more time with your kids. But it definitely does take a toll on the time you have with them.”
She would love to take the children out for walks more often than she does now, she said. “My husband and I like a lot of outdoor things. We take them for walks to get them out more.”
One thing she doesn't go for is taking her children to shopping centres during the weekends, which seems to be the trend these days.
“We are getting them more interested in outdoor activities like walking and playing more games outside. I remember when young, Templers Park was a fantastic place and we used to go there for picnics,” said Mac, who thinks that there are a lot of nice outdoor places like parks in Malaysia that are very popular with the public.
But Mac is hoping to realise her wish to have more time with her children in the next few months even as she embarks on an expansion plan for Nando’s Chickenland.
“Basically, we have reached 20 restaurants. Our aim over the next five years is to reach 45 or 50 restaurants. In order to get there, I have to look at the company structure and one of them is to get a chief operating officer who will drive the company at operational level while I concentrate on the company at strategic level.
“With that I can look at the expansion of the company more strategically, eventually look at Singapore, but it will also let me have more time to spend with my kids. How they grow up will be influenced by how I bring them up.”
One thing that will not feature in her children’s life is going to boarding school. She insisted that she enjoyed the experience and that it equipped her with a lot of soft skills that would help in later life, like not being shy to meet the press.
“One thing about boarding school, you learn to talk in public and do a lot of courses in public speaking. It teaches you to be independent, definitely,” she said.
“But no, I am not going to send them to boarding school. That's one thing that's definite. You are away from your family, and, as a mother I don’t think I want to be separated from my kids.”
In her roles as mother and entrepreneur, Mac has a fine balancing act to perform for a while yet, but looking at her current achievements, she seems to be doing very well on both fronts now.
Read more at https://www.thestar.com.my/opinion/letters/2006/07/16/macs-sold-on-her-chicken-biz/#GdJfbuEfzOrQKyfm.99
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