As a food and beverage businessman who brought in the Tong Shui franchise and runs his own lifestyle consultancy firm, Solutions 17, he would hire ex-convicts for the various restaurants he owned over the years, starting with Bay View Club, a Western-style establishment he ran in Malaysia. Having opened restaurants in French, Indian, and Spanish cuisine during his 30 years in F&B, and after some years working in Macau, he opened the much-lauded restaurant, The Peranakan on Singapore’s Orchard Road in 2016, and continued hiring former inmates, wives of current inmates and unemployed middle-aged people who were struggling to find a job.

He is also the Founder of Saturdays@Lengkok Bahru, a ground-up initiative that takes care of the poorer households living in one-room rental units in Lengkok Bahru (1,200 households in total). An early start in doing good has given Raymond the heart and smarts in putting together sustainable community projects. He grew up packing and delivering food parcels for prisoners with his late grandfather, who was Singapore’s first prison chaplain.