From Yat Sen classroom to global telecoms career: Peter Chan comes home

More than five decades after leaving the classrooms of Yat Sen School in Suva, Peter Chan has returned to Fiji to bring back the experience he gained overseas and contribute to the country where his career began.

For Australia-based Mr Chan, the journey back to Fiji is more than a return home. He brings with him a career spanning accounting, information technology and telecommunications across New Zealand and Australia.

Now semi-retired, he is an independent non-executive director of Amalgamated Telecom Holdings (ATH).

Early life

“Yat Sen provided the foundation that shaped much of my life,” he said.

The school taught him discipline, humility and the importance of striving for the best — values he carried with him as he moved from Fiji into an international career.

His return to Yat Sen for the school’s 90th anniversary was particularly meaningful, giving him the chance to reconnect with friends he had not seen for more than 50 years.

He said his upbringing also gave him a strong connection to both his Chinese heritage and Fiji, helping him develop the social skills that later became important throughout his professional career.

After completing his studies at Yat Sen and Marist Brothers High School, Mr Chan left for Canterbury University in New Zealand, where he completed a Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in accounting, in 1985.

He returned to Fiji and began his career with Coopers & Lybrand but soon realised accounting was not the career he wanted.

He decided to move into information technology with ICL, becoming the company’s first graduate trainee.

He was sent to New Zealand for a year of training before returning to Fiji, where he became ICL’s first local general manager and helped rebuild the company’s Fiji operation.

Two years after the first military coup, Mr Chan migrated to New Zealand, where he returned to accounting and built experience in senior accounting, financial controllership and finance director roles before making another major career move.

Telecommunications

His breakthrough into telecommunications came with American company BellSouth, where he helped establish the first Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) operation in the Southern Hemisphere.

He described the opportunity as his “big break” into an industry that would eventually define his career.

In 1999, Mr Chan and his family moved to Australia, where he took on broader management responsibilities.

At Singtel Optus, he began in managed services, drawing on his billing and commercial experience before moving into contract management and later transferring to Sydney.

He eventually helped build the managed services business to about $750 million in revenue before moving to Telstra, where he spent about seven and a half years and rose to become Head of Service.

Mr Chan retired in 2019 and took time away from his career before returning to Fiji about three years ago.

Following the change of Government, he applied for board roles after being encouraged by people to bring his experience home.

He was subsequently selected for major board positions, including ATH, Telecom Fiji and telecommunications companies in Papua New Guinea, Samoa and American Samoa.

Today, Mr Chan spends about half his time on board responsibilities as he continues his semi-retirement.

He said returning to Fiji had given him an opportunity to contribute to the people of Fiji after decades of building his career overseas.

His advice to Yat Sen students is not to be afraid to leave Fiji to broaden their horizons, while remembering where they came from.

He encouraged students to build their skills, reputation and careers overseas if opportunities arise, but to consider bringing that experience back home.

For Mr Chan, the journey has come full circle — from a Yat Sen classroom, through New Zealand and Australia, into an international telecommunications career and finally back to the Pacific.

“Yat Sen gave me a foundation, New Zealand gave me the opportunity to go deep. Australia gave me the scale. Telecoms gave me a career. And the Pacific brought me home.”