Our AI journey.
Chapter one, not a finished report. Four months, 26 projects, 16 people who had never shipped software before — told month by month.
16 years in the making.
Elitez was founded on 12 May 2010 by Derrick Teo and Wayne Chen. We gained early leadership in the FMCG sector — then nearly went bankrupt in 2013. We survived, rebuilt as a full-spectrum HR company, and spent the next decade expanding to 9 offices across 6 Southeast Asian markets: manpower outsourcing, recruitment, payroll, Employer-of-Record, aviation staffing, security, training. Along the way: an Enterprise 50 award two years running, NVPC's Champion of Good, a Special Mention from DPM Heng on Budget Day — recognition for a company built the old way, on people and relationships, one placement at a time.
In 2025 we unveiled Vision 2027 — our "542 Growth Plan": 2x revenue, 4x margin, an IPO target. Everyone in the room knew that hitting numbers like that with the old playbook alone would be a stretch. It needed a new lever.
"We have to transform our group of companies holistically using AI."
— Derrick's announcement to the whole company. Not a side initiative for one team — a mandate for all 300 of us, across every market.
Three visions. Not coincidentally, they map onto the three main sections of this portfolio.
The past three months have been a whirlwind — exciting enough that, by every measure on this site, we're seemingly ahead of where we expected to be. This version of the site is a tribute to the colleagues who made that true: roughly 18 AI hobbyists experimenting alongside their day jobs, and 2 dedicated developer/engineers doing the heavier technical lifting. Meet as many of them as we've been able to credit so far on the builders page.
Our leaders.
The four people who've steered Elitez through 16 years of manpower-business growth — now sponsoring the same group through an AI transformation.
"Do you need permission? No. I expect creativity and taking initiative. We didn't wait for a training program or a technical team to start using AI seriously — we just started. If you've got a repetitive problem and an idea, ship something small, ask for help when you're stuck, and you'll end up on this page too."
— the "no permission needed" line is Derrick's confirmed standing answer (also on the FAQ); the surrounding wording here is still a draft framing of it, not yet individually signed off.
Month by month.
2026
The first 8 projects begin — mostly solo efforts, one person and an idea each. Elitez EOR, Elitez ESOP, Elitez Vantage and Flashcart all trace back to this month, alongside the first group-site rebuilds (Aviation, JR+, Security, Vector Sky Defense).
2026
The busiest month — 9 more projects start, and the first real collaborations appear: Jack Wang joins on Discounter, Damien Tan on ElitezShelf. This is also when ElitezShelf's on-device AI pipeline and the DHC/Pulse/Merchandising/SP-CORENET/Events lines begin.
2026
The internal productivity layer takes shape — the Leadership Cockpit, HR + Finance tools, Ask Elitez AI, Command Centre and the Company RAG all begin, mostly under shared internal infrastructure rather than standalone builds.
2026
The month things went into the field. AB by Elitez launches to ~90 real painting-crew workers clocking in daily with GPS + selfie verification — the first product here with a physical workforce depending on it every morning. ATS ships its Phase 1 MVP in under a month then keeps going (217 commits in July); Ask Elitez AI pivots into the company-wide "Eli" assistant; DHC Portal goes from first commit to live in two weeks. And — for the first time — every project's real contributors get credited by name instead of defaulting to a single author. This page exists because of that shift.
What comes next isn't written yet — see the roadmap, or start your own chapter.
Start buildingThe 16-year business this AI push is built on top of
Human Capital Partner
27001
2023 & 2024
Champion of Good, 2025-2028
Covid Resilience Award
Spirit of Enterprise