A few months after moving to a new professional office building, the ITTF was delighted to welcome Secretary General, Raul Calin to its Singapore Office.

Calin, who had been based at the ITTF Headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland over the last four years, linked up with many of the organisation’s core staff members in Singapore, providing a timely boost for the ITTF’s ambitions to keep growing the sport of table tennis over the coming years.

The key person for the governance of table tennis, Calin is now working alongside ITTF CEO, Steve Dainton, and liaising more closely than ever with the Competitions, Marketing, Media, Commercial Partnerships and HR teams, all of which are based at the ITTF’s Singapore Office.

I wanted to spend some weeks here in Singapore before making any comment. After completing my first 100 days here, I can say without hesitation that the pace of the work here is phenomenal. Under the leadership of our CEO, Steve Dainton, the ITTF has consolidated a group of young, dedicated and passionate staff, and I’m just happy to come to support the very many projects that the ITTF has in its hands at the moment.

World Table Tennis, the Home of Table Tennis, the new, fresh and modern World Championships, adapted finally to the era in which we live, are not the only tasks on our tables these days. The recent issues that the International Sport has faced makes the Governance Review that we are embarking on also very timely and appropriate.

Known for his high ethic mindset, the Secretary General continued:

I always felt we should be here to serve the sport and not the opposite, especially those of us who are paid employees or in prominent elected positions. At the end of the day, we are privileged people.

With the growth of activities in Singapore, the only honest options were either stepping aside and taking other responsibilities, or moving here and joining this team, trying to work as a team, for the best interest of the ITTF.

I had the confidence of our CEO and I took the opportunity.

Over the next 24 months we will hopefully see to what extent the ambitions we had in July 2017 have been realised. We will hopefully see how much the ITTF has grown compared to previous quadrennials.