In 2024, TMR Media co-founder Jusmin Tan reached an important milestone in her entrepreneurial journey when she was recognised in the New Entrepreneur category of the Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2023/24.
Two years later, the recognition remains part of TMR Media’s story.
Not because one award defines the growth of a company, but because it captured a particular point in the agency’s journey — a period shaped by expansion, new capabilities, larger projects and the challenges that come with building a business in a constantly changing digital industry.
Looking back at the milestone in 2026 also gives it a different meaning.
What once marked an achievement in the moment can now be viewed as one chapter in a much longer entrepreneurial journey.
A 2024 Milestone Worth Revisiting
The Entrepreneur of the Year Award, or EYA, is jointly organised by the Association of Small & Medium Enterprises (ASME) and the Rotary Club of Singapore.
The organisers describe EYA as Singapore’s longest-running entrepreneur award, with more than 30 years of recognising entrepreneurs from both emerging and established businesses. The selection process includes qualifying criteria, assessment and judging intended to recognise leadership, business achievement and entrepreneurial development.
For the 2023/24 edition, Jusmin was listed among the winners in the New Entrepreneur category representing TMR Media.
For TMR Media, the recognition came during an important stage of development.
The agency had already worked on major projects including National Day Parade creative campaigns for 2023 and 2024, while continuing to develop its capabilities across social media, content and production.
The award therefore represented more than a single event.
It reflected years of decisions made behind the scenes.
What the Recognition Represented for TMR Media
Building a creative and digital agency involves much more than producing campaigns.
It means building a team.
Deciding which capabilities should be developed in-house.
Learning when to invest.
Adjusting to new platforms, technologies and audience behaviours.
Maintaining client relationships while still finding space for the business itself to grow.
The official EYA profile from 2023/24 highlighted several of these elements in Jusmin’s journey, including the development of an in-house production team, investment in production capabilities and an emphasis on collaboration, adaptability and continuous learning.
Those qualities remain relevant because agency growth rarely comes from one dramatic decision.
It usually happens through many smaller decisions made over time.
When should the team expand?
Which services should the business strengthen?
What should remain outsourced and what should move in-house?
How should an agency respond when the media landscape changes faster than expected?
And how do you keep developing the company while still delivering the work already in front of you?
An award does not answer those questions.
It recognises a point in the journey when those decisions have already started shaping the business.
Recognition Within Singapore’s Entrepreneurial Community
The Entrepreneur of the Year Award also places individual business journeys within a wider entrepreneurial community.
The 2023/24 award recognised entrepreneurs from a range of industries and businesses across both the New Entrepreneur and Established Entrepreneur categories.
That broader context matters.
Entrepreneurship can look very different depending on the industry.
For a creative and digital business, growth may involve adapting to changing platforms, investing in people and production, understanding new audience behaviour and continuously reviewing what clients need.
For another business, those challenges may look completely different.
But qualities such as resilience, adaptability and the willingness to continue learning often remain familiar across industries.
That is part of what makes an entrepreneurial recognition meaningful beyond the ceremony itself.
It places one business story alongside many others that are also still developing.
Two Years Later, the Story Is Still About Adaptability
Looking back from 2026 makes it easier to see that the most lasting part of the recognition was never simply receiving an award.
It was the entrepreneurial qualities behind it.
Adaptability.
Persistence.
Learning.
Knowing when the business needs to change.
And being willing to continue building even when the next stage is not entirely clear.
These themes have continued to appear in Jusmin’s story after the 2024 recognition.
TMR Media has also continued developing the team around the business. Its current structure includes strategy, content creation and production, and design functions, reflecting the range of people now contributing to the agency’s work.
Growth is often difficult to notice while it is happening.
People see the finished campaign.
The completed project.
The team photograph.
Or, in this case, the award ceremony.
What they see less often are the decisions and adjustments that happened between those moments.
That is why an older milestone can become more interesting with time rather than less relevant.
Why Looking Back Matters
Company news becomes outdated quickly when it is written only around the announcement.
We received an award.
We attended an event.
We achieved a milestone.
Those updates matter at the time, but two years later there is a more useful question to ask:
What did the moment represent in the bigger journey?
That is how the 2024 Entrepreneur of the Year recognition makes more sense to revisit today.
The date has not changed.
The context has.
What was once a new achievement can now be viewed alongside everything that came before and after it.
For the team, it becomes part of the company’s history.
For clients and partners, it provides more context around the people building the business.
And for other entrepreneurs, it is a reminder that visible recognition usually comes after a much longer period of work that nobody outside the business sees.
Entrepreneurship Usually Happens Between the Milestones
Awards naturally produce photographs.
The difficult parts of entrepreneurship rarely do.
There is no ceremony for deciding whether to invest in a new capability.
No trophy for handling an unexpected problem.
No stage for changing direction after discovering that the original plan no longer works.
And no group photograph for the ordinary weeks when a team simply needs to keep going.
Yet those moments often reveal more about entrepreneurship than the celebrations do.
They require judgement.
Patience.
Communication.
And the ability to keep learning while the business changes around you.
The 2024 recognition captured one visible moment.
The work that led to it — and the work that continued afterwards — tells the larger story.
A Milestone, Not a Finish Line
The Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2023/24 remains an important milestone in Jusmin’s entrepreneurial journey and TMR Media’s development.
But milestones are valuable partly because they show where a journey had reached at one particular moment.
They are not the end of it.
Two years later, the significance of the recognition is not simply that TMR Media can point back to an award received in 2024.
It is that the award documents an earlier stage of a business that continued to develop afterwards.
The team changed.
The capabilities grew.
New projects followed.
And the challenges of building an agency continued to evolve.
Perhaps that is the more lasting value of recognition.
An award captures a moment. What happens after it tells the bigger story.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Entrepreneur of the Year Award and TMR Media
What recognition did Jusmin Tan receive?
Jusmin Tan was recognised among the winners in the New Entrepreneur category of the Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2023/24, representing TMR Media.
What is the Entrepreneur of the Year Award?
The Entrepreneur of the Year Award, or EYA, is an entrepreneurship award jointly organised by ASME and the Rotary Club of Singapore. The organisers describe it as Singapore’s longest-running entrepreneur award, recognising both emerging and established local entrepreneurs.
When was the 2023/24 Entrepreneur of the Year Award held?
The Award Presentation Ceremony for the 2023/24 edition took place on 5 July 2024.
Why is TMR Media revisiting a 2024 recognition in 2026?
The recognition is being revisited as a company milestone rather than current news. Looking back two years later provides more context around what the award represented at that stage of TMR Media’s growth and how the entrepreneurial journey continued afterwards.
How has TMR Media developed since then?
TMR Media’s current team spans strategy, content creation and production, and design functions. Its website also continues to showcase work across campaigns and brands, including national-event projects.
Who organises the Entrepreneur of the Year Award in Singapore?
The award is jointly organised by the Association of Small & Medium Enterprises (ASME) and the Rotary Club of Singapore.