So This Is My Why

Dr Finian Tan - Chairman, Vickers Venture Partners - Singapore Venture Capitalst

Ep 30: Dr Finian Tan (Chairman, Vickers Venture Fund)

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Dr Finian Tan is a Singaporean venture capitalist and Chairman of Vickers Venture Partners: a VC he founded in 2005 with 4 other partners and which is now ranked the 5th most consistently performing fund manager worldwide.

Prior to Vickers, Finian was inter alia:
Regional Director & Head at J.Aron – Goldman Sachs’ Asian trading arm;
Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Trade and Industry for the Singapore Government, where he oversaw the creation of the $1 billion dollar TIF fund (he was subsequently appointed as chairman of the said fund); and
A Managing Director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson Eplanet & the founding partner of its Asia Pacific Operations, where he led the investment into Baidu and remained its largest backer until IPO.

But how did it all begin?

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Darren Toh Min Guo - Malaysian chef & restaurant owner of Dewakan - Asia's Top 50 Restaurants 2019

Ep 29: Darren Teoh Min Guo (Head Chef & Restaurant Owner of Dewakan)

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Chef Darren Teoh Min Guo is the head chef and restaurant owner of Dewakan, where in April 2019, it became the first Malaysian restaurant on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list at 46th place with the title Best Restaurant in Malaysia.

“Dewakan” derives its name from a combination of two Malay words: Dewa (meaning “God”) and “makan” (meaning “to eat”). And at Dewakan, Chef Darren is known for taking rare and forgotten ingredients from peninsular Malaysia – including the sea, mountain, jungle and farmlands – and elevating them into unique dishes that diners have described as ‘modern art’.

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Freda Liu - BFM 89.9 Malaysian radio television business presenter of Enterprise & HerVantage, book author, emcee & moderator

Ep 27: Freda Liu (Business Radio TV Host of BFM 89.9, Author, Emcee & Moderator)

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Freda Liu is one of Malaysia’s most prominent radio television hosts, having worked at BFM 89.9 – Malaysia’s only business radio station, for over 12 years. She has conducted over 5000 interviews and some prominent names include Martin Cooper, author Stephen Covey, motivational speaker Nick Vijucic, former GE CEO Jack Welch, the Duke of York HRH Prince Andrew to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

At BFM, her show Enterprise provides the tools to help businesses succeed covering topics with the startup scene, personal development, technology to organizational development. While HerVantage talks about women of leadership and influence to showcase women representation in all strata of society from sports, the arts & sciences to entrepreneurship. Freda has authored five books called “PR Yourself” and “Shake & Spear Your Business: The Romeo & Juliet Way, ” and “Everybody Loves Ray” (biography) “Bursting Fixed Mindsets” and her latest “In Your Skin”.

She also contributes to The Star, one of the leading English newspapers. She was recently awarded the ASEAN Rice Bowl Awards for Malaysia Startup Journalist Of The Year and a nominee for MaGIC’s Social Enterprise journalist. Freda is a member of the National Association of Women Entrepreneurs Malaysia (NAWEM) and the Malaysian Association of Professional Speakers (MAS). She started her Lean In Circle called Think and the Malaysian chapter and has over 100 members in her group.

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Cesar Kuriyama, Director, Animator, Visual artist, founder of 1 Second Every Day mobile app

Ep 26: Cesar Kuriyama (Founder, 1 Second Every Day)

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Cesar Kuriyama is a video maker, director, producer, animator, and founder of 1 Second Every Day – a mobile application that allows users to record one second of video every day and then chronologically mashes them together into a single film. And an app that is well on track to being the No.1 Downloaded Free App in the App Store!

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Chong Chan Yau - CEO & Co-Founder of Carboncare Innolab Hong Kong, President of Hong Kong Blind Union

Ep 25: Chong Chan-Yau (President, Hong Kong Blind Union & CEO, CarbonCare Innolab

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Chan-Yau Chong is currently The CEO of CarbonCare InnoLab, A NGO promoting sustainability. His other social interests include disability rights, and global citizenship. He is the President of the Hong Kong Blind Union, former Chairman and current Director of The Board of the Dialogue in the Dark Hong Kong Foundation, former Chairman of and current Board Director of Carbon Care Asia, former Executive Director of Oxfam Hong Kong. He received awards including Ten Outstanding Young Persons Award, MBE, China Poverty Alleviation Award, and Honorary Fellowship from the University of Hong Kong.

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Malek Ali - Founder of KL Classified, BFM 89.9 & Fi Life

Ep 24: Malek Ali (Founder of BFM 89.9 & Fi Life)

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Malek Ali is a Malaysian-Singaporean serial entrepreneur who has:
✦ Founded Malaysia’s only business radio station, BFM 89.9, that disproved conventional thinking then that Malaysian radio listeners only wanted entertainment content. BFM has gone on to become the most influential radio station in Malaysia
✦ Founded Fi Life, that aims disprove the adage “insurance is sold and not bought”, by operating Malaysia’s first online life insurance service. Work-in-progress.
✦ Worked with JobStreet.com to disrupt the newspaper recruitment classifieds market in South-East Asia by launching an online job portal and related recruitment tools. That job is done.
✦ Invested in Newswav, a Malaysian news aggregator, so all your news can be in one app. Work-in-progress
✦ Invested in Kakitangan.com, that provides cloud-based payroll and leave services. Work-in-progress.

Currently at Fi Life, he is working towards increasing the financial wellness of Malaysians:
✦ Working with employers to provide financial wellness programmes for their employees.
✦ Moderating weekly webinars on important topics that impact your personal finances
✦ My radio station hosting a weekly radio programme, Ringgit & Sense, to increase your financial literacy
✦ And soon, launching financial advisory services that will develop your own individual financial plan

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