Startups

John Yohan Kim [Managing Partner & Co-Founder, Amasia; Vlogger of John Kim Show, Musician/Violinist, Serial Entrepreneur, Hedge Fund Manager]

Ep 38: John Kim [Managing Partner & Co-Founder, Amasia; Vlogger, Musician, Entrepreneur]

John Yohan Kim serves as Managing Partner at Amasia, a cross-border venture capital firm that helps technology companies get global. He is a Kauffman Fellow, a Term Member at the Council of Foreign Relations, a member of the Young Leader’s Circle at the Milken Institute and serves on various corporate and non-profit boards including those of Dialpad Communications, Kairos Society Asean and the Choson Exchange.

But before all that, John began his career as a serial entrepreneur, founding a music internet and e-consulting business called The Y Group before joining as a violinist in the Ally, where he toured around the US and collaborated with top artists across the US and Korea, most notably receiving a platinum record for contributing to an album with Grammy Award winner, Brandy.

All of that ended when John realised that he was still depressed despite pursuing his passion in music and during one performance, he heard God’s voice calling him to come home. Which kickstarted a journey that took him from the USA to Korea and now, Singapore.

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Shawn Chong - x3 Diageo World Class Malaysia Champion, Mixologist & Co-Founder of Omakase + Appreciate

#STIMY 10: Clubhouse Craze with Elon Musk + Mark Zuckerberg and… Malaysia’s Top Mixologist!

STIMY Newsletter Issue 10 on Shawn Chong (Malaysia’s Top Mixologist & Founder of Omakase + Appreciation), Clubhouse Craze with Elon Musk & Mark Zuckerberg, making an amazing email introductions, making work more meaningful with MIT Sloan Management Review, Mini Miniature House at Twitter & Oscar-contending animation, Umbrella.

#STIMY 10: Clubhouse Craze with Elon Musk + Mark Zuckerberg and… Malaysia’s Top Mixologist! Read More »

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

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

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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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)

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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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