Tell us a bit about yourself
I have more than a decade of Private Equity & Venture Capital and Investment Banking experience across the Technology, Financial Services, Consumer, Healthcare and F&B sectors. Over the years, I have executed over 20 complex cross border IPOs, PE/VC, Restructuring and M&A transactions with a combined value of more than ~US$400million. I am currently an Investment Director, Head of Investments with Velocity Ventures specializing in South East Asia growth equity investments within the Travel and Hospitality industry. I can be found in the gym, a library or traveling during my downtime. I should also add that I exercise to eat, so if anyone has good dining places to recommend, please hit me up!
How do you engage with startups? How do you help founders with their entrepreneurial journey?
The key to a fulfilling engagement is to fully understand the true motivations and working styles of the management teams and provide honest feedbacks in a consistent, supportive, and communicative manner. We often help founders with both big picture thinking such as business strategies, realizing competitive advantages, hiring top-performing teams, and taking control the details of difficult projects such as finance, product development, fundraising, restructuring and even M&As.
What are some of your highlights as a mentor?
We successfully restructured a distressed company and returned the business to corporate health. It was certainly stressful, but worthwhile when livelihoods were saved.
What made you want to become a mentor at Plug and Play?
I am a firm believer that knowledge shared is knowledge gain. Knowledge sharing is not a zero-sum game. The more we share, the richer the world gets. If you want to have a successful business career, one needs to reduce the wastage and pain through trial and errors. I believe that you need to have many mentors and have benefited significantly from my mentors and decided to pay this goodwill forward.
What's the value of being a mentor?
I feel a sense of achievement when startups and companies achieve success from the guidance and this is how I see my way of contributing back to the society.
WRITTEN BY: BENNETT LEE
He is one of our Travel Program mentors, and he is the Investment Director at Velocity Ventures.
To find out more about our Travel Program, click here.
Interested in being one of our mentors? Join our platform here!
