So This Is My Why

What happens when you trade a stable corporate job in Singapore for a gap year for a tropical island?  That’s what Shi Han Pang did at 25. Since then, she’s best known for being the co-founder of Human Edition, a storytelling platform that has captured the hearts of over 138k followers by documenting the hidden, un-Googleable stories of Malaysia and beyond. Shi Han takes us through her journey - f...

Rachel How is one of Malaysia’s top UX/UI designer - entirely self-taught - with a huge 330k following she’s built over the last 4+ years! But finding her path wasn’t easy. She quit law school after 2 months because it wasn’t for her. Worked 10 different odd jobs - including as a body lotion rep & real estate agent - to figure out her interests. Her realisation: She enjoyed designing property...

Meet Lim Pinn Yang, co-founder of Foodie Media Berhad - IPOing today at a RM70 million valuation! He once sold woks at the morning market with his dad, scored 1A in SPM exam and earned $0.20/day from his 1st blog But he’d always dreamt of being a “business entrepreneur”. And today, his dream comes true. That little blog he started in 2016 has turned into a  46M+ follower digital media empire . And...

When Vietnamese refugee Senh Duong fled after the fall of Saigon, he could never have imagined he’d one day co-found one of the most influential movie sites in the world - Rotten Tomatoes. A kid who grew up on Hong Kong kung fu flicks, Senh was obsessed with Jackie Chan.  So when Jackie tried to break into Hollywood again, Senh went looking for honest reviews...  But couldn’t find any.  Every crit...

Hui Jing’s life reads like a TVB drama. Her mum was forced to be the sole provider for the family after her dad landed them in bad debt.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hui Jing understood the importance of money & joined the work force young - at the below-legal age of 15 - for a mediocre RM4/hour. It wasn’t easy. But it kickstarted a series of jobs that saw her go from working as at McDonald’s to T...

We're back with Part 2 with Ken Perenyi, arguably one of the art world's greatest and most successful conman?! In Part 1 of Ken's STIMY interview (do check it out if you haven't already done so), we covered his journey including how he first launched his art forgery 'career' (hint: it involves a broken bathroom that crashed through the ceiling to the restaurant below!). In...

Would you break the law if it made you a multimillionaire? That’s what happened with Ken Perenyi - one of the most “successful” art forgers in the world. His works have been sold all over the world, including in Christie’s and Sotheby’s, with one painting going for as high as $717,000! He was also close friends with Roy Cohn - the notorious lawyer who helped Trump enter the New York market. The In...

Imagine growing up in a hair salon. Being thrown out of the house and sleeping in an abandoned cupboard. Being bullied in school and almost failing SPM. But knowing deep down inside that you love storytelling. You just… don’t know what that means. And how to make that dream a reality. That was Jared Lee - one of Malaysia’s most famous YouTubers and the founder of the award-winning production house...

Jonathan Mildenhall is the former Managing Director of TBWA, SVP of the Coca-Cola Company, first CMO at Airbnb and Independent Board Member at Peloton Interactive, Co-Founder of TwentyFirstCenturyBrand and current Chief Marketing Officer at Rocket Companies. And we are back this week with Part 2 of our interview with Jonathan. Last week, we dove deep into his childhood growing up & how everyth...

Jonathan Mildenhall is the former Managing Director of TBWA, Senior Vice President of the Coca-Cola Company, first CMO at Airbnb and Independent Board Member at Peloton Interactive, Co-Founder of TwentyFirstCenturyBrand and current Chief Marketing Officer at Rocket Companies. In other words, someone at the very top of the marketing industry. Who was once treated as an experiment. Growing up in Lee...

Rodney Wong is the CEO of Munchy's, one of the largest Malaysia-based snack food manufacturer with presence in over 60 countries globally. Which makes him the Willy Wonka of Malaysia! And he's had quite the varied career. From tobacco to Coca-Cola, Petronas and now the world of snacks and sweets, Rodney is testimony to the fact that we all need to take charge of our own career and personal...

We're back with Part 2 with Dato' Sri Idris Jala - the former CEO of Malaysia Airlines, Managing Director of Shell Sri Lanka and Senator & Minister in the Malaysian Prime Minister’s Office, and current Chairman of PEMANDU. In Part 1 of this So This Is My Why feature, we delved into his tribal origins, how becoming top of his class was a matter of life and death, and his journey to beco...

When Dato Sri Idris Jala became the Managing Director of Shell Sri Lanka, he wasn’t expecting to hold the country on ransom. The Sri Lanka unit had already experienced 27 years of continuous losses when he took over. And on Day 1, what Idris had to handle was: bombs strapped to his depot, the kidnapping of his transport manager, a major labour strike and… Threatening letters sent by a professional...

When Arthur Kiong, CEO of Far East Hospitality, failed his A Levels, he thought his life was pretty much over. His dad even told him, "I’m sorry, you had your shot but you missed it" and in Arthur's own words, "I was lost and I was discouraged and I was in a great deal of pain and despair." Arthur ended up selling slimming products on the streets because it was the only job he...

“ When people say it’s ok, I don’t need a family, I don’t need a partner, I say bullshit .” Woon Tai Ho is most known for being the founder of Channel News Asia & author of prolific books like the trilogy by George Yeo (Singapore’s former foreign minister).  But has the success been worth it? What are some of his biggest regrets in life? In Part 1 (which you should listen to if you haven’t), w...

Growing up, Woon Tai Ho - Channel NewsAsia founder & Bestselling Author of books like the George Yeo trilogy, Soul of Ink, Riot Green- didn’t know he was poor. Until he invited his friends over and was asked questions like: ❓ Where’s your phone? ❓ Where’s your sofa? None of which he had. Which made him realise that actually, he was pretty poor. 😅  But he was never ashamed of it. When his si...

“Are you a masochist?” “Do you love books that much?” If you want to be a bookseller, than those are the questions you need to ask yourself - according to Kenny Chan, the former Senior Director at Kinokuniya Book Stores (Asia Pacific) - he spent ~20 years of his career there prior to his retirement! But prior to bookseller, Kenny was a foreign diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Singapore,...

Gero DiMaria knows what it means to go truly viral. He's an Italian chef & owner of Kucina - Singapore's first authentic halal food restaurant. But he's also a bona fide Italian culinary superstar with over 500k followers on social media - 256k on Instagram & 252.6k on TikTok! He took the world by storm with his recent series of viral reels on choosing the best pasta/cheeses in...

Would you die for your passion? Most wouldn’t but for 58-year-old Swee Chiow, Singapore’s first professional adventurer, it’s a question he must face every day. And it all began when he caught a glimpse of Mount Everest from a plane. He was working in IT (Singapore Airlines) then, but he decided from that one glimpse that he wanted to climb Mount Everest - a dream that took him a mere 10 years to...

Meet Lucas Lu - Head of Zoom Asia. And also a fellow Sarawakian! Lucas has had an illustrious career going from GM of Systems Technology Group at IBM Malaysia where they closed large deals within the first 6 months, leading to Lucas winning ASEAN Rookie of the Year - his first big recognition. He ended up staying at IBM for 10 years and won 2 Global Golden Circle Award before moving on to become:...

This episode is a compilation of 6 of the most powerful women featured on the So This Is My Why podcast, discussing the milestones that led them on their journey to success Ep 124: Jacqueline Novogratz Jacqueline is the founder & CEO of Acumen - a non-profit global venture capital fund that aims to use entrepreneurial approaches to address global poverty. As the OG of impact investing, she sha...

Sponsor: Descript - an AI-enabled software that makes it possible to edit weekly videos efficiently because it transcribes a 1.5 hour interview in 1 minute - and allows all editing to be done via the transcript! To find out more: https://www.descript.com/?lmref=sjT9JA * It’s not every day that you get to inherit a 100-year-old family business, but that’s exactly what Fong Wai Kheng has done. Fong...

Hey STIMIES!  Welcome back to Part 2 of the So This Is My Why Podcast with Loh Lik Peng - CEO & Founder of Unlisted Collection. In Part 1, we covered Lik Peng’s journey from wanting to become a doctor (just like his parents) to becoming a commercial litigator and purchasing his first hotel property: Hotel 1929. The property that kickstarted his crazy career pivot.  But the F&B industry is...

Want to know how a lawyer became a successful hotelier with 40 hotels & 9 Michelin-starred restaurants in Singapore, London, Ireland, Shanghai & Sydney?! Look no further than today’s STIMY guest: Loh Lik Peng , the founder of Unlisted Collection. Lik Peng grew up expecting to be a doctor, like his parents.  But ended up practising as a commercial litigator for 3 years. During that time, th...

It’s finally happening! The launch of STIMY’s special Singapore subseries. Where you’ll be hearing from a range of fascinating Singaporeans/Singapore-based tech leaders, entrepreneurs, and daredevil adventurers on how they’ve built their careers, their journey in finding their why and the legacy that they want to leave behind (if any!). We ran the whole gamut: the media broadcasting space, F&B...