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Chief Change Officer
From Family Empire to Personal Legacy: Chris Quek’s Bold Quest for Independence - Part One
00:27:25
Defying family expectations, Chris Quek stepped away from his role in a thriving Singaporean family business to carve out his own path. After a stint in Malaysia, he returned to Singapore, sold his inheritance, and founded TRIVE, a venture capital firm that embodies his vision for the future. Part 1 explores Chris’ transformative journey to becoming his own man.
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Foreign.
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Hi everyone. Welcome to our show. Chief Change Officer, I'm Vince Chan, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change. Progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. In this episode and the next, I'll be talking to Christopher Quack, a third generation member of a well established family business in Singapore. Against his his father's expectations, he left the family business and his home country to pursue entrepreneurship in Malaysia, where he became an E commerce entrepreneur. Upon returning to Singapore, he sold his inheritance to raise the setup capital for his venture capital firm. Chris wants to be his own man. We will explore his journey of transformation in two parts. This episode focuses on his pursuit of his own identity, his desires, his actions, the why and the how. In the next episode, we'll dive into his current work as a VC investor building up the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Singapore and Southeast Asia. We'll discuss the legacy he hopes to create for his country and the region. We'll also explore his expectations for his own children as a father at age 46. Chris, welcome to Chief Change Officer.
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Hi Vint. Thank you for having me here today and hi everybody.
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On the show, Chris and I met a few years back through a common friend in Singapore. Since then, we've exchanged a lot of ideas about entrepreneurship, investment and more. Today I invite Chris to come over to our show and share with us about his own journey into entrepreneurship and investment, as well as his vision for driving change in the Southeast Asian entrepreneurial ecosystem. At the start, Chris, could you share with us about your background and personal career? Then we'll explore different parts of your journey.
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Sure. Okay. So hi everyone again. I'm Christopher Kwak here, born and bred out of Singapore. I'm a third generation sero entrepreneur from Merchant. I say a family of that has been running family businesses. 46 years old this year, quite a few people ask, am I really that old? So I just normally tell people I buy a lot of cheap Korean face masks to make sure that I still retain my youth. But in reality, about 20 years ago, I graduated from the University of Melbourne where it was totally English speaking. And my father told me that once you graduate, off you go to our plant in China manufacturing automotive parts. And when I went there, I had a massive culture shock, if I might say. Everybody spoke Mandarin, which is naturally expected given the fact it was in China and I was struggling. I couldn't also stand the smoke, I couldn't stand all the pollution that the manufacturing plant was producing. And finally after three days, I snuck back to Singapore and my father saw me, he got angry, he shouted at me and he says, off me, you go back to China. And I told him, I said, I'd rather not do that. And I fled over to neighboring Malaysia. And I had a number of Melbourne University friends who were so kind to settle me in. And I spent another six years there in Malaysia doing my very first startup. And I decided that since I'm going to be working in Malaysia, might as well I do a business out of it. After six years, I decided to come back to Singapore. I got married and I did a few other businesses. I did. I ran restaurants and I also ran education student care outlets. But one of the very interesting things that went through in my career was that at that moment in time there were quite a number of fellow entrepreneurs, whether they were running traditional businesses, they were running what we call e commerce, digital businesses. At that time. I noticed that they started coming to me and asking me for nuggets of information, advice of how they would look at things. And I just gave it and soon be told. I guess that developed and evolved into something very interesting. I decided to start an incubator and it was supported by the Singapore government, where we gave up free government grants. And it became a really fun journey, if I might call it, where I started to get involved very deeply in the startup ecosystem. In fact, over the last 10 years when I was doing this incubator business, I think I advised easily over 1,500 startups, not just in Singapore, but all across Southeast Asia. And soon after that, with going through that whole journey itself, it was really immense valuable experience learning from fellow founders and also giving them the advice that I learned from other founders. I realized that, hey, why not? I just not just stop there. And in fact, running an incubator, you don't really make much money. And I was a little bit of a midlife crisis, you could call it. At about 35, at that time I was asking myself, what should I do next? And I guess the. The next natural progression was to become a fund manager, a venture capitalist. And so what I did was that I sold my inheritance and I got a family friend to help me start some initial seed capital. And today I'm living that vision that I went through where I felt that I wanted to really in the startup ecosystem, not only just advising startups, but investing into startups. And a lot of more things have actually evolved ever since. But I will leave Vince to ask me more about those aspects later on. But I just want to give a little bit of background and up to Today, now I'm a full fledged venture capitalist. I don't do my incubator business anymore, but I'm very deeply involved with entrepreneurs, you know, trying to grow their companies, whether is it a venture capital kind of business or whether it's a traditional business. I'm getting involved in quite a number of that.
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You mentioned you were raised in a fairly established family business. You could have taken the easy route, taken over the family business, scaled it up and continued making money, but instead you chose to be more entrepreneurial and take risks. I'm curious, was there anything in your childhood, in your family education, or the environment you grew up in that helped shape your entrepreneurial spirit and mindset?
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Yeah, Vince, I think just now when you were just mentioning and asking me about that, suddenly there was this whole flash of memories that just came back to me. So, yes, you're right. So one of the privileges of being part of a family business is that you tend to get involved in two ways. Number one, you get to experience and see the business for yourself. In the past, my father was not involved, only just in Southeast Asia, not only just in China, but also in Europe and specifically Russia. And I was very young that time. I think I was about 11 years old, that is about 35 years ago, where I went into communist Russia. And it was just Russia was just going through a very interesting economic boom at that point where we took for granted McDonald's, KFC, and all these restaurants were just a dime a dozen across in countries where we live in. But when you talk about Russia, kfc, the first KFC outlet, it was mad. And during those years, you could easily earn 5 to 8 US million net profit per outlet. It's because Russians were just so excited. And I guess that also sparked the whole interest about not just looking at food for food. My father was a very interesting man. He would take me out to restaurants, he would sit me down, and he will tell me, how much money do you think they make in a month? And he forced me to start calculating out the revenues. He will start telling me, like, what do you think is the expenses behind this? And I had to start learning a profit and loss statement just by that very visible conversation itself. And I think that is generally just one element. I was very fortunate to tell the audience that I'm a product of five mentors in my life. So the number two and number three mentors were also very successful businessmen. One was my father's best friend who was a strategist, and I had opportunities to take car rides with him. And he would actually explain how does he do his strategy and how do you actually look at expanding a particular business. He started his very own family business doing agri chemical fertilizers and he grew it into a public listed company. There was a lot of very interesting nuggets of information I got out of it. And I also had another very great mentor he has passed on now, but someone that I respected a lot was when I was in Malaysia, he was my best friend's father. And my best friend's father was just the encouraging man who taught me so much about how do you look at rejection? Particularly because when you are an entrepreneur you have to do a lot of sales. He was really encouraging and he told me how do I overcome that rejection feelings and to just keep moving on. I think it's one of the very interesting takeaways that I was very blessed from young to my early 20s that I had this privilege of having very strong mentors in my life who came in and they taught me the entrepreneurial stuff that got my mind thinking and that actually ignited my spirit because they were so passionate about what they did that I caught on to that fire as well. Yes, I would say that the privilege wasn't really on the resources that I've got, but it's more towards the exposure and the opportunity of finding the right kind hearted people who were willing. These mentors all had children of their own, but they were so willing to have a conversation with me. They were willing to care for me and they were willing to give me advice. It sometimes could be specific, it could be general, but I think that what really evolved me to the way I am today and how I actually do a pay it forward by passing that knowledge and the kind of mindsets down to other entrepreneurs.
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I totally see it. While I don't have your kind of family background, I can relate in other ways. I'm just about five years older than you. I might have a baby face, but actually 51. My journey in the business world, aside from formal education and business school, was shaped largely by the people around me. I work in corporate jobs at global organizations and banks. Best learning I've ever received wasn't just from corporate training. It was from people like you. I learned a lot from those with on the job experience, whether it was my bosses, colleagues or mentors. These are things that aren't digitalized or written in books, but are passed down directly, much like how your father trained you. I picked up concepts like business models, revenue structures and cost management early on, often before I even knew the formal terms. What really resonated with me was the encouragement and confidence these people gave me before I even believed in myself. They gave me opportunities to try something new and different. And that's something I can surely relate to in your experience, even though we come from different family backgrounds.
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Yes, I totally see the revolt resonate with you. And I wanted to actually point out that Mr. Li Ka Shing, if I remember, did say clearly to advise to people who are looking to upgrade their career. He always says every month try to get a meal out with somebody who is more senior, who has a little bit more experience or you are more experienced than you are and go and learn, go and network. And I feel that is really important. I think you and I are personifying that what the wisdom of Mr. V crushing. And so I'm just actually putting it out there to any of the audience. One of the best things that you can learn today. Don't feel embarrassed reaching out to people on LinkedIn and just asking for advice. You'll be very surprised by the amount of kind hearted people that's out there who's willing to give you opinion or two to help you on your journey.
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It's interesting that you brought up Li Ka Shingle because as you were sharing how your father trained you during your childhood, it reminded me of a well known story about Li Keqing himself. For the listeners who may not know who Li Keqing is. Originally from Hong Kong, he is the founder of a multi billion dollar business conglomerate with a global footprint. He famously bored his eldest son, Victor Lee into the boardroom at the age of eight to immerse him in the boardroom dynamics. Clearly he was preparing him as the heir to the business. Back to you, Chris. Your father obviously had high expectations for you to take over the family business. Yet you only stayed in China for three days and then you headed off to Malaysia. Where did you find the courage or the guts to make that decision? And can you share more about your E commerce business in Malaysia? What did you learn during those six years there?
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Sure. So I guess it's just about the lesser of the two evil. Was I going to go into Malaysia that was unknown. Or will I go back to China where I can't even speak very good Mandarin to start off with? And was I going to continue to manufacture automotive parts? Now the family business was actually a supplier of plastic tooling and injection molds for automotive. So usually when you are manufacturing plastics it gives us a very accurate kind of smell and I didn't feel good and in fact, there was already a trigger point in my value system that was I going to continue as the next generation of business owners to continue polluting, to continue doing the same more just to make money for the sake of money. And I was not very happy of what the family was actually building towards or I didn't want to have my name stuck on it, that CHRISTOPHER Kwek MANUFACTURER OF AUTOMOTIVE PARTS but rather when I went over to Malaysia, my Malaysian friends were really nice to me and I got really influenced by them. In fact, one of them was just telling me about the immense economic prosperity that Malaysia will go through and this kind of potential opportunities that you can work on. At that time I created an E commerce business that was very similar to Amazon. But what I did was an arbitrage advantage where Amazon couldn't actually enter Malaysia at that point in time. That was in the early 2000s because Malaysians couldn't use their credit cards overseas. And so what I did was that I established a very localized payment system. Malaysians were happy to purchase books, beauty products and I shipped them via Singapore. So I think this was just a little bit of creativity that I discovered. I discovered the demand and then I discovered the supply line that I could go for. And it was fantastic for those six years. I guess the reason what actually changed significantly was that regulations went down. That means credit cards in Malaysia were becoming much easier to purchase overseas. So I was starting to lose my advantage. And the second one was like you having the likes of Lazada Q10 all arriving and they were gladly throwing money to lose money. And I realized that my game is up and I decided that maybe this is a part of my phase of journey that I decided that it's time to actually move on. And at that moment in time, coming back to Singapore and meeting my fiance, I realized that life is becoming more deeply back rooted into Singapore. So just to give you a little bit of context, what really transpired during that point in time in Malaysia and I also wanted to highlight to the audience, it's really interesting that sometimes when you've been to a place, it doesn't mean that it's the end in your life journey. In fact, this year, Mike Venture capitalist company we have actually gone full circle and I'm back in Malaysia very often is because half my team is in Malaysia. My startup portfolio companies have built a huge regional ops HQs. Not just one, but I think three or four of them have done that as well. So it's coming back to full circle and I do understand the Malaysian Psyche and I feel that I'm not coming back. As someone who is unknown to the Malaysian sea, I know it for the last 20 years. So I think it's just to give a little bit of context. When you know some people, when they go overseas to another country does not mean that's the end. You may actually end up going back there once again. So it's just a little bit very interesting about life experiences, how it comes back to you.
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It's like planting a seed along the way. You nurture it and eventually it bears fruit. Life has a way of bringing things back to you at the right time if you go with the flow. I'm not being religious here, but after years of cross cultural experiences, getting to know different cultures, people and backgrounds, I've noticed that certain common themes link up the decisions I've made in my career and life. So I'm curious about your journey. You're 46, with family and children. Looking back up to this point in your life, have you discovered or identified any common themes that have guided the moves you've made along the way?
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Wish I could tell you Vince, that I'm a very organized person. I am a very good forecaster of my life. Knowing where my life was going. To be honest, it was more of circumstances and situations and opportunities that just appeared, if you ask me, like some certain crossroads in my life. For example, heading off to Malaysia instead of China. I felt that was the right thing to do. In fact, it was part of my prompting was a very good high school friend of mine just told me, do you want to be the son of Mr. Kwak or do you want to be Christopher Kwak? If you want to go back to China running that whole factory, everybody knows Mr. Kwak and you are just his son. But if you actually go out there and do things on your own, no matter how scary it is, to be very honest, when I went into Malaysia, I had no contacts. I only had my university friends who were willing to open doors and talk to me. I didn't have as much resources as I could. I was really more on my own during that time. But I feel that is the most biggest takeaway that I got out of it was I found myself, I found my identity. I found myself going through a phase of learning and growing because I'm just trying to put it into context with another friend, a very wealthy second gen family. Family maybe has about 3,400 US billion dollars worth of net wealth all across the world. And he has, when you want to talk about his life, his Lifestyle is just outrageous, extravagant. But he did tell me one time that he feels that he doesn't know who he is. And I think this was just something that, if you ask me to reflect back, was there a common theme? Yes. It's about every season is about discovering a new part about yourself that you did not realize. And not only every season, but I will set a very high bar or a very high vision for myself. Like when I started off running the incubator. At a point in time, Southeast Asia and Singapore were a cowboy town when it comes to the startup ecosystem. I decided that I wanted to change all of that. I wanted to say, let's just pay it forward, give free advice, build this ecosystem up so that we get fantastic entrepreneurs that start to grow out of this ecosystem and make real change for Southeast Asia. And I think that was my personal goal at that time. And it's changed. Feel free to ask me, but how has it changed? But I think it's just to give you a little bit of the elements of what at every stage is about really discovering yourself, which is really an exciting journey. You don't realize that you have actually a lot of things about yourself that you haven't discovered.
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As I was listening, two words came to mind, self discovery and self fulfillment. It seems that your life and career have been about discovering, identifying and fulfilling your identities. While you've mentioned roles like odd for entrepreneur and now investor, these are more like perspectives you take or roles you play. But I believe that identity is something essential or central to everyone's life, not just for those with privileged backgrounds, but for anyone and everyone. I know some really successful people who by the time they retire or near the end of their life journey, regret that they followed the standard playbook and never gave themselves a chance to do more, to do something different, for example. So I appreciate your boldness, your adventurous attitude and the actions you've taken so far. I recall you wrote an article titled is Singapore still relevant after 50 years? Here's an entrepreneurial view. So you returned to Singapore after Malaysia built up the startup ecosystem and founded your venture capital house. Could you share with us your experience during this time?
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Yeah. So it was quite an interesting season in 2015 where Singapore celebrated its 50th birthday as a nation. And it somehow triggered me a lot about how Singapore was evolving itself. Singapore evolved itself out of necessity, where it built a whole nation, a workforce of engineers, scientists, bankers, lawyers, doctors, specialists, if you want to call it, you name it, they are there. But what actually happened was we started losing a whole generation of entrepreneurs.
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Stay tuned for the part two of Chris Journey of Transformation. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe to our show. Leave us top rated reviews. Check out our website and follow me on social media. I'm this Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.