Category: Uncategorized

This week was an important one for the firm as we had 3 critical meetings lined up to chart and determine the company’s next growth stage.

On Mon, it was more preparation work to prep for our next call with our potential German strategic partner for one of our Green tech projects. We were also trying to create our official website and I was offering suggestions to our COO by applying a particular think-out-of-the-box method which totally surprised all of us with the results.

Last Fri, my colleague sent me a list of writeups on the mission statement, investment philosophy and values of the green tech fund we would publish on our newly formed website. I was having my usual Sat morning breakfast at the hawker centre the next day when I had a light bulb moment.

Why can’t I get AI (Artificial Intelligence) to help me write them instead? Would it provide better answers? I happened to have ChatGPT as an app on my phone, so I typed: “Provide a mission statement for a green tech fund.” The reply blew me away immediately for its sophistication and all-encompassing mission:

“Our mission is to accelerate the transition to a sustainable future by investing in innovative green technologies that address pressing environmental challenges. We are committed to supporting companies and projects that promote renewable energy, resource efficiency, and environmental conservation, ultimately creating a cleaner and more sustainable world for current and future generations.”

Woah!! I quickly decided to get the responses for the other 2 (Investment Philosophy and Values) and fired off an email to share with my COO and group CEO. They were mightily impressed when I checked with them on Mon. I then suggested to them to start to use ChatGPT themselves to see how AI will make us more efficient. We have to embrace AI or be left behind. As Thanos had said, it is inevitable.

On Tue morning, we had a Zoom call that was arranged last week with a professor from a local university. I happened to come across his name when I googled for a researcher who was an expert in the field of biochar that we are interested in. I found his name and contact details on a symposium that was held in June where he was a keynote speaker. I dropped him an email and he responded the following day to suggest that we have a video call this week to explore further.

He roped in a few of his younger colleagues for the call with our team as we were also interested in knowing his thoughts. We had wanted him to recommend a researcher who could help us conduct a pyrolysis experiment with some new materials we will provide to see the end results as part of our Biomass project.

In the end, we agreed to stay in touch and the professor invited us to an upcoming event that will officially launch new Biochar standards for S’pore. This is the material that we are very interested in exploring further. The event will also be a good networking opportunity to meet with producers and researchers alike.

The main event of the week was a video call on Tue afternoon to Germany. This was the first official meeting with the CEO of the company and we wanted to establish a strategic partnership with them in South East Asia for our green tech project.

Our CIO has been working hard over the last 2 months to establish a rapport with one of the shareholders based here. They have hashed out a financial model that is a win-win strategy for all participants. It will be a game changer if we can pull this off, by bringing together the investors, the German technology and the on-the-ground expertise from our neighbouring country. It will be an ESG breakthrough that will help contribute to slowing down climate change while working towards a carbon-zero common goal.

This first meeting went very well, much better than I expected. Toward the end of the call, we were like old friends sharing about future possibilities and the ongoing Oktoberfest. It was indeed a very good meeting and there were all smiles and laughter at the end of the call.

Wed afternoon was the last of the important calls for the week. We had a video call with our in-house lawyers to kick-start the process of constructing the VCC (Variable Capital Company) infrastructure for our fund company. Given that VCCs were only launched by the authorities in 2020 and it was the first time we were working on a VCC, we have to rely heavily on the lawyers to guide us in this process.

It was also timely for us to begin this process as it would take us approximately 2 to 4 weeks to complete. This also ties in with the near completion of the In Principal Approval to-do list requirements. We need to revert back to the authorities before they can officially issue the CMS fund management license to us.

We ended the week on a high note by having our TGIF snacks and drinks session in the office on Fri at 4:30 pm. This was the 2nd time we have had this once-a-month chill event since I started work here. Everyone became more relaxed and chilled as we got to know each other better. We also talked more after some wines and finger food 🙂 while getting to see the lighter side of ourselves and our colleagues. We want to work hard and play hard too. Time to move on to my 2nd month of work and stick to the timeline we agreed upon.

Time really flies when you work. I have just crossed my 1 month work anniversary and earned my first paycheck. Yay! I still can’t believe that I had taken a 6-year break from full-time work before starting this new adventure this month.

This week things slowed down a bit as I caught up with a lot of reading and planning for next week. Back home, I was busy with many things to do at the start of the week on Sunday. I finally managed to book a date for the Macau restaurant for our December year-end vacation. The table booking dates are only opened 90 days prior and I was monitoring their calendar for months. Then I had to repaint the staircase with another coat of varnish in the afternoon as the first unprofessional one I did a few weeks ago resulted in uneven patches all over. Finally, I rushed down to the mall in the evening to terminate our cable service which we have not been using for months.

On Monday, I started to prepare the groundwork for the VCC (Variable Capital Company) discussion with our lawyers. We were told it would take about a month to set it up. Since we wanted to connect with a researcher based in S’pore to do some Biochar studies for us, I managed to successfully google 2 names from the local university and sent them a request to set up a call. We needed an independent check on the eventual results by our European contact on the same source materials.

I was pleasantly surprised that one of the researchers replied to me the next day to set up a Zoom call next Tuesday. I had also started to read up on the previous introduction marketing decks of our company. These will be the building blocks for our new fund management firm’s sales deck which our CIO will be creating. We also had a number of rounds of discussions internal to try to pin down the terms of the Shareholder’s Agreement between the parent and our fund over the course of the week.

The highlight of the week was the updated status of my iPhone 15 order bought online 2 weeks ago from the official Apple S’pore store. My credit card was finally debited on Wed and the status changed to “shipping”. It was delivered on Friday and I am now spending the whole of Sat transferring the data from the old phones to the new sets for both my wife and my sets. This will be my birthday gift to her this month. She will be upgrading from an iPhone 8 Plus(also bought by me for her birthday 7 years ago) to the 15, a big 7-step jump. Meanwhile, I will be jumping from an iPhone 12 ProMax to the 15 after a 3-year gap.

As a side note, 2 ex-colleagues had separately told me a long time ago that they liked Apple products so much that they decided to buy Apple stock. Eventually, all their new Apple toys were essentially free due to the capital appreciation and dividends of the stocks they owned. This was during the 2000-2010 period.

Finally, I decided to follow suit and started to accumulate the stock from 2012 in batches of 10 per order till I had a few hundred. I am happy to confirm that their thesis was correct. Since then, there were also stock splits and Apple is now the biggest company in the world in terms of market capitalization at almost US$ 2.7 Trillion.

Given that the handphone is the most used and important electronic device we hold in our hands daily, it is a given that all of us would invest in a new one every few years to keep up with the tech advances. One will be constantly buying a new set to upgrade every few years. Having a better camera with other new functions is now a necessity.

The rest of Thursday was to prepare for the important calls we were having next Tuesday and Wednesday. On Friday, I had a good and long lunch with my usual group of close friends to end the week on a positive note. The mid-autumn festival officially started and the office had a mini-mooncake feast to consume all the remaining ones we had.

I am looking forward to next week with excitement as we move on to the next phase of our firm’s development. There are many more new adventures ahead and I will try my very best efforts to strive forward. Work hard and play hard – that was our team’s motto while I was heading the team in the American bank.

Time really flies when you work full-time. The weekdays pass quickly; before you know it, it’s TGIF again. I felt it much more because I stopped having a normal job when I left my last bank job in Oct 2017 and was always trying to find new things to do to kill time.

The last 6 years were filled with a process of self-discovery, the beginning of a lifelong learning journey. Between infrequent contractual consultancy work, I became a student again, pursuing topics I wanted to know more about. I even tracked COVID by numbering my weekly blogs till I was absolutely sure that it had become endemic and the world was going back to normal again.

As I started working again 3 weeks ago, I felt that it was important for me to note down what I did each week. It is a self-reflection of what I had done to track my timeline and milestones achieved. I can then look back on them in the future to remind me of what I have done and to look for areas of improvement.

This week started on a high note and ended in the same way. We had a nice and long Sunday lunch with my wife’s side of the family at an Italian family restaurant filled with Prosecco, Vinos and lots of pasta. Then at the end of the week on Sat, we had another long lunch with my side of the family to celebrate the 1st birthday of the newest addition to the family clan. She is the 3rd great-granddaughter of my parents. Four generations meeting up over good food and an amazing birthday cake.

Starting on Monday, I had several meetings with the team the whole day. Our group CEO was preparing for his business trip to HK to brief the senior management team on our S’pore strategy. We brainstormed on his presentation and tried to pre-empt any possible questions that may arise. I also briefed him on our trip to JB last Thursday to see the plantation owner for our Biomass project. On the personal side, I completed the paperwork to refinance the housing loan for our investment property. Interest rates are higher now (3x) and we went for a 1-year fixed rate.

Tuesday was a surprisingly fruitful day. Our CIO gave the team a concise technical lesson on the Biomass project using the financial model he had constructed. It was important that everyone in the group was up to speed on the progress and that we were on the same page on the next steps forward. We then had a brief one-hour but productive call with the German technical expert contact to clarify some of his understanding of various topics relating to the project and for our team to strategize on the next steps.

Wednesday morning was the work to apply for online company accounts as part of the requirements for the regulatory license. I then headed off for a luncheon event in the business district. It was a showcase of a very exciting company called MicroConnect that will be expanding aggressively into China after securing USD 500 mio for their series C funding. The CEO sat on the panel with a senior local bank executive to conduct a lively Q&A session. It was also a good networking session where I reconnected again with some old classmates and ex-colleagues.

On Thursday, my supervisor was back from his HK business trip where he did a post-mortem of his HK meeting. I then met up with a number of ex-colleagues for a lively 2+ hours of discussions and gossip. Later that night, one of them apologized to us that he had just tested positive for COVID 🙁 Bummer!! No wonder he was popping Lozenges and coughing throughout the lunch.

Friday morning was a wrap-up of the documentation of the fund’s Shareholder Agreement draft before we handed it on to our lawyers to vet. I informed everyone at the meeting beforehand of my lunch partner’s positive COVID result before we started. I also decided to wear a mask for the meeting. My CIO and I then attended a networking seminar in the afternoon. It was held by an association from Vietnam called CFO Vietnam. They had a delegate coming to S’pore to look for business opportunities. I ended the day with a lovely dinner with my better half to celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary 2 days earlier as she will be travelling for business soon.

The first 3 weeks passed by very quickly and we had done quite a bit of initial work to get ready the foundations of the fund company. Some things are falling into place and we are lucky that some of the stars aligned themselves along the way. There is still much to do and multiple variables to monitor to ensure that we reach our end goals in 2024. Exciting times ahead!

I had a good first week of work last week after not working full time for the past 6 years since my last one in Oct 2017. It turned out better than I thought as I was trying to figure out strategically what needed to be done. I was mentally exhausted every day and slept pretty well every night. I also had to turn my exercise regime around by going to the gym or an evening run instead of the usual morning time by leaving the office after 5 p.m. to work out before a late dinner.

I started the 2nd-week of work after more readings and planning over the weekend. On Monday morning, I prepared a list of recommended readings on VCC (Variable Capital Company) for the whole team to prepare for our Wednesday meeting with the lawyers to understand more about this subject. I also managed to squeeze in a lunch meetup with my regular gang in town. I could not stay with them for their long lunch as I had an afternoon call with an audit firm on the same subject.

On Tuesday morning, based on what I had researched so far, I prepared another recommended reading list on a particular CO2 carbon capture credit (CORC) for our main team to read and understand the process. I wanted to highlight that the certification criteria were not easy and complex. My boss and I then met up with an ex-colleague to catch up. We wanted to size him up for a possible role as marketing head for a headcount we had planned for 2024.

On Wednesday morning, we had the VCC meeting with the lawyers which included everyone in the company (10 of us). They explained the structure in detail and what is required to set it up. It would take about a month and we will need to hire an external tax advisor to help us apply for tax exemption – this process might take a year to complete.

We had planned a fact-finding trip to Johore on Thursday for a project the CIO had been working on. The 3 of us met at 7 a.m. in the office for a 2-hour drive across the causeway to Johore to meet a contact at his palm plantation. We had a very good 3-hour meeting with him as he gave us a tour of his warehouse and what he was doing, followed by lunch till about 1430 before we drove back home. It was a long and exhausting day by the time I reached home at 6. An evening run was welcomed to end my day.

Before I knew it, the week was coming to an end. Friday was spent mainly catching up on paperwork and reading. It was followed up by a 2-hour lunch meeting to debrief the team on our Johore trip yesterday and also to help my boss prepare for his business trip presentation next week. I caught up with an ex-colleague in the afternoon as he shared his experience of running his own fund and what I can learn from him. I booked a nice Izakaya venue for the family to wind down for the week in the evening.

It has been a busy 2nd week and I am looking forward to next week where a few things have been planned. We need to eyeball what we need to do and execute the plan accordingly, or else the agreed timeline will slip. There are so many variables that have to be monitored and managed concurrently in order to reach our goals next year.

I finally started my first day of full-time work on Monday with much trepidation and anxiety as my last full-time job was in 2017. In last week’s blog, I had elaborated on what I had been doing during the last 6 years and how I managed to land this new role.

I had prepared for this day since we had received an In-Principal Approval of our fund management license in late August. It was almost 9 months to the day of our application in Dec last year with at least 6 rounds of follow-up questions and responses with the regulators since then.

We now have another 6 months to satisfy a to-do list of required actions and documentation before they will issue our CMS license. One of the requirements was that I begin my role on a full-time basis immediately. I was on a consultancy retainer contract since Oct 2022 and had to relinquish that and sign a new employment contract. I believe that we can expedite this process within 2 months if we respond fast to our lawyers who are consolidating and tracking the checklist of items needed to revert back to the regulators.

The week before, I had already planned in my mind a timeline map and milestones for the next 9 months. I also wanted to kickstart the first meeting with our team of 3 together with the holding company’s CEO to spell out the way we will work together and come to a team buy-in of the timelines. We also had a discussion of the likely end-stage fund SPV structure we wanted at this point in time.

Monday was pretty much a day of paperwork in which I had to sign my employment contract and set up the various required in-house HR systems. We already had an office room assigned to us. Thankfully, I had the old hand-me-down laptop from my son to use for now until the officially issued one is ready.

Tuesday was the important team meeting where we all sat down for a serious prep session where I wanted to set the direction of the company from day one. No BS office politics, no mind reading or assumptions to minimize miscommunications. Once the team agrees on an action plan, we should all move together as a team to implement and execute the plan. If there are any disagreements, we are adults and should thrash it out ASAP. We will go into the meeting room to talk things out and then like the uncles that we are, have an ice-cold beer after.

Wednesday was more paperwork as I got into the groove of working and responding to emails. I wanted to ensure that our appointed legal advisory law firm understands our expectations and timelines because it is critical that they access them to tell us if they are doable. Prompt follow-ups from us are also important to ensure that they action fast on them to reduce any possible delays. A video call was then arranged for the next day.

Thursday was a video call meeting with the lawyers to explain to them our vision of the likely fund structure we wanted. It was also for them to propose and educate us on what is best suited for our needs. They suggested a VCC (Variable Capital Company) structure that has been very popular for its flexibility and tax-friendly setup.

The VCC was introduced into S’pore in 2020 and was modelled after existing American models. To date, there are now 400+ VCCs incorporated here. It also makes S’pore stand out as the only country in Asia with this structure. With the advantage of the strong S’pore Incorporated branding and robust legal infrastructure here, it had attracted many family offices and foreign funds to set up shop here using the VCC umbrella structure.

Friday was a catch-up on all the article readings as I needed to bring myself up to speed on the other pillar of green energy development (BioMass) which our CIO was exploring at the moment. I had also decided to organize an after-office TGIF drinks and snacks session that evening for 2 reasons. Firstly, to get to know everyone in an informal setting. Secondly, to thank everyone for a warm welcome as I settle in. I am glad it was a success as we chatted about various non-office matters over beer, wine and nice finger foods for almost 2 hours.

And the week passed by so fast. I missed my daily morning exercise schedule, so I tried to squeeze in a run or gym session after work during some of the weekdays. I actually feel more energized and revitalized this week as time passes faster. I also had some of the best-uninterrupted sleep for quite a while. It could be that I was mentally and physically exhausted. That is good because it counterbalanced against my fear of trying to do too many things for the first time in my new role. I am also apprehensive about not knowing if we would succeed in this venture eventually.

But as I told my COO, we old dogs have to learn new tricks. We have reached our halftime and nearing the finishing line of our careers. This will be the moonshot goal of our lives as we try to achieve something of significance. We should give it our best shot by trying our best to see where this will lead us to.

I am looking forward to week 2, to see what else is ahead of me. I need to proactively push myself to work against the clock to try to maximize this golden opportunity that is given to me. This win-win solution to solve the climate change issue as well as making the venture profitable for our investors is in our hands.

I am 57 this year and my last full-time job ended in Oct 2017 when I left a UK bank after less than a year there. For the last 6 years, I have pivoted to project-based consultancy roles as well as become a full-time student in various new lifelong learning interests I had discovered along the way.

When one door closes, many doors may open in front of you. That is always my mantra. One should look ahead and forget the past. Get rid of the negativity in one’s life and embrace the positivity wholeheartedly. Life is too full of surprises to live in regret. As Yoda said: “Do or not do, there is no try.” Plan proactively ahead and set my annual KPIs. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

I had been fortunate to have stumbled into a consultancy role journey, thanks to various contacts from friends and ex-colleagues. The part-time project-based work spans a duration of a few months to one that has an annual renewable over 4 years. They enriched my experience of meeting new people. One resulted in regular visits to a new country (Myanmar) and another was to experience the excitement of a Fintech environment – the application of a digital banking license (Grab).

Meanwhile, with the free time given to me thanks to the part-time work, I had the opportunity since mid-2017 to become a student again. I was in a sweet spot as the authorities had just started the Skillsfuture initiative to help mid-career citizens pivot to another career in many up-and-rising sectors with massive fee subsidies. Technology-related topics have always been my favorite subject so I started to deep dive into this area. The more I learned, the greater my interest in knowing more. Hence, this started my lifelong learning journey as well.

I did a 12-month Specialist Diploma in Business Analytics (part-time evening classes – 2017/18), a 6-month IBM SGUnited program in Artificial Intelligence (full time – 2021), and a 4-month NUSS Fintech course (full time – early 2022). Along the way, I discovered that I like preparing for exams and doing project work LOL… In between, there were also overseas study trips to Hangzhou for the Alibaba CEO Ebiz study trip (2018) and another to Seoul for a Blockchain training session (2019).

There was also an assortment of courses that piqued my interest – “How to Start a Business”, Mastering Excel Analytics, Data Analytics, Analyzing Financial Statements, Data Storytelling via Tableau, etc. I also challenged myself with a number of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) that were easy to sign up for.

There were fun ones too, like the 2-month Wine course I took with a few good friends in 2017. I learned about Aquaponics and started my Hydroponics garden adventure in 2018. For this year, I went to 2 separate full-day classes on Whisky and Sake 😉 All courtesy of the Skillsfuture fund that had no cap on the 90% subsidy for citizens above 40 years old. The balance of 10% could be paid for using the S$1.5k Skillsfuture given to each citizen or via cash. I estimate that I have enjoyed almost 60K of fee subsidies which is equivalent to taking back some of the taxpayers’ dollars I had paid during my career 🙂

I thought that I would remain in this semi-retired mode and have periodic part-time consultancy work for the rest of my life. With Ageism, it is tough for uncles to be considered for a role as younger people are cheaper, and the thinking by supervisors is that they are faster and hungrier.

Then along came an opportunity late last year. It seems that the stars have aligned themselves. The opportunity to work in a promising space where I can leverage my past 6 years of new lifelong learning skills was a bonus. An ex-colleague was working as the CEO of a new company that was aiming to participate in the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) sector.

With Global Warming and Climate Change, bringing everyone to net zero carbon emissions is a medium to long-term goal. Participating in sustainable and clean energy production is seen as a way to balance off the negative effects. There is an urgency for companies to show shareholders that they have an active ESG plan in place.

The gist of the overall company strategy is to have a win-win end game for fund investors and building owners. Investors via an SPV participate in solar projects to earn a reasonable yield (>10% p.a.). The funds invest in PPA (Power Purchase Agreements) that provide CAPEX that assist commercial building owners in buying cheap electricity that is being generated by clean solar energy panels installed on their rooftops. There will also be additional REC (Renewable Energy Credits) created by this project that can be monetized by selling these credits to willing buyers. This will further enhance the investor returns. We are also currently studying the opportunity of Biomass with a similar objective to generate carbon credits. Blockchain will also be explored as a tool to help track the carbon credits for greater transparency and avoid greenwashing frauds.

My journey with this new company started in Oct 2022. I signed up as a consultant to prepare for the application for a fund management license to operate in S’pore. We submitted the application in Dec and there have been multiple rounds of to and fro for more information and clarifications since then.

Finally, they came back to us in late August with an in-principal approval. That was the signal to me that I had to convert to a full-time role as part of the regulatory requirement. As such, I will begin to work in the office from next Monday.

It has been almost 6 years since I left my last full-time job in Oct 2017. There is bound to be an uneasy apprehension after such a long time. But this role is exciting as we could really do something big if we are successful. It is also likely that it would be my last shot at doing something before reaching my career finishing line. To make it big or to go home LOL. All signs point to a developing sector that is prime for growth with the help of technology. Even governments are getting into the act to push and kickstart ESG initiatives, predicting that Carbon prices will surely go up into 2030 as companies need to buy them to offset their carbon footprints.

All companies, through moral suasion by activist shareholders, are being encouraged to embrace ESG action plans in order to show corporate responsibility. The stars have indeed lined up for us to try to pull this strategy off. We just need to execute and hopefully make it a success. I am pumped up to start work again and feeling energized again. Wish me luck!

An interesting podcast from Scott Galloway interviewing Mo, an expert on AI and its inevitable progress. That ChatGPT’s current IQ is about 155 versus Albert Enstein’s 160 and will be unmeasurable with future versions soon.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-prof-g-pod-with-scott-galloway/id1498802610?i=1000620994812

The bonus was the last 19 minutes where Mo shared his views on life, death and happiness. That was after he faced a personal family tragedy of the sudden death of his son and tried to come to terms with it. I had to listen to it twice to grasp his wise thoughts on moving forward and aiming to continue to live a happy life.

“Mo Gawdat, the former Chief Business Officer of Google [X] and an expert on happiness, joins Scott to discuss the need to control our response to AI, how this technology is impacting society, and the four major threats he’s identified. We also hear about Mo’s transition out of tech to focus on happiness. Follow Mo on Instagram, @mo_gawdat.

Scott opens with his thoughts on Threads and has a question for Mark Zuckerberg: are you Darth Vader, or are you Anakin?

Algebra of Happiness: express love and admiration as often as you can.”

Presidential elections are upon us in Singapore soon.

This reminds me of my project in early 2022 during my NUS Fintech full-time 4-month program. One of the modules dealt with Blockchain and smart contracts. The goal of the project was to have a concept paper using Blockchain technology to solve a current problem. My 4-page PPT slide presentation was to use Blockchain for voting, to solve the issues of Transparency, Trust, Fraud, and voter identity (Secrecy).

Using a private and public ledger with NFTs as a Utility Token, we can use the Metaverse (or alternatively, create unique QR codes) to vote. In summary, the main slide encapsulates the proposed concept paper.

I do not have an IT background and hence there may be limitations to my proposal. But current technology is already available to make it happen.

I would greatly appreciate your feedback as it is my lifelong learning journey and interest in this area. Thank you in advance.