The short version.

I spent more time catching spiders around the void deck and selling them to classmates than I did sitting still in school. The press has returned to that story a few times. I understand why. It is the earliest version of an instinct I still recognise: pay attention to what people care about, then explain it in a way they understand.

I wasn't a good student. I paid attention when I could make or sell something people understood.

As told in e27 / Yahoo News.

In 2013, while we were still in polytechnic, I started HighSpark with Kai Xin Koh. We began by selling presentation design and incorporated the company in 2015.

I still spend most of my time solving the problem we found back then. Strong work gets overlooked when the message is hard to follow or the slides get in the way.

Education has always been part of the pull. In 2019 I went back to Ngee Ann Polytechnic, my alma mater, as an adjunct lecturer teaching entrepreneurship. It's the same instinct that drives the rest of the work: helping a hard idea land, this time in front of a room instead of on a slide.

HighSpark started as a presentation-design agency. Over the years it grew into training too: I now coach executive teams at large companies on communication and other soft skills, and more recently on working well with AI.

Along the way, I've worked with teams at Nike, Mastercard, Oracle, Panasonic, Medtronic, DBS and SMU.

Worked with companies that have raised over $480M+. The figure uses publicly reported funding.

People found the work online too. My decks and presentation advice have been viewed more than three million times. One deck passed a million views, and I ranked in the top 1% of authors on SlideShare.

The work put Kai Xin and me on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list in 2020.