Group buying giant Groupon, CEO Joel Neoh

Working conflict: ‘I tend to think of my work as leveraging conflict rather than managing it and often times, we learn the most through conflict,’ says Joel Neoh of Groupon Malaysia.

From runway model to successful entrepreneur, Joel Neoh will give any 30-year-old a run for their money.


AT the age of 20, he earned his first million – after founding a fast-growing student agency set-up. Three years later, he emerged as the winner of Malaysia’s first corporate reality TV programme, The Firm, despite being the youngest contestant on the show.

Joel Neoh has come a long way since. Now, he is an integral part of one of the world’s fastest growing companies, Groupon (as listed by Forbes in 2010).

Apart from juggling his day to day as the CEO of Groupon Malaysia, Neoh heads Groupon Asia Pacific, overseeing operations for the public-listed group-buying website company in 11 other countries: Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand.

The mechanical engineering graduate, who also modelled part-time during his university days, has been named Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year 2012, Asia’s Top 10 Young Entrepreneurs by Top 10 of Asia magazine, and most recently, Young Global Leader 2013 by the World Economic Forum. Earlier this year, as a result of his professional achievements, Neoh was awarded the Malaysian Service Medal by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

Appointed as a key line-up speaker for The London Speaker Bureau and Asian Business Angel Forum in 2012, Neoh now also serves on the Advisory Board for the School of Business, Monash University.

That’s a whole lot to take in, for someone who just turned 30.

“Growing up, I was always asking a lot of questions; always challenging the status quo. I must’ve annoyed a lot of people. But looking back, I think that’s one of the key criteria of an entrepreneur – curiosity,” he said over a phone interview, undoubtedly squeezed in between his daily meetings.

In 2006, Neoh had set up Youth Malaysia, a non-government organisation that managed events for youths. After the successful conceptualisation of YouthSays, a survey platform for Malaysian youths (which become a big revenue churner), the organisation went on to organise Youth 08 – arguably the largest youth festival at that time.

After organising its third youth festival in 2010, Neoh realised that the Internet offered great business growth opportunities and that e-commerce, especially, was the holy grail of the World Wide Web.

In September 2008, Neoh founded GroupsMore, a Malaysian e-commerce company based on the business model of US-based Groupon Inc. Within three months, GroupsMore was catering to over 20,000 customers.

The company’s seemingly overnight success eventually caught the attention of Groupon Inc and instead of filing a lawsuit for copyright infringement (which Neoh feared when he first heard from them), the American corporation expressed interest in collaborating with its Malaysian counterpart.

In January 2011, GroupsMore was acquired by Groupon for an undisclosed sum and Neoh’s company became known as Groupon Malaysia. Under Neoh’s stewardship, Groupon Malaysia has become the leading social e-commerce platform in Malaysia and was dubbed the fastest growing country in Groupon for 2011.

“I’m always looking to take up the biggest challenges because I know that would give me the largest opportunity for growth and learning. It was difficult at first – while my friends were excited that it would soon be payday, there I was, worrying about whether I had enough money to pay my staff. My journey as an entrepreneur has evolved and every day is a challenge. But I believe in never, ever giving up,” Neoh opined.

Neoh also believes in this: recruiting people who are significantly better than himself. “I make it a point to hire people who have better skills so that we can all learn from each other. So far, we’ve brought some of the best talents onboard.”

Of course, doing that also requires the man to set aside his ego.

“It’s hard, but it must be done. There’s no point in hiring people who aren’t better than I am, because all I’d would get be team that listens to me, without really challenging what I have to say. I tend to think of my work as leveraging conflict rather than managing it and often times, we learn the most through conflict.”

Neoh is also big on giving back to the society, and has been championing for the larger group to take on more of such activities. Most recently, he pooled resources to raise over USD$100,000 (RM318,700) within a week for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

In retrospect, Neoh revealed that he had a hard time convincing his family, particularly his mother, about his passion for entrepreneurship.

“My mom had no clue what I was up to – she must’ve had a hard time explaining what I did to the relatives. I was constantly trying to convince her to let me become an entrepreneur, and that was also part of the reason why I joined The Firm. After I appeared on the show, she started burning DVDs of the episodes for all my aunts and uncles.”

Still, Neoh was quite sure that his mother had yet to catch on to the bigger picture.

“It was not until a year ago when I bought her an iPad that it finally struck her, because her friends kept telling her to go onto the Groupon website. I think the best way for my mom to understand what I did was to be an end user of the service itself. For me, the most rewarding thing is when the people you care about start using and believing in the things you build.”

- Contributed by Lee Mei Li The Star

Ugly business of Pilipinos kidnapping in Malaysia

It is understandable that family members of a hostage would want to see their loved one released as quick as possible but paying the ransom only encourages the crime to flourish. 
 
Last week, the whisper among the intelligence operatives in Sabah is that the asking price for the Taiwanese tourist kidnapped from Pom Pom island is RM10mil.


When I heard that was the amount demanded for the release of 58-year-old Chang An Wei abducted at gunpoint after her 57-year-old husband Hsu Li Min was shot dead by Filipino gunmen in the exclusive island resort off Semporna town on Nov 15, I worried about the consequences of paying for her freedom.

I tweeted: “If ransom is paid for Taiwanese hostage abducted from Pom Pom, $$$ will be invested into powerful boats & guns. Expect more kidnappings.”

Intelligence operatives also speculated that Chang was on the way to Jolo or was already on the island, the kidnap capital of the Philippines.

Kidnapping is big business in Jolo.

Last year, in Zamboanga City in southern Philippines, I had a chat with Lee Peng Wee. The tycoon made his money through seaweed grown mostly in kidnap-prone Philippines provinces such as Sulu and Tawi Tawi.

He was instrumental in securing the release of nine Sabahans kidnapped in Sipadan and held in Jolo in 2000. The Sipadan kidnapping was big international news – 21 hostages were abducted, including 10 tourists from Europe and the Middle East.

At his residence where 12 years ago he and Malaysian negotiators strategised on buying the Malaysians’ freedom, I asked him how the situation in Jolo was.

“It is the same. They kidnap two and release one. They kidnap three and release two,” he said, referring to Filipinos abducted in southern Philippines.

“Kidnapping is easy money. These people do not have a steady livelihood.”

The typical modus operandi is: kidnap-for-ransom group will abduct rich individuals in southern Philippines and they then sell the human commodity to bandits (some using the name of Abu Sayyaf) in Jolo. The island is so lawless that it is a “holding pen” for hostages.

Many in Malaysia assume that the Filipino kidnap-for-ransom group only targeted the east coast of Sabah. Wrong.

On Tuesday, JV Rufino, the Director for Mobile for the Inquirer Group in the Philippines, tweeted a link to a Philippines Daily Inquirer story headlined, “Military: Abu Sayyaf behind Sulu treasurer’s abduction”.

In Jolo, Sulu provincial treasurer Jesus Cabelin was allegedly taken by a group led by Julli Ikit and Ninok Sappari, who is a member of the Abu Sayyaf, according to the Philippines Daily Inquirer.

It reported that Sappari was “linked to several incidents of abduction in the island-province, including the March 2012 disappearance of Indian national Viju Kolara Veetil and six health workers of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao”.

“The victims were later freed after ransom had been allegedly paid,” the report continued.

Cabelin was the fourth kidnap victim in Jolo since Oct 22. Kidnapping is common in the Philippines especially in Jolo and nearby provinces.

However, it is rare for these groups to operate outside of Filipino waters. If you count the numbers of actual kidnappings at resorts in the east coast of Sabah, there are only three – Sipadan in 2000, Padanan in 2000 and Pom Pom in 2013.


(This count does not include kidnapping cases such as the abduction of the cousins who owned a bird’s nest farm in Lahad Datu or seaweed farm owners in Semporna).

One way to stop kidnappings by Filipino armed groups inside Malaysian waters is to stop paying for ransom.

Ransom was paid for all the 21 Sipadan hostages except Filipino cook Roland Ullah who “walked out” of captivity in 2003.

The then Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi bankrolled the payment for European and Filipina hostages and Malaysian businessmen raised the money to free the Sabahans. (The ransom for the first hostage – a Malaysian – released was paid for by a Filipino tycoon who described to me the payment as “small change”.)

At the back of my mind during the Sipadan hostage crisis, I was worried that ransom payment would only encourage kidnap-for-ransom groups to launch more kidnappings in my home state of Sabah.

Nevertheless, if you were a family member of a hostage, you would understand that not paying ransom is an option you would not consider.

I’ve met the Malaysian hostages twice while they were held by the Abu Sayyaf and I’ve spoken to almost all their family members, so I understand the agony they faced.

The negotiation for the release of the hostages dragged until Aug 20, 2000, when the last of three abducted Malaysians were released. Less than a month later, Filipino gunmen raided Padanan island and abducted three Malaysians on Sept 10.

This time the mood from the top was “no negotiation” with the kidnappers. Kuala Lumpur had learnt its lesson – paying ransom for hostages only encouraged the crime to flourish.

The then Philippines President Joseph Estrada ordered a military offensive on the Padanan kidnappers in Jolo. The three Malaysians were released after 46 days in captivity following a military operation.

That was the last raid by Filipino gunmen on a Malaysian island until the killing and kidnapping in Pom Pom.

Paying for Chang’s ransom will only encourage more kidnappings in Malaysian waters.

Contributed by One Man's Meat Philip Golingai

China sets up air defence zone over East China Sea, a strategic move

The Chinese government on Saturday issued a statement on establishing the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone.

The move, however, provoked anger in Japan, which accused China of "one-sidedly" setting up the zone that covers the disputed Diaoyu islands, and described the zone as "totally unacceptable."

Having no intention to generate tensions, China's move is to uphold its own legitimate rights and safeguard what has always been its own.

As pointed out by many military experts, the establishment of the air zone is a necessary, rightful and totally legitimate measure taken by China in protecting its sovereignty and providing air security.

Actually, the establishment of the air zone is not only perfectly legitimate, but also in line with current international practice.

An air defense identification zone is established by a maritime nation to guard against potential air threats. Since the 1950s, more than 20 countries, including the United States, Australia, Germany and Japan itself, have successively established such zones.



China's Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun has stressed that the zone "has no particular target and will not affect the freedom of flight in relevant airspace."

Since the zone is both in line with the UN Charter and in respect of relevant international laws and customs, China has every right to decide on its own whether to set up such zones, without getting permission from any other countries.

And Japan should know better than to continue its overreaction and learn to accept the "unacceptable."

On Saturday, US Secretary of State John Kerry also voiced concerns over the zone, fearing it might "constitute an attempt to change the status quo in the East China Sea," and increase tensions and risks in the region.

But is it China to blame for upsetting the status quo over the islands?

The status quo of the Diaoyu islands, which had lasted for decades under the principle of shelving the dispute, has already been broken more than one year ago when the Japanese government launched a unilateral move to "purchase" and "nationalize" the islands.

The farce of "buying" the Chinese territories is a sign of Japan's expanding nationalism and growing belligerence, which should be identified as the real danger in the region.

Instead of "increasing tensions and creating risks," the setup of China's air zone could contribute much to regional peace and security by curbing the increasing rampancy of Japan's right-wing forces, as well as the continuous and dangerous provocations of Japanese politicians, which even Washington should be vigilant against.

The White House has repeatedly said that the United States does not take a position on territorial disputes between China and Japan, a neutral stance the Chinese government has appreciated.

But keeping a blind eye to the dangerous tendency in Japan could prove to be risky and might even jeopardize the US national interests.



Air defense identification zone a strategic decision: experts

The establishment of the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone is a strategic decision in accordance with China's current national security situation, experts said.

"Setting up the air defense identification zone can effectively safeguard national sovereignty and security," said Zhang Junshe, a military expert, adding that the move conforms to the fundamental spirit and principle of international law.

The Chinese government issued a statement on Saturday morning on establishing the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone. It also issued an announcement on the aircraft identification rules and a diagram for the zone.

According to the announcement, China will take timely measures to deal with air threats and unidentified flying objects from the sea, including identification, monitoring, control and disposition.

"The move also accords with common international practices as the United States and Canada took the lead around the world in setting up such zones starting in the 1950s," said Xing Hongbo, a military and legal expert, adding that more than 20 countries have set up air defense identification zones since then.

"Various aircraft with high altitude and high-speed flying capabilities have been broadly used around the world with the development of aviation technology, and it's hard for China to identify an unidentified flying object and adopt countermeasures immediately," said Meng Xiangqing, a military expert.

The establishment of the zone can help set aside early warning time to ascertain an aircraft's purpose and attributes and adopt measures to protect air defense security, Meng said. - Xinhua