Uncovering China's Market XNode Singapore

Episode Summary

In this episode, join us and our guest Emily Chang, as we talk about how brands, through data, insight, and creativity, give impact and tell stories that are meaningful to humanity. How authenticity plays a role in leadership, bridging cultures, and brand experience.

Emily Chang

Emily Chang is the CEO for McCann Worldgroup, China, where she looks after a family of agencies that offer tailor made strategy and creative, digital/social expertise and production. Prior to McCann, Emily held c-level management and marketing positions at Starbucks, InterContinental Hotels Group, and Apple. Emily sits on the board of SOS Children’s Villages and wrote “The Spare Room”, a book about the importance of social purpose in business and life.

She is an action-oriented visionary known for cross-cultural team engagement, innovative brand building, and authentic people leadership.

Emily has spoken at select conferences and events, including Fortune Most Powerful Women’s Summit, C2 in Montréal, and has delivered three TEDx talks:

Dancing to life’s rhythms: How saying “yes” can lead to a world of opportunities

The Spare Room

On Killing Chickens

Insights from this episode:


Unified leadership team
Changing Marketing Landscape
Data, Insights, and Creativity
Brand experience and impact
Authenticity

Quotes from this episode:


“Our people take comfort when leaders are trustworthy, clear communicators, and consistent.”
“We cannot afford to sit back and act like we’ve got it all figured out. We can recognize that nobody does but we learn as we go.”
“If we have the right data we can understand who we’re serving; what their needs are, their habits and practices, delight them with things they haven’t even thought to ask us.”
“When we come upon those insights, it sparks amazing creativity that opens hearts and minds and tells incredible brand stories that are relevant not to customers or consumers, but to humans.”
“Authenticity. I think we give the world the best of ourselves when we’re willing to be ourselves.”

Stay connected:

Emily Chang
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilychang8621/

XNode Singapore:

Website

https://thexnode.sg/

Telegram

https://t.me/XNodeSG

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12364123/

Episode Summary

In this episode, join us and our guest Vanessa Chen, as we talk about CHOYS; a company she co-founded that is a holistic well-being subscription platform for organizations and employees, empowering people with personalized care while maximizing organizational impact. CHOYS is founded in Singapore with a vision to make work life more humanized and meaningful for all.

Vanessa Chen

Vanessa Chen is the Co-founder and COO of CHOYS, the digital well-being platform that is changing the way organizations take care of employees with a vision of making work life humanized and meaningful for all.

She’s most passionate about Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion.

Prior to starting CHOYS, Vanessa has had various experiences in China & SEA. She graduated from State University of New York with a degree in Actuarial Science and Economics.

She also worked at theAsianparent as the Head of Awards, co-founded and the Head of Business Development of Tourego Pte Ltd in 2016 - 2019 and worked at Weibo Corporation as the Investor Relations Manager at Momo Inc. in 2015.

Insights from this episode:


Personalized employee well-being solutions
Cultural differences in the workplace
Four pillars of wellbeing
Work-life balance

Quotes from this episode:


“We’re all human beings first of all. In CHOYS we discuss the four pillars of well-being which are: physical health, mental health, financial well-being, and social well-being, and they’re all interlinked.”
“There are so many ways to lead. Empathetic leading is actually a very trendy phrase that people talk about and I think women are great at that; to be empathetic and to really understand what your employees want, what your users want.”

Stay connected:

CHOYS:
Website
https://getchoys.com/

XNode Singapore:

Website

https://thexnode.sg/

Telegram

https://t.me/XNodeSG

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12364123/

Episode Summary

In this episode, join us and our guest Mei Yi, as we talk about AI Prime and how their company provides artificial intelligence safety solutions intended to create a safer working environment. Not just for high-risk companies but also for other various industries.

Mei Yi

Mei Yi is the co-founder and Chief Financial Officer of AI Prime. She has an extensive background in Global Management to support overseas Business Development and Strategic Cooperation, leading companies to achieve commercial success in their respective domains.

Insights from this episode:


AI’s role in providing safety solutions
Safety solutions for high-risk companies and industries
Government encouragement and Incentives for start-ups and innovation
Challenges for startups in China

Quotes from this episode:


“The needs for the companies in the China market and Asia market might be somewhat different so we will specify our products to meet more specific needs of our different companies.”
“In our China market, I think male and females are both given equal chances for career promotion. So, it mostly depends on the individual’s capability and the willingness to how he or she wants to input how much in his career.”

Stay connected:

XNode Singapore:

Website

https://thexnode.sg/

Telegram

https://t.me/XNodeSG

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12364123/

Episode Summary

In this episode, join us and our guest Luo Mingke, as we talk about AI and his company, MRS.ai. Listen in as he speaks about how they help global industrial leaders to design and co-build future-facing solutions with AI and Intelligent Services.

Luo Mingke

A venture-backed serial entrepreneur, Mingke has over 10 years of experience leveraging liberal arts and technology to design state-of-the-art intelligent services for both consumers and businesses. Before MRS.ai, Mingke co-founded a virtual concierge service combining Artificial Intelligence with human operation. As a startup leader well-versed in collaborating with MNCs, Mingke is also a CEIBS guest speaker and strategy consultant to C-Suite of Fortune 500 companies on topics such as Corporate Open Innovations, Organisational Intelligentization and AI Product Strategy.

Insights from this episode:


AI Models
Hybrid Intelligence
Entrepreneurship in Tech
Different Approaches to Innovation
Role of AI

Quotes from this episode:


“We think that every company will have AI and it’s just different kinds of AI. It’s not a unified framework-based AI, it’s fragmented somehow, distributed.”
“Do not actually try to define what AI is right now. Let’s focus on more pragmatic problems; how those technologies can solve the problems.”
“Maybe what we have achieved by digitalisation can be re-invented by what we call "intelligentization."

Stay connected:

XNode Singapore:

Website

https://thexnode.sg/

Telegram

https://t.me/XNodeSG

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12364123/

MRS.AI Website

https://mrs.ai/

Episode Summary

In this episode, join us and our guest Dr. Bechara Saab, as we talk about Mobio Interactive, a digital therapeutics company he co founded, and how they provide support and mental health treatment worldwide using technology.

Dr. Bechara Saab

Dr. Bechara Saab is CEO and Chief Scientist of Mobio Interactive, a digital therapeutics company he co founded with long-time documentary director Mark Thoburn. Until 2017, "Besh" (as he's known to most) was a Principal Investigator at the Zurich Hospital for Psychiatry. His lab focused on discovering the molecules and neural circuits that give rise to the motivation to explore, and how curiosity is linked to learning and mental health. He left the hospital to focus on translating his discoveries into tangible forms of cost-effective mental healthcare.

As both an academic and entrepreneur, Besh is dedicated to science outreach and mentorship. He is an Overseas Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, a member of the Swiss Stress Network and Canadian nominee to the World Economic Forum as a "Future World Leader".

Insights from this episode:


Mental Health
Technology & Mindfulness Meditation
China’s Healthcare Market
Cultural and market differences

Quotes from this episode:


“There’s always going to be many cultural differences in how people operate with each other. There’s very different understandings of what “trust” means, for example in different markets.”
“You have to build that personal relationship and you have to understand who these people are in order to get the level of commitment from them that you need to bring something across the table.”
“So I think in a lot of ways, that’s another attractive thing about the Chinese market is it is relatively unified especially when you consider how big it is.”


Stay connected:

Mobio Interactive
https://www.mobiointeractive.com/


XNode Singapore:

Website
https://thexnode.sg/

Telegram
https://t.me/XNodeSG

LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12364123/

Episode Summary

In this episode, join us and our guest Milos Jovanovic, as we talk about how he founded his own startup company: Geometrid; and how they provide solutions and technology for the benefit of the entire real estate and construction industry with an end goal of driving better project outcomes globally.

Milos Jovanovic

Milos Jovanovic is the Founder and CEO of Geometrid, a software as a service that helps construction project stakeholders to improve their project delivery by enabling visibility across the entire supply chain.

Milos is an architect by training but has always worked on the construction side of things. In early 2015 he started his career in advanced architectural geometry development and computational design at a specialist space frame and façade design, engineering, manufacturing, and construction company at its construction systems office in Germany.

Soon after, he was assigned to the Southeast Asia branch in Singapore to lead design-to-production process automation and development of building information models for steel and façade construction projects – the most notable ones being the Jewel at Changi Airport in Singapore (2015-2018), and Bukit Jalil National Stadium at Kuala Lumpur Sports City in Malaysia (2016-2017).

Insights from this episode:


Introduction to Geometrid - SaaS supply chain analytics and monitoring
Connections matter when entering the Chinese market
China-Singapore Innovation Launchpad Programme and its support

Quotes from this episode:


“If you want to work in China, you better be ready to go all in and find the right partners over there.”
“Do your own due diligence. Especially in this era where everything is just buzzwords and marketing, you better check your facts and get your stuff straight.”

Stay connected:

Geometrid
https://geometrid.com/

XNode Singapore:
Website
https://thexnode.sg/

Telegram
https://t.me/XNodeSG

LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12364123/