Choy's podcast - Life and business in Asia

Jean-Michel Offe had an amazing journey so far as a French chef going abroad: from North America, to the MIddle East and then Asia, in charge of teams of 100+ people, opening new Shangri-La hotels (30+ only in China!), publishing books and running the Gobi desert... But I see clearly that he feels most proud of his children, daughter Laura Offe and son Alexis Offe. Against the advice of Jean-Michel, both chose the hospitality industry because they saw the passion, drive and pride their father had for his profession. 

Their roads led back to each other so now in this team of 3 musketeers (and also with a wise mother in the background), they started the Meraki Hospitality Group in 2018 in Hong Kong with now a Uma Nota restaurant in Hong Kong and one in Paris and two Bedu's in Hong Kong. 

How are they operating together? Laura and Alexis grew up in Hong Kong mostly so how did they experience the European culture when they were there for their studies? Where did the idea for the amazing concept of Uma Nota came from? What were the hard times so far? And as a business coach for others, what are the main problems nowadays according to Jean-Michel? 

Learn from this family of achievers who are so generous in sharing their experience as entrepreneurs and notice how they have respect for each other's role and achievements in the team so enjoy listening to this episode! And if in Hong Kong or Paris, try the restaurants as well! As Laura is passionate about sustainability and the community, she is the driving force behind the cooperation the Meraki Hospitality Group has with Zero Foodprint Asia to adopt sustainable strategies and source from a local organic farm. 

Bernard Hor's journey as an entrepreneur started quite early on by hustling where he could in his own surroundings in Malaysia. This mentality lead to starting several businesses first in Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and later in South Korea. As the co-founder and group CEO of Hatio Group, a technology business from South Korea specializing in cloud supply chain & network distribution, he decided to bring these advanced software solutions to Southeast Asia to help to transform and improve the local supply chain, logistics, retail and distribution industry. This is not so easy as he needed to adjust the solutions and the pricing to make it fit with the needs of the entrepreneurs and companies but Bernard is very dedicated and will make it work.

What also makes Bernard special is that he is so generous in sharing his experience and life visions he gathered while building up his businesses and starting his family. So listen to Bernard's story and feel inspired!

You can reach out to Bernard through Linkedin or his email [email protected]. You can find more information about Hatio through the website. 

In this episode I will be talking to eco entrepreneurs representing 3 amazing sustainable start-ups in Hong Kong who showed their innovative and sustainable products at the ReThink Sustainable business forum & solutions expo held last October 2021 in Hong Kong.

While having completely different products, they do have in common that they want to create something good for the world, contribute to improving the environment and reduce waste and pollution.

They are:

1. Naman Tekriwal - 21 years old but already a serial entrepreneur! Together with his co-founders he created Breer, a food up-cycling start up that collects surplus bread and pizza crust to brew premium quality local craft beer and already available at 30+ stores in Hong Kong.

2. Martin Zhu (31:20) - PhD student and co-founder of I2Cool, which invented passive radiative cooling paint, a novel energy free and environmentally friendly paint for buildings. The journey started with the goal to invent materials to reduce energy consumption in Hong Kong and after years of lab research, Martin and his partners were in the past months very busy with the commercial side of the painting products and currently talking with big companies who are interested in their product(s). The other co-founders are Shirley Du, Jhonny Lin, Dr. William Lee, Dr. Edwin Tso and Prof Christopher Chao.

3. Noel and Neil Shih (49.54) - two brothers who are going to launch their environmentally friendly Define Clean products in December 2021 after 2 years of a road full of challenges. They invented powder-form cleaning solutions from naturally –derived ingredients which is better for the planet and humans. Define Clean's goals are to reduce carbon footprint, plastic waste, improve hygiene with products that are healthy, budget friendly and contribute to the circular economy.

After interviewing all of them, I can say that it is all quite revolutionary and inspiring! If this is representing how the next generation is dealing with challenges, then I feel very hopeful for the future! So let’s hear from these great guys!

Hidden gems who usually fly under the radar: two amazing ladies with tons of experience from working all over the world! Meet Trisch Kirkpatrick and Anouk de Graaff. Trisch is a transformation consultant who has worked in over 50 different countries and Anouk has been all over Asia for the garment industry. 

We covered so much in this inspiring conversation: working in emerging markets like Russia, China, Myanmar and Kenia, leaving your safe home country for adventure, dealing with different cultures and countries as the newest leader from outside, getting to know the operations bottoms up to get the best results, the changing garment industry, role models, dealing with problems, how covid change travelling and how countries are dealing with it and so much more. What is crystal clear is that these ladies always have the attitude that they can handle every problem, invest in helping and connecting with people, work hard and are used to expressing their opinions! So enjoy the stories and experience these ladies are sharing with us! 

Feel free to reach out to them through Linkedin! 

Nerice Gietel, a certified executive coach has more than 15 years of experience in deploying her skills to support others to develop personally and professionally. It is great to have Nerice in my life as a friend as she is constantly challenging herself which is very inspiring plus she has so been through so many transitions that she can relate to many situations. Nerice has been a social worker in London, recruitment specialist and HR partner for a global consultancy in Oxford, a teacher at a Dutch university and now founder of The Career Lounge in Hong Kong. We ourselves met through a network event of the Dutch Chamber of Hong Kong a couple of years ago and since then we share knowledge, experience, network opportunities and friendship with each other. It often comes up that networking and connecting is so important for business, career, personal growth and not to forget: it is also fun! But we realize that it is not easy always to network and that we could maybe help people by giving some tips. So listen to this podcast for some do's and don'ts when it comes to networking! And last but not least, as we believe that there are a lot of connecting opportunities within our social circles, we created our own event where we want to people we know to get to know each other! A mingle and meet with people with different backgrounds! This gathering will take place in Hong Kong on Thursday 2 December at a great location: Café 8, a social enterprise at the pier, on top of the maritime museum which will be open for us exclusively. Everyone is welcome so book your tickets through Eventbrite or contact one of us directly (Nerice or me).

This episode is all about updating you what happened with 3 entrepreneurs I interviewed a year ago (at least)! What can happen in a life or a business in a year, especially considering that the exceptional circumstances are still ongoing: the world is still struggling with the pandemic, something we wouldn’t have guessed when the interviews were happening in 2020! 

Dutch entrepreneur in Shanghai, Jaap Pees (my first podcast guest!), Sales expert Katharina Darisse (eps 15) now in Germany and Samson Ngov (eps 7), inventor of Onigiri tell us what happened in the past year and which choices they had to make! 

Jaap Pees - Avocado Masters 

Katharina Darisse - The Skill Shop

Samson Ngov - Onigiri

In this episode I have my colleagues Alejandra Esmoris from our Bonnard Lawson office in Dubai and Zach Lichtblau from our Shanghai office to talk about the differences between investing as a foreigner in the two different locations.

Alejandra is a Swiss lawyer from Geneva who is located in Dubai since 2016 and joined the Bonnard Lawson team last year. She advises companies and entrepreneurs about corporate legal issues and governance but as a trust and estate practitioner Alejandra also advises about international estate planning and tax planification.

Zach is partner of the Shanghai office and living in China since 2005. Zach is very experienced with helping non Chinese companies and entrepreneurs with setting up their business in China.

In this interview, we will discuss the environment foreign investors are getting into if they are starting in Dubai vs China. What are the issues that they have to take into account? This becomes more clear and practical in our conversation as colleagues, each with our own expertise exchanging experience with each other. 

Alejandra's email is: [email protected] and Zach's is [email protected] 

This episode's guest is Mark Dekker, Dutch architect in Shanghai who has been in China for 9+ years. Mark represented several Dutch architect firms and as director Asia and partner of his current firm, Inbo he is leading the Shanghai office since 2015. Inbo is a multi-disciplinary design consultancy firm with over 200 experts in the field of urban planning, architecture, interior design and engineering and has been involved in many exciting projects all over China.

In this interview Mark shares his view about the differences between working as an architect in the Netherlands and China (speed!), tells us about the projects Inbo has done in China and how it is to compete as a non-Chinese architect firm, how things has changed in the 9 years that he is in China, how he integrated the Inbo company culture and values in the Shanghai office, the talent that is available nowadays and so much more! 

More information about Mark and Inbo's projects in China click here and you can contact Mark per e-mail [email protected]. 

We can not warn everyone enough that trademark registration in China is very important. In this episode my colleague Emma Shen, PRC lawyer and intellectual property rights expert will share her experience with you. 

We discuss the following:

Even if you are not dealing in China in any way, it can be very important to register your trademark because you also do not want someone using your brand on the Chinese market without your knowledge and permission. We saw that happening as well and the brand owner had to take legal steps to get its brand back! Registration costs a couple of hundreds USD but it can avoid problems that may costs you so much more!

So dive in to learn more about the subject!

You can always contact Emma or me to help you further

You can find Lee du Ploy in the Sun Yat Sen Park every morning dealing with his elderly patients and later in Hollywood park where he does "psychotherapy" for younger people with anxiety issues. All for free. He will tell me why in this interview along with a lot of other stories. Lee has had many lives until now: born in South Africa, student in Paris, PhD in Amsterdam, married to a Dutch leading ballet dancer and having kids, running clinics in London where also the rich and famous came and now in Hong Kong, painting, writing books and helping people. Age is just a number but Lee is almost 80 and I am happy to tap into his wisdom. So listen to this interview (also to hear what "kufungisisa" is and what Joseph Wolpe was about...) to learn from this remarkable man. 

More about Lee and his work: Instagram, Facebook, featured by galleries, interviews and articles