In-Convo with Mr Yong of Inventis
Date: 20 July 2009, Monday Venue: Orchard CRC - 新闸路1788号近胶州路
The first In-Convo session for the 12th SHEN was conducted on 20th July, 7.30pm at the Orchard CRC restaurant. Mr Yong started off the session by introducing the affinity he has had with NUS Overseas College (NOC), as he has taken in many students for internship in Shanghai. He also described his close relationships with many interns, whereby they still meet up whenever they can. This is done via the flashing of many photos, which many in the audience were envious of. This is because many of these photos are taken out of China where he and his interns went on business trips.
This “fun” part was an appetizer to capture the audience’s attention, and it did. Following that, Mr Yong went on to talk briefly about private equity. For example, he explained that they need to travel so much because they need to find new worthy projects, as well as gather funds from investors.
The most important take-home point from him is his advice that we should make full use of our time in China to explore ourselves, as well as our surrounding environment, be it culture, history or politics. He achieved this by asking questions about China’s geography, culture, history, economy and politics, making the session interactive. This exposed our inadequacies, and thus had a trigger effect on us to further improve ourselves.
Although it was a long 3 hour session, the audience definitely had an inspiring session from Mr Yong, and it would certainly prove useful to them, be it during their stint in Shanghai, or even back in Singapore.
About Mr KP Yong
Mr Yong is the CEO of Inventis Investment Holdings (China) Co Ltd, which is a private equity firm. Before he started to manage funds, he started an IT business, which he eventually sold for a profit. He is also the senior fellow of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Besides that, he conducts short courses on private equity in Singapore Management University (SMU) for adults from 25 to 55 years old.
