We’re back with an Insignia Ventures Academy Afterthoughts episode, where we’re joined by either the alumni and mentors of Southeast Asia’s first venture capital accelerator program. For this particular IVA Afterthoughts, we have with us an alumnus from the third cohort, of our program, Fannie Soubiele, currently Head of Startup Success at Google Cloud JAPAC and an active angel investor. Fannie has had a career in entrepreneurship and enabling entrepreneurs that has lined up with the evolution of Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystems, learnings from which we cover in this call plus her own experience at Insignia Academy.

Highlights and Timestamps

(00:28) Introducing Fannie;

(01:39) Evolving with Southeast Asia’s Startup Ecosystem; 

“Definitely a ton of resources available for founders, even if they have no experience to kickstart their very first venture. The vibrant ecosystem with just so many events, for example, can help first-time founders learn and network with the right people…with all these resources and tools, it’s never been better than the past to just kickstart [a startup].”

(07:26) Cloud as an Accelerator for Startup Building;

“…the advantages which include the flexibility and scalability of these cloud services have really greatly enhanced the typical innovation journey of startup…it just really helps them to rapidly identify their customer’s needs. So this reduces costs…The ability to scale and expand their user base in a matter of minutes and be able to handle the peaks in demand really will help them to focus on their core innovation rather than reinventing the wheels of these basic competing services.”

“Some of the challenges include like say, data privacy or even cyber security issues, especially in the context of cross border data transfer could be a bit of a challenge for startups in highly regulated service sectors like healthcare or finance, which have ambiguous regulations or non-existent guidance around cloud usage…So this can leave startups deferring to on-premises solutions, which results in higher costs or decreased efficiency in comparison to the cloud. So that’s why local data regions are important.”

(11:46) How the Capital Pool Has Widened Over the Years;

“One of the key significant changes would definitely be the access to funding. There used to be a gap between Series A to Series C in the early 2010s. There just isn’t enough funding or also even enough Series A startups in the region…you could really see the evolution from as small as US$15,000 to like US$3 million for an accelerator…you could see the evolution just in terms of fund sizes as well. There’s a lot more capital in the market to deploy to our startups…”

(14:21) Widening the Hiring Pool to Build a Sustainable Company;

“It goes down to even as simple as the job description, the way you write the job description, the way you send it out to different channels and get people to help you hire, your referral network, the HR agency that you hired, or any other ways that you’re using to hire your talent…that’s super critical in order to read a diverse set of candidates and then it’s a fair field again to choose the top talent and make sure that you only choose the best, not because you needed like x percentage of women employees. Just choose the best based on a diverse set of candidates.”

(18:30) Serendipity of Connections in Insignia Academy;

“It does take time. So be prepared to purposefully set aside time in your evenings to work on it. If you have a full-time job, either the exercises or spending time starting for the right startups to pitch for, start talking to startups early in your network and get to know the new ones. It does take time to find the right one, especially if you have a high bar, which you should. And most importantly, take time to know your cohort mates and alumni network. Cause you never know who you’ll meet.”

(24:13) Rapid Fire Round;

About our guest

Fannie Soubiele is currently Head of Startup Success at Google Cloud JAPAC. She has had more than a decade career as an entrepreneur, enabler for entrepreneurs, and more recently angel investor with Epic Angels. Her involvement in Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystems goes back to becoming GM then COO of startup incubator and venture builder JFDI Asia, then BD at AWS before moving to Google Cloud. She is an alumni of Insignia Ventures Academy’s VC Accelerator Program Cohort 3. 

Transcript

Evolving with Southeast Asia’s Startup Ecosystem

Paulo: Something I always ask the guests for these IVA episodes is what excites you about Southeast Asia tech ecosystem today, especially now with your current role as head of startup success at Google Cloud?

Fannie: I think there are two big elements here: the continuous innovative solutions and the really smart founders that have emerged in the past decade or so. We have this hunger in Asian cultures which is really helpful in terms of just being entrepreneurial.

For example, in Vietnam, we all know that there are a lot of successful women founders there, one of the highest in the region, which I’m really proud of as well. I’m not Vietnamese, but they are in Southeast Asia and we’re part of Southeast Asia. 

And the other piece is really the enormous market opportunities in Southeast Asia. We are still bringing a lot of global investors to the region. There’s a term coined by Golden Gate Ventures — the startup golden triangle, with Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam. And it’s influenced the region’s next wave of growth. I think that itself is really exciting, with the people and the market opportunities in Southeast Asia.

“There are two big elements here: the continuous innovative solutions and the really smart founders that have emerged in the past decade or so. We have this hunger in Asian cultures which is really helpful in terms of just being entrepreneurial.”

Paulo: Southeast Asia has been a silver lining amidst all the current market uncertainty and challenges, and it’s not that you just came into this ecosystem. As I mentioned earlier, you’ve been around for quite some time and you’ve seen how more programs, more resources, and more tools have been made available for founders and made it easier for founders to actually start their ventures and scale those up.

Maybe you can share with your audience what has changed in terms of this aspect of the ecosystem, in terms of resources available, in terms of startup enablement, and speak to that with regards to the two things that you just mentioned.

Fannie: Definitely a ton of resources available for founders, even if they have no experience to kickstart their very first venture. The vibrant ecosystem with just so many events, for example, can help first-time founders learn and network with the right people. I literally just spoke to a potential founder in Australia, who’s looking to venture into Southeast Asia and just kind of asked my advice based on my experience, and there was so much to tell them about in terms of who’s who and who they should be meeting, what kind of events they should be attending. 

Even companies like, for example, Google or other cloud providers, they all have their startup programs to help startups kick start their journey in the cloud, with resources like credits or training or any support plans like all these really just to help startups to build their products, their very first MVP, or even just scaling their business as they grow. So I think with all these resources and tools, it’s never been better than in the past to just kickstart [a startup].

“Definitely a ton of resources available for founders, even if they have no experience to kickstart their very first venture. The vibrant ecosystem with just so many events, for example, can help first-time founders learn and network with the right people…with all these resources and tools, it’s never been better than the past to just kickstart [a startup].”

Paulo: I had a follow-up question with regards to connecting that to sort of the women founders trend that you spoke to in the first question, how has that evolved from a resources standpoint and learning standpoint?

Fannie: I think it’s come to my attention that there’s a lot more focus on female founders, or sometimes we call it women founders these days to be more inclusive. It’s been a trend in the past where a majority of the founders are male-dominated and the same thing for VCs, so not just on the founder’s side, but men in VCs or the VCs or general partners, limited partners are typically men dominating the ecosystem. 

But we really have seen the changes and a lot more voices from the ecosystem to come and just champion women founders, women VCs. For example, there are a lot more angel investors, for example, Epic Angels. 

Paulo: We had Hester (co-founder of Epic Angels) on the show previously.

Fannie: Exactly. Hester from cohort two. That’s how I met her as well, to kind of champion these women angels and to support women founders. And I think that’s an amazing move to prove the evolution of the startup ecosystem is beyond just helping founders and impacting society, but really helping different types of founders, whether you are from different cultural backgrounds, different races, or gender differences.

I think being inclusive is core to society these days. And I think that that has been really supporting and helping the ecosystem to grow in this way.

“Hester from cohort two. That’s how I met her as well, to kind of champion these women angels and to support women founders. And I think that’s an amazing move to prove the evolution of the startup ecosystem is beyond just helping founders and impacting society, but really helping different types of founders, whether you are from different cultural backgrounds, different races, or gender differences. I think being inclusive is core to society these days. And I think that that has been really supporting and helping the ecosystem to grow in this way.”

Paulo: And even in Insignia Academy, we’ve certainly seen an increase in terms of the cohort, like the number of women who have been joining the cohort, yourself included, from cohort to cohort. So it’s really great to see that. 

Another follow-up I had with regards to sort of the explosion of resources and insights and networks and all that in the region is, how do you advise founders or advise folks in the ecosystem to sort of sift through the noise and really find what resources are really right for them?

Fannie: First of all, I don’t think there are ever enough resources. We are living in the digital age, so there will be content uploaded every single second around the world, but it is the founder’s responsibility or any reader’s responsibility to decipher what is right for them, whether is it advice, whether is it specific tools or whether is it events — there could be tons of events for you to attend, right?

But which ones are the right ones for you to attend is for you to decide, whether you are prioritizing the network, whether you’re prioritizing marketing, whether you’re prioritizing pitching, there’s a bunch of different purposes to attend all these activities, whether it is events, forums, webinars, even classes, courses, or hiring activities.

I think all these really depend on your priorities and you gotta be purposeful. So that’s one of the things that I’ve learned a lot with so many things happening around the world, not just [living in] your own world of starting a new venture. Try to be purposeful for everything that you do, whether it’s reading an article from someone who inspires you or reading a book that you really, relate to with what you’re struggling with right now in terms of the subject matter, getting the right subject matter expert to get the right advice from — I think those would be helpful for you.

“…all these really depend on your priorities and you gotta be purposeful. So that’s one of the things that I’ve learned a lot with so many things happening around the world…”

Cloud as an Accelerator for Startup Building

Paulo: I wanted to dive into one of the various tools available for startups today, and that’s the cloud stack and adoption has certainly changed over the past decade. We’ve had a few cloud advocates on our podcast before, including Mohammad Alabsi from cohort one, and also, Henry Suryawirawan from Flip, who I think was also with Google Cloud before. 

So how do you see this cloud stack evolving for the region’s tech markets moving forward? And how do you see the future of cloud vis-a-vis startup building and scaling in Southeast Asia?

Fannie: I think first of all cloud computing is really the key enabler for any tech startups across the region. In fact, with these cloud companies, like we call these startups, digital natives or cloud natives, the advantages which include the flexibility and scalability of these cloud services have really greatly enhanced the typical innovation journey of startups.

Whether they are doing testing, prototyping, or iterating, it just really helps them to rapidly identify their customer’s needs. So this reduces costs, and we all know it really helps any early-stage startups to manage costs effectively at a such early stage, and also even when they grow this scale benefits from that. 

The ability to scale and expand its user base in a matter of minutes and be able to handle the peaks in demand really will help them to focus on its core innovation rather than reinventing the wheels of these basic competing services. Even with emerging technologies like say artificial intelligence, machine learning, and whatnot, I think all these are small little tools that really enable innovations to happen within seconds, which is really helpful for any startup these days.

I think those are some of the key advantages for any startup that wants to leverage the cloud for sure. And I think having this pay-as-you-go, pay-as-you-grow model helps them to provision the number of resources they need rather than over-provisioning. All these small little things really help startups to grow fast and grow quickly at a minimum cost, which is why you could see these days it’s a lot cheaper to start startups, within just minutes or even, okay I wouldn’t say seconds, but like really fast compared to in the past, at least not yet.

Compared to the past when you probably have to buy your own server, which would take weeks or months to do so, and like most people would say, it’s never been a better time with technology and of course the funding landscape.

“…the advantages which include the flexibility and scalability of these cloud services have really greatly enhanced the typical innovation journey of startup…it just really helps them to rapidly identify their customer’s needs. So this reduces costs…The ability to scale and expand their user base in a matter of minutes and be able to handle the peaks in demand really will help them to focus on their core innovation rather than reinventing the wheels of these basic competing services.”

Paulo: We’ve always talked about it’s never a better time to start a company from the capital side of things, but it’s also good to see that from the technology side as well with cloud, and is it right to say that cloud is really that ubiquitous thing that really applies to any sort of tech startup that’s looking to scale? Or are there any limits? Or in terms of like timing, when is the right time to bring in the cloud into the growth of a startup? Or what applications might not be as fit for the cloud as others?

Fannie: I would say it is almost ubiquitous. It really depends on the sector that you’re working in. Like I said, internally we call our startups digital natives because most of them start using the cloud from day one, which is what is required for any fast-paced company to grow rapidly.

Having said that, some of the challenges include like say, data privacy or even cyber security issues, especially in the context of cross-border data transfer could be a bit of a challenge for startups in highly regulated service sector like healthcare or finance, which have ambiguous regulations or non-existent guidance around cloud usage. It can create confusion as to whether the use of cloud services is even permitted.

So this can leave startups deferring to on-premises solutions, which results in higher costs or decreased efficiency in comparison to the cloud. So that’s why local data regions are important. For example, in Google Cloud, we have 35 regions around the world in Southeast Asia, there are in Singapore, and in Indonesia. And we have also just announced new regions to be added in Malaysia and Thailand soon.

“Some of the challenges include like say, data privacy or even cyber security issues, especially in the context of cross border data transfer could be a bit of a challenge for startups in highly regulated service sector like healthcare or finance, which have ambiguous regulations or non-existent guidance around cloud usage…So this can leave startups defering to on-premises solutions, which results in higher costs or decreased efficiency in comparison to the cloud. So that’s why local data regions are important.”

How the Capital Pool Has Widened Over the Years

Paulo: There’s a lot of opportunity for sure across the region now more than ever before to actually tap into this cloud infrastructure, and one thing that I also wanted to highlight from your sharing is that it really brings more cost efficiency, especially in the current market where there’s a lot more emphasis on trying to work towards profitability, trying to minimize burn and all of that. And that’s certainly one area where startups can definitely tap into that more easily than other aspects of the business. 

And speaking of challenges for startups today, as somebody who has worked with these types of venture-backed companies, fast hypergrowth companies over the past decade, and you also do angel investing as well, what are the biggest gaps or challenges that you’ve seen early stage startups face, and how are things different now in terms of those challenges versus before?

Fannie: Having been in the ecosystem for more than a decade now, I could see the evolution, which is really great to see how we have progressed so much in Southeast Asia. And one of the key significant changes would definitely be access to funding. 

There used to be a gap between Series A to Series C in the early 2010s. There just isn’t enough funding or also even enough Series A startups in the region. And at some point in the later 2010s, we also saw a gap between Series A and Series B. So these are the changes that we have seen. But specifically, for example, I was just recalling when I was back in JFDI in 2012, we only provided US$15,000 of investment in the accelerator program during those few years.

And they doubled that in 2015 to about US$50K. But today, if you see other accelerators like Accelerating Asia, Iterative, etc., they’re providing easily US$150 to 500,000. So that’s a lot of difference. And even Sequoia Surge, they are even investing up to US$3M since they started in 2019.

So you could really see the evolution from as small as US$15,000 to like US$3 million for an accelerator. But looking at VC fund sizes, for example, recall how Insignia’s fund in 2017 was just US$120M, and then we have the, I believe, US$200M in the second fund. And then recently you closed the third fund at like US$500M+, right?

So you could see the evolution just in terms of fund sizes as well. There’s a lot more capital in the market to deploy to our startups, and I think, it’s kind of almost rewarding to see, and I’m privileged to be part of the ecosystem and see the evolution and be part of the evolution actually.

“One of the key significant changes would definitely be the access to funding. There used to be a gap in Series C to Series A in the early 2010s. There just isn’t enough funding or also even enough Series A startups in the region…you could really see the evolution from as small as US$15,000 to like US$3 million for an accelerator…you could see the evolution just in terms of fund sizes as well. There’s a lot more capital in the market to deploy to our startups…”

Paulo: But does it necessarily make it easier now that there’s more capital or there’s more pressure to live up to that kind of capital that’s being deployed?

Fannie: Well, it’s always yes and no, right? Pros and cons. In the past, I think given the limited, capital access, I would say investors have more say in terms of which startups they want to choose. But now we do have a lot of entrepreneurs too. So founders get to choose which type of investors fits them, like in terms of having strategic investors rather than just the money, for example. I think it’s a fair game for both VC and founders now cause we do have enough capital and there are a lot of startups out there as well to be able to kind of have a fair playing field.

Widening the Hiring Pool to Build a Sustainable Company

Paulo: And in terms of the things that many early-stage startups face, what are the biggest things that you think that founders would underestimate at this early stage of growth, especially now that I guess people have become more used to the fact that there are more resources and there’s more capital?

Fannie: I guess hiring is always the number one priority for any founders or startups. It’s always difficult to hire, so you gotta really start thinking on day one. But at the same time, I would say prioritizing, diversity, equity, and inclusion in the culture, we call it DEI in the market.

And DEI is really more than just policies, programs, or headcounts. For any equitable employers, the founders have to outpace their competitors by respecting the unique needs, perspectives, or potential of all their team members. And as a result, these diverse and inclusive workplaces really earn deeper trust and more commitment from their employees. 

So founders should start thinking about this culture from day one because that’s exactly how you attract great talent. And it’s something that I’ve heard again and again for any newly funded startups because once they have fresh funds, the number one thing to do is to hire.

And that’s when they only start thinking about it, then they usually have to take some time to build up their reputation, to build out the culture before attracting the right talent to the team. And I think usually it takes a while and it takes time. So I would say, do not underestimate that because the power of culture could really attract extremely great talent, without you having to pay for a lot of salary payments to these highly talented individuals.

“Founders should start thinking about this culture from day one and because that’s exactly how you attract great talent. And it’s something that I’ve heard again and again for any newly funded startups, because once they have fresh funds, the number one thing to do is to hire. And that’s when they only start thinking about it, then they usually have to take some time to build up their reputation, to build out the culture before attracting the right talent to the team. And I think usually it takes a while and it takes time.”

Paulo: And speaking of the DEI, how can — I guess maybe you can wear your angel investor hat — how do you help founders in that respect as an investor or as an advisor to startups? Especially in terms of hiring and making sure that teams are really optimized in a way to be able to grow the startup and maybe attract even more funding down the line.

Fannie: I always hear a lot of people saying that I simply don’t have enough, for example, gender-wise women candidates. And I think that’s something that as a founder or as an employer, you should be responsible for widening that candidate pool in the first place. Because if you’re only going after a specific channel, you might be narrowing the opportunity for only a specific profile type of people to apply for the role, right? 

And then you’ll start saying, I only see this kind of candidate. I don’t see other profile types. It’s really limiting my options here and hence, by the time anyone who went through the interview rounds, you’ll more or less choose that typical type of profile that you’re hiring, in terms of the specific role.

So I think it goes down to even as simple as the job description, the way you write the job description, the way you send it out to different channels and get people to help you hire, your referral network, the HR agency that you hired, or any other ways that you’re using to hire your talent.

I think that’s super critical in order to read a diverse set of candidates and then it’s a fair field again to choose the top talent and make sure that you only choose the best, not because you needed like x percentage of women employees. Just choose the best based on a diverse set of candidates.

“It goes down to even as simple as the job description, the way you write the job description, the way you send it out to different channels and get people to help you hire, your referral network, the HR agency that you hired, or any other ways that you’re using to hire your talent…that’s super critical in order to read a diverse set of candidates and then it’s a fair field again to choose the top talent and make sure that you only choose the best, not because you needed like x percentage of women employees. Just choose the best based on a diverse set of candidates.”

Paulo: One I think good example of sort of that pool widening has been I guess the rise of remote teams over the past few years. We’ve had some founders come on the show and talk about it, since they started going remote-first, the pool of possible people especially engineers and engineering talent has definitely expanded. They would have like heads of engineering who are working out of their homes in the provinces and not necessarily in urban areas. And they’ve been able to get more candidates that way. So there’s definitely a lot of that happening in the past few years for sure.

And what would you say makes you know, a great sort of pan-Southeast Asia or a Southeast Asia-originating or Southeast Asia-based kind of company?

Fannie: I would say a scalable one because of the market size and a sustainable company that drives impact to the society is critical. And that’s something that sounds easy, but obviously extremely difficult to do. Scalability is one thing, but how can it be sustainable by itself? you know, it [requires] a different strategy. 

Serendipity of Connections in Insignia Academy

Paulo: Now I’d like to shift gears into Insignia Ventures Academy in IVA and really talk about your experience there and maybe link it also to everything we’ve been talking about previously in terms of your journey and all these important lessons for startups.

But first, how did you decide to join IVA, having already been, well embedded in the ecosystem, what did you think that you needed to learn that really drove you to join IVA?

Fannie: I’ve always been in the earlier stage ecosystem working with seed stage startups, and my role in AWS back then really exposed me to the later stage, like Series A and beyond, startups. And it really intrigued me how exactly it is to invest in that later stage. How different is it, right? And then when I saw my ex-colleagues who joined cohorts one and two and raved about the quality of the curriculum and then that were people who joined that really helped, because like we know any other post-graduate education network of people attending is as important as the course itself. 

And knowing Yinglan, back in my JFDI days, I’ve seen how Insignia has gained credibility with its investments. So with all these, why not give it a try? And I reached out to Gail and I was like, maybe it’s not that bad, it’s just spending a few evenings of the week for a period of 12 weeks which I thought was doable, but it is quite taxing, to be honest. But it was an experience, so I’m glad I did that, to be honest.

“…when I saw my ex-colleagues who joined cohort one and two and raved about the quality of the curriculum and then that were people who joined that really helped, because like we know any other post-graduate education network of people attending is as important as the course itself.”

Paulo: it’s definitely a lot more challenging than people initially realize, but I think that’s really a part of the experience, that there’s even more fulfillment at the end because you went through all of that, and not to mention, meet some great people along the way. And speaking of which, what was the highlight of your experience in IVA?

Fannie: Well, it’s all about people, right? So I was really lucky to be based in Singapore. I was invited to take these professional pictures sponsored by Insignia and at the studio, we managed to have small chats, with other IVA participants, and one of them was Hester. We met out separately over coffee and continued our conversation. And now I’m part of Epic Angels, that was started by her investing in woman founders. So that was like a pretty cool, I would say serendipity.

Paulo: It wasn’t even an IVA session per se. 

Fannie: Yeah, it wasn’t a session that was scheduled, right? It was just because we happened to be participating in this photo shoot together, we happened to be in the same time slot and we happened to be sitting beside each other and just talking about what we do. And we called up separately and we’re like that’s really interesting. How can I continue to be part of what you’re doing?

“…it wasn’t a session that was scheduled, right? It was just because we happened to be participating in this photo shoot together, and we happened to be in the same time slot and we happened to be sitting beside each other and just talking about what we do…”

Paulo: And that just really speaks to something that a lot of the alumni have been saying on the show is that it’s really about maximizing all these opportunities that come your way as a result of the program. And it’s really what you make out of it, and you’ve certainly made a lot out of it having that Hester and joined Epic Angels.

I also wanted to ask, having been in the ecosystem for a decade or so and going through the program, was there anything that you’ve had to let go of or any assumption or something that changed in terms of your mindset because of the program?

Fannie: I would say the book Finding your True North was quite, I would say, almost sentimental to me because it really make me search my inner self on whether should I be doing what I’m doing right now. But it really confirmed my desire to wanna stay in a startup ecosystem, which is what I’m doing, and what I’ve been doing for the past decade. And it helped me realize this is my passion and that I should be doing what I love to do with the startups with the things I’m doing at the moment. 

“…the book Finding your True North was quite, I would say, almost sentimental to me…it really confirmed my desire to wanna stay in a startup ecosystem, which is what I’m doing, and what I’ve been doing for the past decade. And it helped me realize this is my passion…”

Paulo: That’s definitely another highlight of the course obviously this career sort of introspection. And even if we’re not necessarily saying that everybody who comes to the course should become a VC, hopefully by seeing things from a VC perspective, you get to think about what role you wanna play in the ecosystem. 

Speaking of the role that you play in the ecosystem, I think you mentioned joining Epic Angels, and becoming more active in that sense. Maybe you could speak to that a little bit. How has the program, especially I guess with meeting Hester, influenced the role that you play in the ecosystem, maybe even outside of Google Cloud?

Fannie: I wouldn’t say I’m very active because I try to be active as possible in Epic Angels groups. So having looked at all the pitch decks, for example, talking to the founders, joining the founder calls, helping to see the pitch decks, or even asking the right questions, that’s solely outside of my current full-time job at Google.

I think those have been quite interesting. I get to see a lot of interesting startups across the region and hear inspiring stories with all these women founders. And also best of all again, the network of angels that I think Epic Angels has gathered. We’ve done I think two in-person gatherings in Singapore, and it’s really nice to see other individuals who have the same passion as you gather together and see how can they play a part to help the startup ecosystem, especially women founders. and I think that’s been one of the highlights as well, joining Epic Angels.

“So having looked at all the pitch decks, for example, talking to the founders, joining the founder calls, helping to see the pitch decks or even asking the right questions, that’s solely outside of my current full-time job in Google. I think those have been quite interesting. I get to see a lot of interesting startups across the region and hear inspiring stories with all these women founders…”

Paulo: What advice do you have for venture fellows now we’re well into cohort four?

Fannie: It does take time. So be prepared to purposefully set aside time in your evenings to work on it. If you have a full-time job, either the exercises or spending time starting for the right startups to pitch for, start talking to startups early in your network and get to know the new ones. It does take time to find the right one, especially if you have a high bar, which you should. And most importantly, take time to know your cohort mates and alumni network. Cause you never know who you’ll meet. 

Rapid Fire Round

Favorite book / podcast / resource to learn about cloud or AI?

Fannie: On Call with Insignia. To be honest, I do listen. I like listening to the founder’s calls and all the stuff that you’ve been recording, so that’s great. But also on the technology front, I would highly recommend A Cloud Guru, which is an online training platform for people interested in the cloud. Most of the courses offered are prepared for anyone who wants to take the certification exams for the main cloud providers. So, for example, I did my certifications by learning through A Cloud Guru, which I thought it was extremely helpful.

What digital technology/innovation excites you the most today or is one that you want to learn more about? 

Fannie: Web3. It’s something that I’m dabbling with and I think a lot of people, not just myself — there’s a whole lot of stuff. I don’t know everything about web3, including crypto, DeFi, GameFi, and all these things I’m still learning. And also like looking at Bitcoin, I saw an article that it’s probably less volatile than many S&P 500 stocks in this [year] or so, so it interesting to see how [it] has also kind of changed over the past few years.

How far is your work today from your childhood dream?

Fannie: Quite far. I wanted to be an astronaut and scientist at some point, and then I thought, a businesswoman was probably more practical. Definitely has nothing to do with any tech giants at all. So yeah, I think it’s quite far from what I wanted to do.

What’s your favorite go-to destination in Southeast Asia for leisure? 

Fannie: Indonesia. I’m half Indonesian, so I have my family. Well, I would say specifically if I really wanna choose Bali any beach as a final destination is always great. It’s just a great place, a great ambiance, great food, and great people. And because I’m half Indonesian, I do understand Bahasa, so I can converse with the locals. So yeah, pretty excited about Indonesia. I’m actually heading back end of the month finally to meet the family after three years. So looking forward to that.

What do you do to de-stress?

Fannie: I like to have my me time pampering myself. Like massages of facial, it just forces me to go off-screen and relax. Sometimes I use the time to meditate and think, just no distraction from the outside world. I felt that was the best for my time cause it’s effective and pretty productive at the same time.