Founder's Note
Why I Founded MBA Junior
In March 2026, I sat in a room with some of the world’s leading academics at the Times Higher Education Summit at HKUST in Hong Kong. For three days, one topic dominated our conversations: AI.
What will AI mean for education? For universities? For jobs? For the future of our children? As academics and experts discussed how education institutions could respond to the rapid advancement of AI, one solution kept surfacing: Entrepreneurship.
But that led to another question that I could not shake: Why does entrepreneurship (and its fruits) seem to take a back seat in Asia?
Singapore produces world-class academic results, university rankings and PISA scores. We have talented youths, excellent schools and highly educated graduates. So why aren't we producing proportionally more world-class, entrepreneur-led companies besides Creative Technologies and Razer?
This led me down a rabbit hole of more discussions through the months with several academics and experts. My conclusion was both simple and profound:
The problem isn't our young people's potential or talent. It is the environment in which that talent is nurtured.
Our children are not intellectually or creatively inferior to their counterparts elsewhere. But our systems can sometimes place greater emphasis on getting the right, or even perfect, answer rather than asking the right question; on avoiding mistakes rather than learning from them; and on qualifications rather than experimentation.
That conversation reframed a question I had been circling for years: If the problem isn't the child, but the ecosystem around the child, what would it take to build a better one?
And, importantly, one that does not cost a bomb.
A Problem Closer to Home
I didn't have to look far for another reason to think about this.
The industry has experienced wave after wave of retrenchments. And increasingly, job insecurity is not limited to those without qualifications. Degree holders, experienced professionals and even people from established institutions can find themselves navigating an economy that no longer guarantees security simply because someone has “done everything right.”
It made me question a promise many of us grew up with: Study hard. Get good grades. Get a good job. And the rest will follow.
That promise is becoming less certain.
As AI automates more routine work, the world may become less interested in people who can simply answer questions correctly. It will increasingly value people who can:
Ask better questions.
Spot opportunities.
Solve meaningful problems.
Create value for others.
Adapt when things don't go according to plan.
That, to me, is entrepreneurship. Not merely starting a company. But developing the human capacity to spot possibilities where others see problems — and having the courage to do something about it.
Why Start with Children?
One story stayed with me for years.
In 2016, ten-year-old Jack Bonneau appeared on Shark Tank – and my first introduction to Shark Tank. He wasn't simply selling lemonade. He had developed a franchise and marketplace model that enabled other children to run their own stands and markets.
What struck me wasn't simply that a ten-year-old was running a business.
It was that he was given the opportunity to think like an entrepreneur, act like an entrepreneur and learn like an entrepreneur — while he was still a child. He didn't wait for permission, a degree, or a "right age" to start.
He built, he learned, and in doing so, he proved that entrepreneurial capability isn't unlocked at 25 — it can be cultivated at 10.
It made me ask:
Why do we wait until university, MBA, or even adulthood, to teach young people to think this way?
Entrepreneurial capability does not suddenly appear at 21.
The confidence to try, the courage to fail, the habit of asking “why?”, the ability to recognise opportunities and the resilience to try again can all be cultivated much earlier.
Then I Looked at My Own Children
I have often encouraged my children to be more entrepreneurial, despite systemic obstacles. But eventually, I realised something: Nothing beats being the example.
If I want my children to believe their ideas matter, I need to be willing to pursue one of mine. If I want them to take calculated risks, I need to take one myself.
So I stopped simply talking about entrepreneurship. I decided to build. And MBA Junior was born.
What We Believe
MBA Junior is not about turning every child into a business owner. It is not just about teaching children how to make money. And success is not measured by whether a child's idea becomes a successful company.
We want something deeper: We want to develop entrepreneurial human beings of character. And we deliberately redefine what success means.
A project that doesn't work can still be a wonderful outcome if the child learns something important, and build on it. We call these “successful failures.” Because we want our children to ask:
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What did I learn?
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What would I do differently?
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What can I try next?
A child who learns to fail forward at 10 may become an adult who is willing to build boldly at 20 and lead wisely at 30.
To the Parents Reading This
If you've ever worried whether today's classrooms are truly preparing your child for tomorrow's world, you are asking the same question that led me here. MBA Junior exists because I believe our children deserve more than good grades — they deserve the mindset, skills, and character to shape their own futures, no matter how the world around them changes.
After more than 12 years working across education — including Fitch Learning, Times Higher Education, Coursera, NTUC LearningHub, and David & Goliath Preschool — I have seen education from many different angles working with educators, universities, governments, corporations and learners across Asia.
Those experiences have convinced me that we do not need to replace traditional education. We need to complement it.
Schools have an important role in helping children build knowledge. MBA Junior exists to help them practise what happens when there is no model answer:
Our children will inherit a world that we cannot fully predict.
We cannot tell them exactly what jobs will exist, what technologies will emerge, or what challenges they will face.
But we can give them something more enduring: the mindset, skills and character to navigate whatever comes next.
That is why I founded MBA Junior with my team of 12 professionals.
Our role is not to tell them what their future should look like. Our role is to help them discover it, develop it, and have the courage to build it.
Because we believe every child has the potential to create something of their own.
To go from being Born to Build...
to becoming Built to Boss.
