I’m Warren Leow, ex-executive director at MaGIC. AMA!

Hi TIA Community,

I’m Warren Leow, and I previously ran most of the core programs at the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC) including:

• MaGIC Accelerator Program (ASEAN track)- the largest in SEA, with 50 startups
• MaGIC Academy training programs- technical and non-technical workshops & courses- trained 15,000 entrepreneurs & wannabes
• Global Regional Programs including Stanford and SEA-related outreach programs
• Investor Relations with foreign and local investors- built up database of 600+ investors
• Strategic & Corporate Partnerships

Currently, I am the VP of Strategic Partnerships & Revenue at 123RF, a Southeast Asian company which is 100% bootstrapped, has 600+ employees and sales offices in 40+ countries.

In my distant past, I dabbled in many things including:

• Starting my own education startup called Guru-App, with 50,000 students
• Built online dating products, education-based social networks, mentoring-based social networks
• Being a management consultant at Bain & Company
• Commodities & futures trading- especially within energy-related products

Feel free to ask me anything, here are some ideas that might help:

• My views on Southeast Asia and its promises/challenges/opportunities/threats
• Ecosystem building across startups, media, corporate partners, investors and government stakeholders
• Asia’s largest accelerator program from mentoring, curriculum, route to market and investor angles
• My point of view on investment trends and differences between primary markets and secondary markets investors
• Founder/startup patterns & traits

Note from Daniel, TIA’s community manager:
The host may choose at his/her preference to not answer particular questions. The AMA is moderated by the community managers, so let’s keep the questions friendly. 🙂