Joel Neoh Eu-Jin

Joel Neoh Eu-Jin Joel profile picture at Groupon MY HQ
Born	(1983-10-11) 11 October 1983 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Nationality	Malaysian
Education	Harvard Business School, Monash University
Occupation	International Vice President of Groupon Asia-Pacific
Years active	2006–present

Joel Neoh Eu-Jin is a Malaysian entrepreneur, speaker and investor. He is best known for his role as the founder of Groupon Malaysia and as the International Vice President of Groupon Asia Pacific.^[1] He is currently the founder of KFit ^[2]

At the age of 20, his first business venture was a fast-growing student agency set-up.^[3] In 2007 he participated in The Firm, Malaysia's first corporate reality television programme produced by Popiah Pictures and ntv7 and became the show's inaugural winner.^[4] In 2008 he started a business venture called Youth Asia, a social technology company known for the creation of a few technology startups, including YouthSays (which later on rebranded itself to Says Sdn Bhd) and GroupsMore, which later on joined Groupon via acquisition in 2010.^[5]

In 2012 he won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Emerging Entrepreneur category in Malaysia. He was named as one of Asia's Top 10 entrepreneurs ^[6] as well as Young Global Leader by World Economic Forum in 2013.^[7]

Early life & Education

Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Neoh is the youngest son of two educationists. Neoh graduated as one of the top 3 students from his course in Monash University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2005, and is a Monash scholarship holder.^[8] Before that, he completed his South Australian Matriculation at Taylor's College where he was a scholarship holder with an average of 94.45%.^[9] At university, Neoh won the annual Warman student Design-and-Build Competition. Neoh is also a former national representative for rock climbing and squash.^[10] Neoh completed his executive education at Harvard Business School ^[11]

Career

Modelling

Neoh was a fashion model during his adolescent years. He walked the runway for various brands in Malaysia, such as Guess, Esprit, Adidas, Nike, Quiksilver and Levi's. During his modelling stint Neoh was also frequently featured in fashion lifestyle magazines including Men's Health, FHM, New Man, August Man, CLEO, Female, Seventeen, Marie Claire and has been interviewed by local publications in Malaysia including The Star, New Straits Times, Malay Mail, and The Sun.

The Firm

Neoh is the winner of Malaysia's first corporate reality television programme The Firm (Season 1) in 2007, and was the youngest of 10 contestants at the age of 23.^[12]

Youth Asia

Neoh's first startup was a student agency which matched fresh graduates with employers.^[13] In 2008 he started a business venture called Youth Asia, responsible for running its flagship annual youth event, The Youth Festival - Malaysia's Largest Youth Festival. The Festival was known as YOUTH'08, YOUTH'09 and YOUTH'10 respectively, and gathered over 100,000 young Malaysians within 3 years.^[14]

SAYS.com

Neoh's team started YouthSays Sdn Bhd, an online youth opinion community under the Youth Asia umbrella. The company was responsible for a few other flagship events and campaigns, including Southeast Asia Youths for Change (SEAChange), a 2 days summit held in Putrajaya International Convention Center, Kuala Lumpur. Some of the speakers involved in SEAChange were Biz Stone, Garry Kasparov and Randi Zuckerberg.^[15] YouthSays later rebranded as SAYS.com and joined Catcha Media in a merger in 2013.^[16]

Rev Asia

As a result of SAYS.com merger with Catcha Media, Neoh was appointed to the board of directors of the newly rebranded Rev Asia as a non executive director ^[17]

Groupon

In August 2010, Neoh's team in Youth Asia started GroupsMore, a social e-commerce startup mimicking the Groupon business model. Within 4 months, the company joined Groupon via acquisition in an undisclosed amount, and rebranded itself to Groupon Malaysia.^[18]

Neoh served as CEO of Groupon Malaysia. In 2012, his role expanded to the Taiwan market, where he stood in as CEO of Groupon Taiwan on top of his role in Malaysia.^[19] He later on stepped up to be the Regional Lead for the Southeast Asian markets, responsible for operations in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and India. In 2013, Neoh became the Vice President of Groupon Asia-Pacific, directly responsible for the 12 markets: Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia.^[20]

KFit

In May 2015, it was announced that Neoh's next entrepreneurial venture was KFit, a platform that connects users to fitness studios, classes and gyms across Asia Pacific ^[21] It was also announced that KFit has raised a seven-figure US-dollar seed funding round from 500 Startups, SXE Ventures, and Founders Global. Two angel investors also joined in – Daniel Shin, founder and CEO of Ticket Monster, and Danny Yeung, the former CEO of Groupon Hong Kong ^[22]

Investments

In September 2014, it was reported that Neoh was part of a group of investors who invested $750,000 in Snaptee, an app that let users turn their smartphone photos into T-shirt designs.^[23] Neoh is also limited partner investing into 500 Durians, the South-East Asian fund started by Silicon Valley’s 500 Startups ^[24] He is also the co-founder of the mobile medical application BookDoc.^[25]

Awards

In 2012, Neoh was named as Ernst & Young’s Emerging Entrepreneur of the year.^[26] He was also named as World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader in 2013. Top 10 of Asia magazine has also named him as one of the Top 10 Young Entrepreneurs in Asia.^[27] Neoh was also awarded the Malaysian Service Medal by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.^[28]

He's currently appointed as a line-up speaker The London Speaker Bureau and Asian Business Angel Forum in 2012. Neoh now also serves on the Advisory Board for the School of Business, Monash University.^[29]

References

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