fave co-founder Joel Neoh to depart from company

Malaysian fintech platform, fave’s co-founder and CEO, Joel Neoh (pictured) will be leaving the company on 1 March. The team will be led by the company’s other co-founder, Yeoh Chen Chow along with general managers, Avantika Jain and Aik Kuang Hen, who sit in Singapore and Malaysia respectively. As the most recent senior hire, Aik Kuang has held senior leadership roles in organisations such as iflix and WeTV SEA prior to joining fave. 

Neoh co-founded fave in 2015, and grew it its current status of operation in over 50 cities across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and India as stated on his LinkedIn. The company experienced strong traction across Southeast Asia and was later acquired by Pine Labs for US$45 million in 2021.

He founded Groupmore, a Groupon clone, which was acquired by the latter in 2011. Neoh then stayed at Groupon until 2015. Before Groupon, Neoh co- founded Says.com, a social news network in Southeast Asia. According to his LinkedIn, he worked at Says from 2009 to 2013.  fave fully acquired e-commerce company Groupon in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia back in 2017, where Neoh worked from 2011. Noel said that today, one out of every three Singaporeans, and millions of consumers across Malaysia, Indonesia and India use fave on a daily basis for payments and rewards.

"With the strong leadership and culture we have built, I am confident in the company's continued growth in the years to come. As I leave fave, I look forward to further contributing to Southeast Asia’s technology ecosystem, paying it forward by helping other fellow entrepreneurs grow in their startup journeys,” he added. 

According to a statement from fave, moving forward, the company will be rolling out more collaborations with key banks and financial institutions across the markets; as well as targeting to enter the flexible payment processing space for online merchants in Q2. B Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs, said that Neoh is leaving behind a tremendous legacy. "fave is an extremely strong addition to Pine Labs. fave company portfolio, and we are excited about the 2023 growth trajectory as fave is set to break new boundaries in sales volumes and explore new countries," he said.

Speaking to audience members during a chat at A+M’s Digital Marketing Asia conference in 2018,  Neoh said if you fear making mistakes as an entrepreneur, there is no room for improvement. “As an entrepreneur, you make a lot of mistakes. When you start off something new, there is almost always nothing to lose, almost. Most of the time you have a vision of a product and you listen to consumers and innovate and just iterate it as you go on,” he added.

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