One Sneak Peek Into The Drive to Rewrite the Rules of Success

She crunched deals, chased listings, and climbed the high-stakes world of investment banking for years. 

But somewhere between the spreadsheets and boardrooms, a different kind of spark caught her eye: 

the energy of startup founders and the raw potential of youth. 

Today, as Co-founder and CEO of Wavesparks, Ee Ling has flipped the script.

Trading IPOs for impact, and valuations for values.

Her mission? 

To ignite the next generation with entrepreneurial courage, showing them that success isn’t just something you’re handed — it’s something you can build, even from scratch. 

Because in Ee Ling’s world, the future doesn’t wait... 

It’s sparked.

Here’s what she told me: 

I didn’t grow up knowing I wanted to be in finance. In fact, I chose it because it was one of the few areas I found remotely interesting at the time. My dad told me, “That’s where the money is,” and I went with it.

I started in Australia and fought hard for a spot in investment banking. Eventually, I managed to join CIMB as a management trainee and had the chance to rotate across four departments. When it came time to choose, I deliberately picked corporate finance because that was where I knew I wanted to grow. I always wanted more regional exposure, so a few years later, I moved to Singapore and joined Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

There, I dove into mergers and acquisitions, equity capital markets. I was working with companies raising funds, listing for the first time, or preparing for expansion. I covered everything from retail to oil and gas, real estate to plantations. The hours were brutal. Think 100-hour work weeks, weekends included. But it taught me discipline, grit, and how to pay attention to every little detail. It was a high-pressure, high-growth kind of environment, and it shaped the way I think and work today.

But towards the end of my banking career, something started to shift. I found myself helping startups fundraise. These were e-commerce and beauty companies like MatahariMall and Luxola (acquired by Sephora). I was drawn to the energy founders brought into the room. They were scrappy, ambitious, and ready to change the game. Around the same time, I faced a personal frustration: I couldn’t find quality enrichment classes for my kids. That pain point led me to start my first startup, Smarter Me — a platform for parents to discover great classes for their children.

That experience opened up a whole new world for me. Of pitching, fundraising, hiring, letting people go, round and round. I eventually joined 500 Global, blending everything I’d done before — advisory, education, startups — into my work in venture capital. Still, something tugged at me: the youth programmes I had always been running on the side.

After years of balancing both, I realised I didn’t want to keep youth work in the margins anymore. If time and energy are finite, I wanted to invest mine in helping young people build lives they’re excited about.

That’s why I co-founded Wavesparks. We design acceleration programmes for youths, focused on tech, entrepreneurship, and real-world learning. 

Not because everyone needs to be an entrepreneur, but because the mindset — resilience, curiosity, ownership — applies anywhere, whether you're building a company or working in the public sector.

For far too long, we’ve been told there’s one way to succeed: ace your exams, get into the right school, follow the safe path. But life doesn’t work that way. Your grades don’t define you. They don’t predict your potential. Entrepreneurship, to me, represents something different — a space where anyone, no matter your background, can create change, solve problems, and shape your future.

So if you’re still figuring things out, that’s okay. Go out and explore. Try new things. Learn what excites you, and when the time feels right, start focusing on what matters to you.

And don’t let anyone else decide who you can be or what you can do. That’s a decision only you get to make.

Connect with Ee Ling here: Ee Ling Lim | LinkedIn

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And that is all for today’s One Sneak Peek Into.

Stay tuned for more insights from our interview series as we continue to explore the stories of trailblazers breaking barriers and redefining success.