One Sneak Peek Into Leon’s Mission: Serving, Saving and Scaling

“I want to do something meaningful (for a job), but not sure what yet.”

Many youths have reflected this to me.

And that is why I started One Sneak Peek Into, a newsletter that features Singaporeans who are doing great work helping the society while pursuing their own passions at the same time.

One of these inspiring people would be Leon who started his career by receiving a scholarship from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)

and serving as a firefighter in the SCDF for 6 years,

before entering Temasek Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Temasek Holdings.

He then joined the Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX), where he is part of the founding team of Hatch, an global centre and start-up technology accelerator for public safety and security innovation.

From his social media, I figured that he has spent almost a decade in the career of saving lives, and thought it would be cool to invite him to come onboard OSPI.

Here are some pointers from our conversation.

1. Follow a cause that you believe in

“My mission has always been about serving people, saving lives and making an impact.

In SCDF, the organisation and the environment that I was in was about trying to prevent unfortunate incidents from happening, and in the rare instances they did, to protect and save lives.

And after being a firefighter for a few years, I was like, ‘okay, I have explored this for a few years. What else can I do to amplify the the impact I can make on the Singapore public?’ I then landed on philanthropy, an idea that came to me during my last posting in the headquarters.

My last posting in the SCDF had me performing a job which allowed me to find out possible partners that have unique solutions to issues. It got me wondering about things such as - how can simulations and innovation be applied to firefighting. Back then we were running little trials, but even though we were happy with the results, we experienced challenges on how to scale-up innovative solutions. Now we know, though. This experience exposed me to partners outside of SCDF and I got interested in how different kinds of capital can impact the world, with a focus on philanthropic capital.

My role at Temasek Foundation was a manifestation of that interest, and I soon began to wonder how these capital injections can be channeled towards lifesaving at scale. I got to do that in Hatch by getting the interest of investors and getting startups to be involved in the security space and by bringing together this innovation ecosystem. “

2. How he found his vocation

“For my National Service, I was posted to the Singapore Police Force. It was a very interesting and different experience from my education environment. It showed me a lot of realities in Singaporean society that I was not previously exposed to.

Back then I applied to several scholarships. I was offered a couple of them. Through National Service, I got certain of what I wanted to do because the 2 years helped me think about my course of study and where I should study at.

I was actually very surprised to find that I had been offered a scholarship for my grades. But when a concrete opportunity like a scholarship comes up, you will definitely think about whether this could be your calling.

I always wanted to have a job where I could go into a room and have interesting conversation starters, but I didn’t really expect the mental and physical strain of the job at that time.

My status as a scholar definitely also helped to kickstart my career and I was ambitious, a quality that I supposed was required of those who wished to climb the corporate ladder.”

3. Be willing to pursue further training for your new career

“Out of curiousity to better understand how and where innovations emerge,I enrolled in the Insignia Venture Academy. Although around 2020 or 2021, the startup landscape was very different. Cash was very cheap and it was very easy to raise money, so the content of the course that I took would definitely be very different from the current curriculum that it has.

Due to my work commitments, I was heavy carried by fellow participants. But because of this course, I was exposed to the different issues that startups needed to consider. For example, how to create a workforce for your startup and how to think about the legalities of what you are doing. I found the course very educational and useful.

The IVA alumni has a very active community and the substance of the course is considered outside of the typical content  of public service. From IVA, I learnt how to do due diligence and pitch to investors, skills that I previously did not possess as I had neither a finance nor business background. I studied Sociology for my undergrad. The course exposed me to extensive financial terms and helped me to converse intelligently about startups.

I’m still no expert, but I think I have acquired enough knowledge and data points to hold a conversation if my opinionon the startup ecosystem is ever needed.”

4. Difference between startups and larger organisations

“I think the toughest thing for me to overcome when I work and interact with start-ups would be the pace of making decisions. Bigger organisations would rarely keep up with the pace of startups. Startups demand and crave decisions to be made within very short time spans. They need to make and receive decisions fast. It is thus not in their favour if responses are delayed when working with them.

I learnt that I have to be very upfront with startups. If there is no scope to collaborate, then that means there is no scope. The startups might just want a yes or no answer. In the bureaucratic environment that I am more accustomed to, there were more deliberations around decisions. More checking and consulting people from different places. This took me a while to get used to.

The amount of events that I had to attend and host was also staggering. I felt more socially exhausted in the startup ecosystem. Everyone has so much to talk about and everyone is so interesting. These founders really inject their background and experiences into everything that they do and are very invested.

With all these events, all these networking and pitching, sharing with startups and partners, it can get quite tiring. This is different compared to my role in SCDF.”

Connect with Leon here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lifesaverleon/

Follow our telegram channel: https://t.me/onesneakpeekinto

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.