It's wonderful to see a room this full, and this full of INSEAD family. Thank you, Dean Veloso, Dean Stab, INSEAD faculty and staff, parents, partners, siblings, and friends. But most of all, thank you to the MBA class of 24D for having me here to share your day of celebrations. Congratulations, you are now an INSEAD MBA. Today you join a proud and mostly illustrious group of alums who stood in your shoes over the years. Welcome, fellow alums. I'm supposed to stand up here and say, 'Follow your dreams.' Clearly, some dreaming is what brought you to INSEAD, to this crazy year you have lived through, to these amazing friendships and memories you have built. But it was not dreaming alone that brought you here. Fair warning, I'm going to use a few quotes and proverbs to help guide us through the next 10 minutes we're going to spend together. And I'm going to start by quoting a lovely Japanese proverb that I hope you take to heart: 'Vision without action is just a dream, but action without vision is a nightmare.' I, for one, believe it's a pairing of vision and action that brought you here today and will guide many of you into your bright futures. While the world will always need dreamers, I'm here to advise you that more than ever in 2025 and beyond, the world needs people who stand for and act for something. Acting for something starts with a little introspection. Paraphrasing Mahatma Gandhi, I'll give you my second quote: 'Your beliefs become your thoughts, which in turn become your actions.' So, what do you believe in? What are you willing to stand for? I learned that self-confidence is earned. It starts by planting a flag for something you believe in and then defending that position. This is a lesson I have learned over time and my fair share of tough debates and decisions. Many of those debates happened with my INSEAD classmates. Turns out, some of those late-night post-dinner debates helped hone my skills. I hope you remember some of them. I spent much of my early career using a strength I have: reading the room. An early manager of mine once asked me whether I knew how horse trainers make horses dance to music. We've all seen the shows where horses apparently dance to the music. Now, the key challenge is horses can't actually dance. What he told me was the trainers simply matched the music to each horse's canter—a visual illusion. His point to me was: match your music to the other person's canter. Communicate in a way that matches their rhythm. Now, first, let me say that this manager had a way with words, and only much later did I learn that the entire story was made up. Yeah, typical. But his central point remains: should we be matching our energy and delivery to the boardroom or the conference room we address? There is some value in knowing your audience and their motivations. This I do believe. But today, I follow a much more powerful mantra. I periodically examine the quality of my own thoughts first. Rather than read the room, I start by reading myself. Am I scattered? Am I focused? Am I inspired? What do I want to learn, and what do I want to share? Simply observing my thoughts before I enter a room like this one has allowed me to fully engage and act to bring my beliefs into thoughts and actions, as Gandhi would counsel us. I don't deal much with dancing horses. I deal with people, and my starting point for action is me and my thoughts. Now, those of you paying close attention would have noticed that I said that I enter every meeting thinking first about what I want to learn, and then what I want to share. Leaders are first listeners and learners. Listen first, then learn, finally lead, and then circle back to listen some more. The listening, learning, and leading cycle is a virtuous one. The phrase I use to describe how I bring this to life is 'strong opinions, loosely held.' I have strong opinions, loosely held. While I will vigorously argue my point when needed, I remain open to learning from the other person and discovering data that might change my opinion. This allows me to grow and evolve and not be surrounded by people who simply agree with me. My third quote for you is one from Terence Real: 'Every person is a bridge spanning the legacy they inherited and the legacy they pass on.' As I learn and grow in this life, I remind myself to try and make my leadership legacy one which creates new leaders. After all, leaders create leaders, not followers. My recommendation to you to achieve this: listen, learn, and then lead. Now, I am an entrepreneur. I love being an entrepreneur. The seed for entrepreneurship was planted in me right here at INSEAD by my classmates and my teachers. They inspired me to build something which would change my world. As I developed my leadership skills, I developed them as an entrepreneur, making mistakes and enjoying the occasional success. Now, over the years and companies, my teams and I have built technology-driven solutions which simplified the world. We helped people discover new music and plan dream holidays. But as I continued to grow, I challenged myself and I chose to take on even more challenging tasks. For a while, my teams helped people realize their dream careers. For the last decade, I have led my team at PropertyGuru, which has focused on helping people make confident property decisions—a very easy solution to describe and an incredibly hard one to bring to life. As people make the largest financial investment of their lives, one which is intertwined with emotions and dreams, our greatest hope is that we can make the decision a little bit simpler, bring in a little more transparency, maybe a touch more efficiency. Technology has an incredible power to elevate people and bring more inclusion in society, but only if we wield it responsibly. Building businesses and being an entrepreneur in Asia has involved watching as economies have risen and fallen, political realities have shifted, and of course, a once-in-a-century pandemic has impacted society. Why am I sharing this with you? Because my journey as an entrepreneur started when I sat in the seat that all of you occupy today as an INSEAD student and a new alum. And while the seed was planted while I sat in that seat, it was perfected in the world. The diverse perspectives introduced to me at INSEAD, the worldview that expanded within these classrooms, the risk appetite and ambition which was uncovered through the debates and discussions, all helped shape the leader, entrepreneur, and person I became over time. It's time for my next quote: 'Entrepreneurship helps you discover who you really are, what you stand for, what your values are.' That quote is from, well, me. And this brings me to the punchline of my speech. I started the speech by talking about following more than just your dreams. As you develop your career, you should tap into your beliefs and bring them to life in your workplace. As you grow as a leader, and maybe even as an entrepreneur, I wanted to ensure I encouraged you to be a leader who is fearless in leading with your values as your guide. Life is short, make it count. Be bold in expressing yourself, your opinions, your values. When it comes to leadership, I would encourage you to be curious, really listen, learn, and then lead. Lead with those strong opinions, loosely held. And where should you start? Start with you. Examine the quality of your own thoughts in every interaction. How are you going to show up today? Bring your vision and values to life through actions. My final proverb for today also happens to be my personal motto in life: 'Happiness is a choice.' While the world can sometimes feel unfair, how we respond to it remains our choice. We have agency. Through the ups and downs, choose to find joy. I have found that a life where we take control, rather than leave our faith to others, one where we pair our beliefs and our actions, has great potential to change the world and maybe even bring us some happiness. I wish each of you a successful career where your actions are guided by your values, and a life where you choose happiness. Good luck to all of you, the INSEAD MBA class of 24D. Thank you.
