Who am I?

I’m a British born Chinese who spent much of his life growing up between Eastern and Western cultures. I received my undergraduate degree from Cambridge studying economics and my MBA from Stanford. I’ve been fortunate to have experienced working in large companies such as JPMorgan and Pepsi but also experience the thrill of starting and growing a start up company. I’m not a natural athlete but I enjoy the challenge of pushing myself in endurance events such as marathons and Ironman.

What is Ironman?

An Ironman Triathlon is one of a series of long-distance triathlon races organized by the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) consisting of a 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) bicycle ride and a marathon 26.2-mile (42.2 km) run, raced in that order and without a break. I believe that we have the responsibility to try and live life to the fullest and experience all that we can to make the most of it and for me completing an Ironman is one of the ways to achieve this.

What do I do?

I co-founded a company called Idapted.com. We are a technology enabled service which delivers scalable one on one language training. Our service EQEnglish.com connects tens of thousands of lessons each month between a highly trained network of teachers in the US to students living all around China. Our company was acquired by the largest global online English Training company Eleutian.com in 2010. In 2011 I joined as co-founder and CEO of airizu.com, China’s leading online short term rental service for private accommodation. In 2012 I proposed t0 my wife after just before the HK marathon finish line and we got married at the end of the year. We then moved to Indonesia where I started an Office supplies eCommerce retailer Officefab.co.id. I now assist start ups and corporates with internet and eCommerce strategy, consulting and implementation.

I also co-founded a UK based charity CNYTrust.org that assists impoverished school children in rural China through supporting them with scholarships and connecting them one on one with generous donors around the world.

I’ve been a member of Entrepreneurs Organisation for several years serving as the President of the EO Beijing chapter in 2010/11. I have since moved and joined EO in Indonesia.

I live life for the experiences that it can offer. From interacting with the people I meet with everyday to visiting interesting places around the world to participating in challenging endurance events that can help us experience things deep within ourselves.

Why this blog?

One of my life long goals is to complete an Ironman Triathlon. This goal has remained elusive – I trained for the UK Ironman in 2006 and just 4 weeks before the race I broke my wrist in a training accident. However this year I have signed up for the Cebu 70.3 in August 2013 and Busselton Ironman at the end of the year in December. This blog chronicles my journey this year as I work towards that goal. I hope that through this blog I can share my journey and inspire many others to one day also take this challenge and experience one of life’s toughest races.