Kinta Valley Personalities: Mark Chan

Success in the Dotcom age

Kampar may be a town away from the main cities and not as well-known as Kuala Lumpur or Penang but the town is the origin of several successful entrepreneurs who made their millions through hard work, strong determination and perseverance, and most of all, a vision to succeed.

Mark Chang Mun Kee is one such person. Born in Kampar and having lived in the community while growing up, he has not forgotten his simple life as a student and the many playful things he did as a teenager. He holds fond memories of Kampar and is happy to know that the town is now booming with UTAR staff and students living with the community and providing so many opportunities for the people of Kampar.

Recalling memories of his childhood in Kampar, Mark said, “I had many good memories while growing up in Kampar especially in the area near my house. It was near the tin mine and I used to play in the sand and near the mining pool. My friends and I explored the area and had little adventures together. It gave us a great sense of freedom. I suppose that kindled my spirit of exploration and adventure which also helped me to be what I am today. I am actually a product of my community.”

He elaborated that the housing area he grew up in, was a tight knit community where neighbours were close and eating together was a regular thing. He believes in the adage, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” That feeling of togetherness he felt was very good for character building.

Mark Chang happens to be the brains behind JobStreet.com which is an online job posting website popularly used in Southeast Asia. Little known however, is that the company is a home-grown service. The founder and acting CEO happens to be Mark Chang Mun Kee.

After completing his secondary education, Mark went on to pursue Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas and received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1988. He went on to attend the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering in 1990.

His first job was as a Process Engineer in Kendall International, a US healthcare company starting from the year 1990. Two years later he was promoted to Manufacturing Manager in 1992, before becoming Regional Director of Sales and Marketing for Malaysia in 1994. He founded Malaysia Online (MOL Online Sdn Bhd) in 1995, a local variant of American Online (AOL) and Yahoo! He quickly noticed that the job listings were proving to be popular. This insight ultimately led to him quitting Kendall International in 1996 to establish Jobstreet Corp. Bhd in 1997, where he has been its Chief Executive Officer ever since.

He credits Intel as the first major corporation to try out Jobstreet.com’s service. Once word got out, other large multinationals followed suit, among them Siemens, Motorola, HP, and Dell. However, the major turning point was in 1999, when a reporter from the Far Eastern Economic Review came to Mark for a story on the employment market in Malaysia. After the story was published, Mark received an offer from a venture capitalist interested in investing in Jobstreet.com.

Accepting the offer allowed the company to expand rapidly to new markets in Singapore, the Philippines, and India. The expansion overseas helped to further raise the standing of the company, resulting in an invitation to speak at a Merrill Lynch conference. As luck would have it, Tan Sri Vincent Tan was in the audience, and with his interest piqued, approached Mark to discuss business opportunities. This ultimately led to the sale of MOL Online for RM 12 million.

The money was smartly reinvested in Jobstreet.com, and working tirelessly, helped grow the start-up until it was listed on the MESDAQ by the December of 2004. Mark says that with Asia’s steady growth, companies need to fill vacancies often and that Jobstreet.com’s advantage is that as an internet-based company, it can tap into a larger talent pool from across the region without the restriction of borders.

JobStreet also has branched into other services, such as providing custom-made recruitment software for multinationals. Dell hired Jobstreet.com to screen candidates and compile shortlists for the personnel department, while Shell chose Jobstreet to design and manage the oil giant's global online employment site.

JobStreet.com is now Southeast Asia’s largest online job listing company, with its primary markets in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam, and a growing presence in Hong Kong, India and Japan. With a dedicated team of 800 employees, they help to match 80 thousand employers with over 11 million registered job seekers in those markets. In November 2014, Jobstreet.com was bought over by SEEK Limited, the world’s largest online employment marketplace by market capitalisation and listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. The deal amounted to a breathtaking RM 1.89 billion for a total buyout, the largest a Malaysian dotcom start-up has ever went for and becoming the de facto benchmark all others to aspire to.

Despite running his massively successful start-up full-time, Mark has still found time to delve into other ventures. Since the year 2010, he has served in Vitrox Corp Bhd as an Independent and Non-Executive Director. Vitrox designs, manufactures, and markets automated vision inspection systems and system-on-chip embedded electronics devices to semiconductor and electronic packaging industries.

Meanwhile since 2014, he has been the Independent Director of MOL Global, Inc, which operates a payment platform that facilitates online and mobile commerce for consumers through a network of payment channels in Malaysia and internationally.

When asked about his advice to students thinking of starting a business, Mark said, “Do not think of starting a company just to make profit. Always ask yourself what the needs of the society are and the current difficulties in fulfilling those needs. Then find the solution to what the society needs and this is more meaningful. If you start a business with good intentions, the chances of success are higher. In addition, it is crucial to build a customer base and this may take years but you need to persevere. There is no short-cut and it’s a long process. When you start a business, you have to plan to be around for the next 20 years in order to succeed.”

Mark Chang currently also sits on the Boards of Innity Corporation Berhad, and 104 Corporation, Taiwan. He also serves as the Penang State Advisor for Persatuan Usahawan Muda Malaysia (PUMM). He remains to be the CEO of JobStreet Corp Berhad, the investment holding company which is listed on KLSE.

Despite all of Mark’s successes, he still keeps himself grounded and true to his roots. In 2014, he set aside USD 10 million to fund entrepreneurs that come from disadvantaged backgrounds just like him. Saying that those who are financially disadvantaged will naturally have to struggle harder as they lack resources, networks and knowledge, he wants to lend a helping hand to improve their chances of success.

In fact, the seeds of his vision were sowed eight years before, when he launched a trust fund called ‘Little Rain Children Trust’ and committed 40% of his net worth to helping society. He shares, “Since then, I have told myself every day that I am working for the benefit of our society.”

While having founded Jobstreet.com in Malaysia, Mark has been based in Singapore for the last 10 years. Being in the business all these years, he says to aspiring entrepreneurs, “being an entrepreneur is more about character and mental tenacity than funding or infrastructure.”

References:
http://ir.chartnexus.com/jobstreet/management.php?h=MY
http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=12679509&ticker=JOBS:MK
http://www.focusmalaysia.my/Columns/The-millionaire-ICT-icon-from-Kampar
http://www.news.utm.my/2012/03/starting-a-company-jobstreet-story/
http://www.digitalnewsasia.com/sizzle-fizzle/mark-chang-second-act-to-aid-disadvantaged-entrepreneurs;
Photo source: digitalnewsasia.com
http://entrepreneur-station.blogspot.com/2014/03/mark-chang-mun-kee-jobstreetcom.html