Guest Lecture from Prof. Fng Ah Seng: The Unique Entrepreneur, Doing it My Way

Masters of Management Faculty of Economics and Business Universitas Indonesia (MM FEB UI) hosted a public lecture on Friday (24/4), invited Tan Sri Dato’ Paduka Prof. DR. Fng Ah Seng, JP as the lecture.  The theme for the lecture was “The Unique Entrepreneur, Doing it My Way”, based on Tan Sri’s experiences as an entrepreneur. Held in MM Hall FEB UI, Salemba Campus, the students’ enthusiasm was immense; the hall was packed. Not only with students, but there were scholars from FEB UI such as Aryana Satrya, PhD, Muthia Pramesti, MM, CFP, Hapsari Setyowardhani, MM, and Sri Daryanti, MM. Also, Prof. Fng Ah Seng brought several delegates as the representative of Epic Valley Holdings. Yeshika Alversia, MSc as the Deputy Director of MM FEB UI gave her opening remarks to start the lecture.

A video about Prof. Fng Ah Seng’s life and achievements was played at the beginning of the lecture. Being academician, entrepreneur, engineer, adventurer, and a philanthropist in a pack, Prof. Fng Ah Seng came from a low-income family. Struggling on his early days, Prof. Fng Ah Seng ultimately reached most of his glories before the age of 50. He took civil engineering as his major, but then tried his luck to start a business in housing development and successfully ace it. In his academic life, currently, Prof. Fng Ah Seng is a university professor and an honorary dean in some universities. He also has been active as a military officer. All of his remarkable achievements and contributions led him to earn the highest title as a Malaysian citizen: Tan Sri Dato’ Paduka Prof. Fng Ah Seng. To share his knowledge and to inspire more people, he wrote some books about leadership and occasionally became a motivational speaker.

Prof. Fng Ah Seng said that number one is not the same as being the only one. The only one is unique with no competitors. It means we left the competition behind because it is impossible for the competitors to catch us. Coming from a hard background, he decided to be unique where he will never have to compete anymore. Prof. Fng Ah Seng explained that education is the only way to change someone’s life. Education will help us break the boundaries that we think impossible to be passed. He also emphasized that combining western and eastern culture, especially the modesty and respect culture is essential to earn the best perspective on life. An entrepreneur has to have a good attitude and a good–or, unique–product to win the market. He illustrated one of his principles as an entrepreneur: an entrepreneur is not the boss, but the customers are. Indeed it is crucial to produce the best output, but customer loyalty is the first thing to be conquered.

The lecture was closed with a QnA session. Prof. Fng Ah Seng prepared dozens of his books’ copy to be distributed to the participants. We highly appreciate Prof. Fng Ah Seng’s passion for inspiring, we hope it can motivate students’ to not afraid to start a business.