Time really flies when you work full-time. I have just crossed the 8th week of going to work every morning…
It was really meaningful to start working again while having the weekly strategy meetings with my new colleagues on how we can achieve our timelines and the milestones we set for ourselves. I am going to give it my best shot and aim to succeed, even though there are so many uncertainties and moving variables ahead. It will require careful planning and tracking to reach the many goals we set for our company systematically.
As I told my COO during my first day of work, I am also scared but by hook or by crook, I am going to give it my best shot. It will likely be my last career push before permanent retirement as I reach 60 in 3 years’ time. The mission is a grand and audacious journey to try to be a game changer in the Green/Clean Tech space, to be the first to bring together different parts of the fragmented aspects of the industry to create a win-win end game for all.
To be given an opportunity to utilize my past experience and lifelong learning skills I had acquired in the last 6 years to pivot to a growth area is indeed a golden opportunity. Having spent numerous hours learning new Skillsfuture knowledge to reinvent myself, I hope to see an eventual payoff from this new job. Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Blockchain and many other new skills that I had picked up which had caught my interest will assist me in this new venture.
During this week at the office, we had a number of meetings with external outsourcing agents to help us size up the ones we would like to engage with eventually. There were also 3 investment leads we wanted to follow up on from the connections made at last week’s Biochar event. I had to also send my car for urgent repair work on Monday as it had overheated a few times during the weekend. It turned out that the main engine fan coil was not functioning well after 13 years of use.
The best news of the week came on Friday late morning when the authorities informed us via email that they had finally agreed to issue the CMS/LFMC regulatory license to us. It has been a long journey for everyone in the company, starting from Jun 2022 when the overall company business plan was being conceptualized. This was followed by months of working with our lawyers to prepare for the submission of the license application in early Dec.
That was followed by at least 5 rounds of to-and-fro questions and clarifications with the regulators till they finally issued us an In-Principal Approval in late Aug 2023. By then, I had to start my employment contract in early Sep. We spent the last 2 months preparing the required items in the to-do checklist to submit to MAS on 16 Oct. They finally came back with a positive reply on 27 Oct (yesterday) to confirm that they have agreed to issue the license to us. It was 330+ days from the license application start date till this glorious day.
The next stage of the company will begin as we prepare our 2024 budget, complete our marketing deck and begin a soft sell campaign to gauge investors’ appetite for Green Tech. We can then fine-tune our final marketing push to launch the funds around mid-2024.
I also had an interesting experience attending a tree planting ceremony on Fri morning. It was organized by an old friend from my uni days as a way for her to celebrate her 55th birthday. She is a person to be admired, with a fantastic journey over the last 15 years since her life hit rock bottom and she managed to reinvent herself and 10x her experiences to to do more and give back to the world. An amazing inspiration for all of us in how she turned her life around and became a much bigger person who continues to give and mentor others. I also shared this with my son as he has a like-minded goal and wants to pay it forward. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthea_Ong?wprov=sfti1 http://www.antheaong.com/
We just had a wonderful dinner last night with old friends and spouses to celebrate the birthdays of the Oct babies in our group. We have known each other since our university days and it will be 36 years (from 1987), a lifetime ago. We have seen each other grow over the years. From studying together, starting our careers, getting married, having many vacations as a group and seeing our kids become young adults.
It has been a life journey of unforgettable shared memories that we will still be talking about for years to come. Some are actively planning for retirement soon and targeting a halftime pivot to the next stage of their lives. I treasure these friendships dearly and it means so much more for me into my second halftime.
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