Joel Neoh Eu-Jin (born 11 October 1983) is a Malaysian

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

, speaker, and

investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future Return on capital, return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of pr ...

. He is best known for his role as the founder of

Groupon Groupon, Inc. is an American global e-commerce marketplace connecting subscribers with local merchants by offering activities, travel, goods and services in 13 countries. Based in Chicago, Groupon was launched there in November 2008, launching ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

and as the International

Vice President A vice president or vice-president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vi ...

of Groupon Asia Pacific. He is the founder of Fave but stepped down as its CEO in 2023. At the age of 20, his first business venture was a fast-growing student agency set-up. In 2007 he participated in ''The Firm'', Malaysia's first

corporate A corporation or body corporate is an individual or a group of people, such as an association or company, that has been authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law as "born out of s ...

reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring ordinary people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1990s ...

programme produced by Popiah Pictures and

ntv7 Natseven TV Sdn Bhd, operating as NTV7 is a Malaysian free-to-air television channel owned by Media Prima, Media Prima Berhad. The third private commercial TV station in Malaysia, the network focused on the urban area with various types of ...

and became the show's inaugural winner. In 2008 he started a business venture called Youth Asia, a

social technology Social technology is a way of using human, intellectual and digital resources in order to influence social processes. For example, one might use social technology to ease social procedures via social software and social hardware, which might in ...

company known for the creation of a few technology

startups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses tha ...

, including YouthSays (which later on rebranded itself to

Says Sdn Bhd Says Sdn Bhd is a company based in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, that operates the web site Company Overview Of Says Sdn Bhd, "Bloomberg Businessweek", 19 Dec 2013,, 2013 The company was formerly known as YouthSays, Youthsays Sdn Bhd. Since its point o ...

) and GroupsMore, which later on joined

via acquisition in 2010. In 2012 he won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Emerging Entrepreneur category in Malaysia. He was named as one of Asia's Top 10 entrepreneurs as well as Young Global Leader by

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...

in 2013.

Early life and education

Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Joel is the youngest son of two teachers. Joel graduated as one of the top 3 students from his course in

Monash University Monash University () is a public university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Named after World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the ...

with a degree in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

in 2005 and is a Monash scholarship holder. Before that, he completed his South Australian Matriculation at Taylor's College where he was a scholarship holder with an average of 94.45%. At university, Joel won the annual Warman student Design-and-Build Competition. Joel is also a former national representative for rock climbing and squash. Joel completed his executive education at

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...

. Currently he is attending

Tsinghua University Tsinghua University (THU) is a public university in Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Constructio ...

Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA).

Career

The Firm

Joel is the winner of Malaysia's first corporate reality television programme '' The Firm'' (Season 1) in 2007 and was the youngest of 10 contestants at the age of 23.

Youth Asia

Joel's first startup was a student agency which matched fresh graduates with employers. In 2008 he started a business venture called Youth Asia, responsible for running its flagship annual youth event, The Youth Festival - Malaysia's Largest Youth Festival. The Festival was known as YOUTH'08, YOUTH'09 and YOUTH'10 respectively, and gathered over 100,000 young Malaysians within 3 years.

SAYS.com

Joel's team started YouthSays Sdn Bhd, an online youth opinion community under the Youth Asia umbrella, based in Malaysia. The company was responsible for a few other flagship events and campaigns, including Southeast Asia Youths for Change (SEAChange), a two day summit held in Putrajaya International Convention Center,

Putrajaya Putrajaya (), officially the Federal Territory of Putrajaya (), is the administrative centre of Malaysia. The Seat of government, seat of the Government of Malaysia, federal government of Malaysia was moved in 1999 from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajay ...

Rev Asia

As a result of SAYS.com merger with Catcha Media, Joel was appointed to the board of directors of the newly rebranded Rev Asia as a non-executive director.

Groupon

In August 2010, Joel's team in Youth Asia started GroupsMore, a social

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

startup mimicking the

business model. Within 4 months, the company joined Groupon via acquisition in an undisclosed amount and rebranded itself to Groupon Malaysia. Joel served as CEO of Groupon Malaysia. In 2012, his role expanded to the Taiwan market, where he stood in as CEO of Groupon Taiwan on top of his role in Malaysia. He, later on, stepped up to be the Regional Lead for the Southeast Asian markets, responsible for operations in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and India. In 2013, Joel became the Vice President of Groupon Asia-Pacific, directly responsible for the 12 markets: Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia.

KFit and Fave

In May 2015, it was announced that Joel's next entrepreneurial venture was KFit, a platform that connects users to fitness studios, classes and gyms across Asia Pacific. It was also announced that KFit had raised a seven-figure US-dollar seed funding round from 500 Startups, SXE Ventures, and Founders Global. Two angel investors also joined in – Daniel Shin, founder and CEO of Ticket Monster, and Danny Yeung, the former CEO of Groupon Hong Kong.

Investments

In September 2014, it was reported that Joel was part of a group of investors that invested $750,000 in Snaptee, an app that let users turn their smartphone photos into T-shirt designs. Joel is also limited partner investing in 500 Durians, the South-East Asian fund started by

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

's 500 Startups. He is also the co-founder of the mobile medical application BookDoc.

Awards

In 2012, Joel was named as Ernst & Young's Emerging Entrepreneur of the year. Top 10 of Asia Magazine has also named him as one of the Top 10 Young Entrepreneurs in Asia. Neoh was also awarded the Malaysian Service Medal by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. Joel now also serves on the Advisory Board for the School of Business, Monash University.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Neoh, Joel Eu-Jin 1983 births Living people Malaysian people of Chinese descent Businesspeople from Kuala Lumpur Malaysian male models Monash University alumni Harvard Business School alumni Malaysian investors