What's Your Career Forecast for 2023, Fastest Growing Jobs and Companies in Singapore and Building UglyFood

Happy lunar new year 🍊🍊🧧! What a WET ☔🌂 start to the year of the Water Rabbit here in Singapore, hasn't it? It's been raining non-stop here since the CNY Day 1. I hope you have had a good time having big IRL gatherings with family and friends (after 3 years?), and if you don't celebrate it, hope you enjoyed the long weekend.

Big hello 👋 to our new subscribers Gerald, Wee Sern and Louie. Shout out to Kriang and Derek for your feedback on Issue #1 of this newsletter - every feedback helps and is very much appreciated. (You too can also click Reply and let me know your thoughts - or your latest binge obsession on Netflix. 😊)

Where has the first month of 2023 gone to??

Best,John Lim

From Podcast - Episode 13: Building UglyFood, sustainability food startup after 12 years at Shell and MBA with Sean Goh

TL;DR Sean Goh is the co-founder of UglyFood, Singapore-based food startup whose mission is to eliminate food waste and revamp the food ecosystem. They operate in the fruits and vegetables space by selling excess or ugly produce, their own branded products, and sustainably sourced goods.

Before UglyFood, Sean spent 12 years across various role at Shell, a multinational oil and gas company. In between his time at Shell, Sean took a gap year to do his MBA in Hong Kong.

 In this episode, you will learn how a senior executive in a big stable MNC like Sean transitioned his career switch out to building a sustainability-focused startup, Sean's advice for career switch and young folks starting out, value add of his MBA (Master of Business Administration) and which starting role in his career where he learnt the most from.

Earlier this month, news broke out that UglyFood is closing due to failing to raise funds and people are sad about it. It did cross my mind if it was appropriate to still publish this episode (we recorded our conversation in July 2022).

I decided to go ahead with it because:- Food waste, food security and sustainability are issues I care deeply about and are important - "We can all go without Netflix, but we can't go without food" - I went back to why I started the podcast: it's about ordinary folks like you and I who took the road less travelled (and in Sean's case, an important one in my opinion) and more importantly I wanna celebrate attempts, not just success, through my podcast. So, so what if his startup doesn't work out. It does not make his career transition story and his experiences any less valuable.

It does seem like running a sustainable food business is challenging. In Jun 2022, TreeDots, another Singapore-based food marketplace shut down its group-buying service. If you know of a sustainable food business based in Southeast Asia that is thriving, I'd love to learn more.

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts. Watch on YouTube (episode to be published soon).

If you're new to the podcast, here are the top 3 most popular episodes: 1) Ep 5: Joval Gan on why he left his $500K high life career 2) Ep 2: Matthew Low on stumbling into entrepreneurship 3) Ep 3: Best Jittida Haputpong on why you should not rush to find a job straight out of university

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What lies ahead for your career in 2023? Pick your own Here's your Chinese Zodiac forecast.

I was born in the year of the Pig. So, 2023 should generally be a positive year for me. But according to this forecast, I only have 44% luck and I'm ranked 11th out of the 12 Zodiac animals 😭.

If you have read a forecast that is positive and that you like, don't read any more - just scroll down to the next section. If you have not, maybe you'll find one below that you like 😉:

Don't believe in Zodiac forecast (or can't find one which you like)? You may have much better luck cracking these 2 lists

Fastest growing jobs in Singapore, according to Linkedin 

Singapore's fastest-growing companies 2023

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DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in newsletter and podcast are solely my own and do not represent the opinions of past, current or future organizations that I was, am and will be part of.