Founder’s Associate
SEA Bridge helps companies expand across Southeast Asia. I joined as a management trainee and stayed through six roles, from desk research to leading a small team of associates.
How I got here
I joined the Regional Management Trainee program in February 2024, while still in my third year. I had no business degree; I had projects, teaching and a startup to talk about.
Every role after that came from finishing the previous one well, not from applying again.
Role path
Each role was a step closer to the founder’s chair: first gathering facts, then making recommendations, then owning outcomes, then guiding others to do the same.
Senior Founder’s Associate Project-based
- Manage and guide 3 junior Founder’s Associates on market research and business development projects.
Entrepreneur in Residence Contract
- Advanced to the first selection round of the TED Fund grant, targeting ฿1.5M in venture funding, and pitched to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand.
- Helped build the Global Venture Playbook course at CEDT, Chulalongkorn University, mentoring 43 students across 10 student ventures.
Founder’s Associate Full-time
- Led market-entry research for 2 Korean platforms targeting Thailand’s $12.23B MICE market and $2.1B aesthetic medicine market. Both signed partnership agreements for Thai market entry.
- Matched 9 Taipei enterprises with Thai partners and closed 12 on-site deals at a Taiwan–Thailand business event.
- Secured a distributor for 2 Thai food SMEs entering Indonesia during the Jakarta mission.
SEA Bridge Alumni
- Stayed involved in SEA Bridge community activities and the alumni network between programs.
Business Consultant & Data Analyst Part-time
- Guided cross-border expansion for 2 Thai SMEs through segmentation and competitive benchmarking.
- Co-developed a Vietnam market-entry and GTM strategy with founders; interviewed 10 potential partners, connected 3 and facilitated a joint venture with a Japanese firm.
Regional Management Trainee Internship
- Researched market-entry strategies for 2 Thai SME brands in food innovation and cosmeceuticals, targeting a ฿1B+ opportunity.
- Joined the Vietnam Market Access trip to Hanoi and Quang Ninh; ran product tests and gathered insights from the Thai Ambassador and the BOI office.
What I learned
- A market size is not a market. The real question is who will sign, and what they need to see first.
- Deals close in the room, but they are won in the prep: the partner list, the one-page brief, the follow-up the next morning.
- Managing associates taught me to write instructions that survive without me in the room.
What it led to
Market-entry work across 8 markets, and the habits to run Eduvice and Pathway like real companies. It also showed me how much of business is data, which pointed me to my analyst role.