Mortgages, Kids, and Startups: Navigating the Leap from Corporate to Founder in your 40s
Join us at AGILE’s Monthly Open Co-Working & Fireside Chat on 10 September for an honest, unfiltered session on making a mid-career pivot into founder life. We’re bringing together NP alumni & affliate who stepped off the corporate fast track in their 40s to build brand-new ventures from scratch.
No generic motivation, just the cold hard truths of going from zero to one.
Fireside chat: Mortgages, Kids, and Startups: Navigating the Leap from Corporate to Founder in your 40s
Leaving a comfortable corporate trajectory to build a business from scratch is never easy. Doing it with a mortgage, young kids, and real financial commitments is a whole different game.
What We’ll Cover:
Taking the Plunge: How to evaluate and de-risk a major career leap when the stakes are high.
Corporate Unlearning: The mental models and habits you must drop when you no longer have corporate budgets or back-office support.
The Balancing Act: Practical strategies for protecting family time while pouring 110% into a new startup.
Execution Realities: What day-to-day validation and early operations actually look like in the first 90 days.
👥 Speaker Profiles
Ivan Mun is the Founder and CEO of ELLO, an AI-powered care-tech startup helping seniors live safely and independently at home. After 20+ years leading in consumer tech, marine, and construction, he traded corporate comfort for founder life—a journey sparked by a personal struggle to monitor an ageing parent. Today, Ivan describes himself as a late-blooming founder using technology to give families peace of mind, while occasionally wondering why he left that cushy corporate job.
Jeffrey Wong is Co-Founder & Director of Qubix, a deep-tech startup solving critical heat management challenges for AI chips. Drawing on 13+ years leading semiconductor test units at AEM Singapore and key accounts at National Instruments, he traded senior corporate leadership to build Qubix from scratch.
Chan Chi Loong is Founding Member & Chief Product Officer at Genue, an AGILE-incubated AI platform redefining enterprise decision intelligence. Leveraging over two decades of leadership across design, product strategy, and tech innovation, he left corporate comfort to build cutting-edge AI products from zero.
🎤 Moderator
SzeYing Teo Senior Manager, AGILE @ Ngee Ann Polytechnic
SzeYing leads AGILE, NP’s campus incubator built with UOB. She has worked across Singapore, China, and the US helping founders build early teams and communities. Previously the founder of Ventur-io, she’s passionate about supporting first-time entrepreneurs and shaping AGILE into Singapore’s top launchpad for student startups.
Event Highlights:
12:00 PM – 6 PM: Open Co-Working at AGILE
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM: Networking & Dinner
7:30 PM - 9:00 PM: Fireside Chat
📍 Location: AGILE @ Ngee Ann Polytechnic (Blk58 Level 2)
🎟️ Free Entry. Limited slots. Open to public!
About AGILE:
AGILE is Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s official startup incubator — an innovation hub built in partnership with United Overseas Bank (UOB). Short for Accelerating Growth In Innovation, Learning & Entrepreneurship, AGILE is where students, founders, and industry players come together to launch real ventures, solve real problems, and build the future.