Andrew Chai
I connected with Andrew on LinkedIn as he was sharing his life and career stories. We met up at my office and he did a demo of his Drawmetrics tool with me. I was intrigued. As I learned more about him, I decided to invite him to join me for the Jobhunting interview.
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You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
Andrew Chai's Story
Andrew started his career in MNCs. He worked as a sales rep with Roche (a Swiss pharma company). Later, he joined AIA (a U.S. insurance company) as an Education and Training Executive. He took the leap to complete his full-time MBA at Thunderbird ASU and he returned to AIA for a Corporate Strategy Manager role.
His next big stint was with Honeywell. He went through an accelerated career development process. He started as a business analyst in Year 1. He went on to do M&A and Strategic Planning on his second and third year. In his fourth year, he was running a business unit. He also had an executive coach to fast track his development.
During his fifth year at Honeywell, he successfully closed a USD 20 mil deal. It was the peak of his career and he completed the deal with a lot of entrepreneurial thinking, involving R&D in South Korea, and Manufacturing in Taiwan.
After 5 years in Honeywell, he saw the opportunity to start a manpower outsourcing company, Sass Atlantic, to lease flight attendants to airlines. He spotted the opportunity during the 9/11 crisis where airlines could go bankrupt easily.
In Sass Atlantic, he offered services to large airlines like Emirates Airlines, All Nippon Airways, Qatar Airways, and China Airlines. In 15 years, he has interviewed more than 80,000 individuals. His “secret sauce” is by using a proprietary tool called Drawmetrics which is able to identify the values and attitudes of people.
After a good run, his business reached at plateau when Emirates became the largest and most profitable airline in the world. Andrew decided to divest of the business and semi-retired. With the advent of Generative AI, he decided to set up a new company called AttituX. Essentially, the company uses the same methodology with enhanced technology and AI capabilities.
Andrew started his business when he was at Stage 2. He has gained work experience and he is ready to test his entrepreneurial skills. He found partners to work with him and he built a team. As he moved into Stage 3, he was able to scale the business quickly and won big contracts. But the business reached a plateau by 2017. He knew that it was time for him to change and the Covid-19 pandemic just confirmed it.
Now that Andrew is in Stage 4, he is ready to build something new. I have met Andrew several times over the years, and he is always bubbling with energy and ideas. Today, he is leading others to build the business with him. He is mentoring his team and he is actively sharing knowledge.