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The ex-Goldman banker who quit to take over a Myanmar empire

Bloomberg Published on Wed, Jan 17, 2018 / 11:44 AM GMT+8

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(Jan 17): When Melvyn Pun agreed to take his former boss to Myanmar in 2012, little did he know that the trip would cause him to quit his high-profile job at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Melvyn had wanted to stay as head of corporate sales for Asia excluding Japan at Goldman, rather than join his father Serge’s empire -- a sprawling conglomerate that runs businesses from real estate to the KFC chicken franchise in Southeast Asia’s poorest nation. But after three days of looking at the investment opportunities in Myanmar, the excitement of his ex-boss convinced him that he’d be mad not to go into the family business.

“I was a happy investment banker at Goldman Sachs for 12 years,” Melvyn, now the chief executive officer of Yoma Strategic Holdings, said in an interview in Singapore. “But the last five years have proved me wrong and I probably should’ve done it a bit earlier.”