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Singapore-based insurance start-up GoBear has appointed Adrian Chng as chief executive officer, effective July 16.
Chng will succeed co-founder Andre Hesselink, who will move back to the Netherlands but remains involved with GoBear as a special advisor.
“I am proud of how much GoBear has accomplished, becoming a leading Asian financial comparison platform,” Hesselink said. “I would like to thank the employees, partners, and users of GoBear for making this possible. I will definitely miss my day-to-day involvement with GoBear, but I am assured that the company is in very capable hands to make it even more successful.”
One of the foremost fintech entrepreneurs in Asia, Chng co-founded two fintech start-ups and is a board member of several others. Before being named boss of GoBear, he was CEO of Fintonia, a merchant bank he founded in 2015 that invests in fintech companies in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. He also co-founded Credolab in 2016 and AsiaKredit in 2017.
Chng also served as CEO of job search engine JobsDB.com and presided over its US$546 million merger with JobStreet.com in 2014.
“There is no doubt that faster, cheaper and easier access to basic financial services improves people’s lives,” Chng said regarding his appointment. “That is why I am so excited to join GoBear right now; we are in the middle of launching new products and expanding into new markets like Indonesia – we are reaching more and more people every day.”
GoBear was founded in 2015 as a partnership between global insurer Aegon and Dutch venture capital fund Walvis. Beginning in Singapore, it expanded to Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong, and Vietnam, with an upcoming launch in Indonesia.
