Digital Initiatives Lead | Speaker
Arun Kumar has had an interesting journey in his career. He started off as an oil & gas engineer in the USA and Australia, traveling up to 80% of the time, living of suitcases and learning different cultures and demographics from meeting people from all over the world. During that time, he realized his passion was just not on the industry and technology, but also on communities especially the younger generation. He returned home due to redundancy and eventually decided to pursue his passion for the people by moving into social and community works back in his hometown. During this time he also pioneered a centre for the youths called The Lighthouse Hub. The centre provided a safe space for the young people while offering them mentoring and social support.
Arun then returned to the corporate scene with Appoint AI, a tech startup he co-founded and steered towards being one of the Top 20 startups in the world under an accelerator programme for “Smart City Dubai”. Leading to the trip to Dubai, his co-founder had to pull-out at the last minute due to some personal reasons, causing Arun to anchor the entire program on his own. Despite not making it to the top 10 due to the lack of team presence, he was credited with best idea, zeal and pitch, and returned to Malaysia with a valuable wealth of knowledge and experience concerning the international startup scene.
As the Digital Initiatives Lead at Leaderonomics, Arun innovates and introduces great learning solutions for organizations in the region based on his good exposure in the areas of technology, engineering, community and startups. Arun is passionate about bridging the gap between technology, innovation and humanity, and strongly believes in rediscovering in our purpose in life. He enjoys writing and occasionally prints his thoughts on industry 4.0, management and leadership onto the Leaderonomics pullout. He has also been featured on BFM’s Raise Your Game twice where his talks have attracted invitations for corporate speaking engagements. He is also an active speaker among colleagues and universities, as well as youth camps where he generally emphasizes on careers, purposes and goals in life.
