Doing good has broadened NewCampus’s horizon beyond Southeast Asia

“I don’t really get stressed anymore,” says NewCampus co-founder and chief executive officer Will Fan. I believe him, although the common refrain is that founders are semi-permanently burnt out.

Maybe it is his composed and deliberate way of speaking. Or his zen aura honed by hours of yoga. But it turns out that it was the passing of his sister two years ago that changed his perspective on life.

“It’s different when you're balancing figuring out how to save your sister with the struggles of fundraising or building your business. My outlook on the passing of Kat (my sister) is to constantly learn, do right by people, and enjoy the process. How do you build sustenance and be a good person at the end of the day, constantly doing great work and creating impact?” As long as he does his part, ‘I think that's good enough at the end of the day.’”

What he’s doing is more than good enough: Some 130,000 young leaders have since engaged with the contemporary online business school to build the next generation of leaders in Southeast Asia, predominantly in tech companies. Reviews on the company’s Facebook page glow with praise. During the pandemic, NewCampus became the market leader in management training. 

It’s perhaps why, in early 2023, Fan no longer succumbed to the pressures of the venture capital model, instead choosing to rely on steady cash flows from programme-generated revenue as well as funding from government and enterprise. And when you add exponential growth to the pile of pluses, I wonder how Fan doesn’t lose himself in complacency.

Never forgetting the why

He harks back to his childhood to explain his drive. "I had very few role models, particularly those who looked like me, spoke like me, and pursued alternative career paths,” Fan reminisces. Growing up in Sydney, Australia, with a family background rooted in China and Vietnam, he found himself craving representation and guidance, which he struggled to find.

This quest for inspiration led to the inception of NewCampus in 2014, not as the business school it is today, but as an experimental platform aimed at helping individuals explore new career paths and spotlight the next generation of leaders.

From these humble beginnings, NewCampus became an educational platform despite Fan’s initial reluctance to venture into the sector. “I thought Southeast Asian tech management training was big enough for us,” he says.

“However, as our business model evolved, we started serving different sectors more efficiently, which led to exciting opportunities and challenges.” Fan and his other two founders soon realised there were better chances of building education as a business.

From Southeast Asia to the rest of the world

Igniting Fan’s enthusiasm is the establishment of an education foundation, Open Campus, with crypto companies Binance and Animoca that look at investing in education businesses. NewCampus is tasked with looking after investing, deploying, and building the utility behind this foundation.

The alliance highlights co-creation, which can only be born out of two or more parties trusting and respecting each other — in this case, Fan and a former NewCampus instructor, both of whom kept in touch throughout the years. It is also an inflexion point that intersects education and emerging technologies, which has expanded NewCampus’s foray into other parts of the world, including Africa and the Middle East. 

Initiatives like Open Campus signal a broader vision. “I never thought I'd be supporting teachers in Brazil, teaching maths literacy. Working with founders in Brazil to solve that problem is about bridging your expertise with capital or advisory. As a campus, it’s like pollinating various types of expertise across the region and incorporating different modes and technologies in the edtech space,” shares the advocate for disruptive educational models.

The road that NewCampus is travelling on towards the future sounds smooth. However, Fan acknowledges the difficulty of maintaining a long-term position in the fast-paced world of edtech. "You need resilience and a commitment to building relationships," he observes.

"We have shifted away from our learner story, and now, as a business leader, it’s important to be able to practise the fundamentals. It's about creating value over time and building momentum for others to support you.”

Fan hopes for NewCampus's legacy to transcend generations, and he’s prepared to work hard over the next 10 years to scale and drive it forward. "It took Harvard close to 400 years to build its brand. I'd like to think that the brand will form a lasting impact that outlives me.”