Beginning your journey in trade is a huge challenge. Staying consistent is even tougher. Eventually, these harm the morality and motivation of entrepreneurs. This slew of issues has piqued the interest of many leaders, who foresee unrestrained progress. A dynamic business leader, ardent technologist, advocate, and trusted advisor, Eric SayWei Neo, enthused by new innovations, is a popular name in the business pantheon.
He has been the reckoning force for many entrepreneurs, with over two decades of professional excellence in capital markets, fintech, entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, and VUCA leadership. Through his fintech firm, Neo & Partners Global, Mr. Eric is empowering high-growth, medium-sized international trading enterprises to run ahead of the curve.
Early Life and Industry Experience
Eric’s high-intensity senior corporate leadership career began in 2011 when he was hired as Sales Director, APAC, at RTS Realtime Systems (“RTS”), a German-based global provider of low-latency connectivity and trading support services, including market connectivity and trading tools for equities, futures, options, FX, and fixed income trading. He later served as Senior Vice President – Of commodities, Derivatives & Securities, and APAC at FlexTrade Systems (“FlexTrade”), a US-based global leader in multi-asset execution and order management systems. During those years in RTS and FlexTrade, he led the APAC sales teams with geographical domains in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Thailand, and stretching to Dubai, with primary coverage of clients from the buy-side communities of commodities trading advisors, hedge funds, and proprietary trading firms.
“As a result of my client coverage expanding into the sell-side communities at brokerage firms, stock exchanges, and bank trading floors, I was able to successfully penetrate the buy-side communities. A wide range of information and communications technology providers were among the other stakeholders that the ecosystem engaged”, quoted Mr. Eric.
Neo & Partners Global: Unique in its “Creation, Development, & Innovation”
Standing ahead of the herd with precision, quality, and trust, Neo & Partners Global Private Limited is a multi-asset, broker-neutral, sophisticated platform. It is Asia’s first of its kind, unique in its creation, development, and innovation. Its tremendous ability to conduct multi-asset worldwide trading on a single broker-neutral platform with its 360° environment, a technologically advanced electronic trading facility that covers all parts of a trading ecosystem, gives it a distinct competitive advantage. This is why Eric and his group prefer to be known as Singapore and Asia’s one-and-only Trading Atrium, in contrast to other trading arcades on the market.
Since the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (“SIMEX”), the first financial futures exchange in Asia closed its trading floor in 1999 and became a member of the Singapore Exchange (“SGX”), a few so-called “broker arcades” have sprouted up in Singapore. However, the broker arcades were constrained in that they did not permit buy-side enterprises to employ the broking services of other parties as trading in Singapore moved towards cross-border and multi-asset classes.
Mr. Eric noticed a significant gap in the market for a “broker neutral” platform that was nonexistent due to the fact that zSingapore’s proprietary trading community is expanding at a time when more and more major exchanges have sales offices in the city-state to tap into the trading community. Neo & Partners Global (“NPG”) was thus established in 2014 with the opening of what he audaciously dubbed the first “Trading Atrium” in Asia that provided multi asset trading to the buy-side communities.
The Trading Atrium is a comprehensive business ecosystem methodology supported by an electronic trading facility that is technologically advanced and located on a floor of a building in Singapore’s central business district. It has nine trading rooms with cutting-edge dealing desks that can accommodate up to 52 traders in total, covering all aspects of a trading ecosystem.
Clientele and Corporate Ethos at a Glance
NPG serves a broad range of clientele, including buy-side communities of commodities trading advisors, hedge funds, and proprietary trading companies with low latency and high-frequency trading requirements looking to expand their trading operations and needing to naturally create a pool of highly skilled and sophisticated traders with an APAC hub in Singapore.
The underlying philosophy of all of this is consistent with NPG’s mission: to support high-growth, medium-sized international trading enterprises to run ahead of the curve (like never before) and, ultimately, to realize NPG’s vision of being the change leader to help realize Singapore as a premier international financial trading hub. The design philosophy of the Trading Atrium is simple but powerful: THE SUM OF THE PARTS MUST BE GREATER THAN THE WHOLE.
The academic trading services, liquidity pool access, and office layout all contribute to a successful and efficient trading and business environment. The Trading Atrium is designed to promote collaboration and knowledge sharing among traders and firms. As a result, NPG clients are able to run their businesses more profitably, grow sustainably, and consistently adapt better to a rapidly changing environment.
The Inspiring and Innovative Work Culture at NPG
A group of driven, like-minded business experts collaborates with the partners and clients at Neo & Partners Global towards a similar objective and for mutual gain. They are therefore very interested in diversity and inclusion. While continuing on its successful path, Neo & Partners Global has been upholding its company culture, which is built around three key pillars:
- Companies consistently innovate by looking for new products and technology, and because of this, they are better equipped to respond rapidly to shifts in the market environment.
- Excellence lies at the heart of Neo & Partners Global’s commitment to providing the finest. They prefer to create alliances for mutual achievement rather than operate solely for financial gain.
- At the heart of each of their connections are respect and trust. They work to attain their goal of openness and transparency by fostering a culture that is both open and completely collaborative.
Eric’s Unique Definition of Success
He has learned that industry recognition is a more relevant indicator of success than operating for profits. In competition with larger companies, NPG won notable awards such as the Business Resilience and Innovation Award at the ASEAN Young Entrepreneur Awards 2022, the Best Infrastructure Provider at the Waters Technology Asia Awards 2020, and the recognition as a FinTech Certified Company by the Singapore FinTech Association recognized by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Executive of the Year, Financial Services, at the SBR Management Excellence Awards 2020 was given to him separately and in recognition of his personal commitment to servant leadership and stewardship.
Advancing in Leaps and Bounds
As with all other enterprises and companies, a significant pivot of plans and strategies had to be implemented as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic over the past three years. Eric’s plans for 2023 and beyond therefore focus on lowering major risks while also expanding geographical reach to other nations by offering distinctively proprietary Trading Atrium advisory and consulting services to high-growth, medium-sized international trading enterprises that run (like never before) ahead of the curve, with the potential for a re-imagined Trading Atrium facility in Singapore that also caters to family offices.