In this interview, the Gen.T 2019 honouree reveals his thoughts on entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence and how endurance sports shaped his road to success
Being a curious and adventurous soul, Mark Koh left his career path largely in the hands of fate. “On my university application, I listed three course choices: marine biology, architecture and commerce. I let the course and university ‘choose’ me, instead of the other way around. When I was accepted into the University of Sydney for commerce, I just went with it,” he says.
After graduation, he worked for a boutique financial planning practice in Sydney that looked after high net worth clients in Australia. There, he learnt how to manage assets as well as do tax planning and financial structuring. “The owner of the business was my first mentor. He had qualities I admired—successful, generous and meticulous,” he reveals.
Starting Supahands
But Mark knew he wanted to do something on his own. He tried different business ventures during and after his financial planner career. Past endeavours included underwater diving tours and several tech-based businesses that were “way too ahead of their time to be successful in those days”.
He has no regrets though. “I was open to trying and taking risks by saying yes to different business ideas. If it didn’t work out, I’d just start again,” he says.
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This optimism eventually led him to launch and co-found Supahands, a tech enterprise that provides data at scale and speed for artificial intelligence (AI) products and businesses using a hybrid of human intelligence and machine learning. He is also the CEO of the company.
“What Supahands is today and what we were before is very different. We underwent multiple micro-pivots for the company to get to where it is today,”