Winnie Khoo
Partner at Antler
Winnie Khoo
Partner at Antler
Singapore
Overview
Work Experience
Partner
2019 - Current
Antler is a global early-stage VC that backs founders from day zero to greatness by providing unique access to co-founder matching, business validation, and pre-seed capital. Besides being the earliest backer for startups, we are also a long-term capital partner that provides expansion support and scale-up funding to breakout companies from Series A onwards. Knowing that exceptional founders can come from anywhere with any background, we have offices in 30 cities around the world, including Singapore, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Tokyo, New York, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Bangalore, Sydney, and more. Get in touch by submitting an application at www.antler.co/singapore
General Manager - Singapore/Malaysia
2016 - 2018
Singapore (Mar 2016 to Apr 2018) - Drove the growth of Singapore country team from a team of two to a team of 33. - Increased WAU by 30% from 2016 to 2018 despite matured market stattus - Earned Carousell’s first dollar and grew business to a 7 digit annualised run rate - Developed Carousell’s monetisation strategy and laid strong foundations for its revenue growth and Series C funding - Developed the media sales and partnerships teams, building the commission structure and closing contracts in excess of a million - Spearheaded the creation and monetisation of Verticals - Autos, Property, Jobs & Services - Worked with finance and product teams to chart product roadmap for strong category growth in Property & Autos - Hired and trained a full marketing team to grow supply and drive leads from zero to these new categories, including recruitment of agents and sales teams - Grew revenue from 60% QoQ Malaysia (Mar 2016 - Jun 2017) - Led the first serious expansion of Carousell into Malaysia - Identified and focused on key states to drive liquidity - Increased WAU by 80% from 2016 to 2017 - Handed ownership to a local manager in order to focus on monetisation in SG
Founder
2014 - 2016
After 17 years of experience in the media and tech industry, I decided to take the plunge and start my own online business. The inspiration for www.iamthirsty.com.sg came about when I was searching online for upgrading courses for my teams. I realised then that there was no easy way to find the training they needed, and no credible way to assess the quality and strength of the courses. Training is a big investment in terms of time and money. Yet, students are not able to have a clear view on feedback on courses, see courses content, course deliverables and access photos, etc. Iamthirsty.com.sg aims to quench people's thirst for knowledge by having all relevant information on training and upskilling courses in one platform. The vision was to create a portal with the right decision-making information for Singaporeans to better themselves and improve their lives.
Managing Director
2012 - 2014
Managed Singapore’s businesses for Property Guru with full responsibility over P/L. - Managed 70 to 80 employees from departments including sales, telesales, customer service, operations and marketing. - Revenue growth of 40% YoY despite mature market leader status.
Chief Operating Officer
2012 - 2012
Responsible for smooth operations within PropertyGuru Group regionally. - Set up offices in the region and ensured that processes and communication flows were smooth between countries - Trained and built localised marketing teams in each country in order for them to scale businesses fast - Launched new markets and held quarterly marketing summits to fast track performance metrics across countries - Covered marketing, operations, customer services and HR
Chief Marketing Officer
2010 - 2012
Responsible for growing users and traffic - Started with a team of 8 in Singapore to 50 across 4 countries - Hired and built Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia offices and teams from scratch - Grew traffic and market share by more than 5x - Nurtured strong performance culture and values within teams - Streamlined processes and systems to maximise growth - Covered Commercial Marketing, Digital Market/SEO, HR, Operations, Customer Services, Content, Editorial
Senior Director
2007 - 2010
Started Alibaba journey in Hong Kong. - Responsible for building a replica of marketing and operations team for the overseas market similar to the business in China. - Built the team within 3 months and worked on marketing activities to brand Alibaba as an internal entity with IPO in HK in mind. - Transferred to Headquarters in Hangzhou to head up International Website Operations. - Main function was to grow the site traffic 20% QoQ. Set up the first digital marketing teams in Alibaba.com - Focused on leveraging SEO/SEM/Affiliates to acquire and build life-cycle programs and retention campaigns to fully maximise the lifetime value of a member. - Implemented the first large scale user research program in Alibaba.
Senior Marketing Manager
2003 - 2007
Began the career with Global Sources in Jun 2003 managing circulation and marketing for 9 trade publications and one research reports. Role expanded to managing circulation, marketing and trade shows activities for 14 trade magazines, 144 research reports, one B2B web portal and one direct sales website. In addition, provides marketing support for our China Sourcing Fairs held twice a year in Hong Kong Marketing Channels for the above products includes: eMail marketing, Fax marketing, Direct mailers, Pay-per-click ads, Search Engine optimization, on-site marketing, third party syndications, 100 trade shows worldwide, above-the-line advertising Marketing activities consist of deciding on strategy, branding and channels to embark on, working out action plans and reporting benchmarks, delegating to team to execute Set and achieved 90% of all targets for the department every half Worked with departments across Hong Kong, China, Philippines, Taiwan, USA, Europe, Thailand, South Korea Spent 2-3 months of each year on business trips across the regions above.
Marketing Manager
2000 - 2003
Managed the list rental business in the company Responsible for any direct marketing activities within the company Takes care of expanding list rental business to new markets, new regions Covers marketing to regional countries and the United States
Marketing Manager
1997 - 2000
Job Duties / Achievements: Increased sales 10 times from S$50,000 to S$500,000 Managed the circulation database of 300,000 In charge of marketing and promotions for the list rental business Manages databases and customers for Asia Computer Weekly, LAN Asia, Asia Pacific Telecommunications, and more IT-related publications
Education
Diploma
1994 - 1997
GCE O Levels
1989 - 1993