Han PingPing: Fractional C-suite for ASEAN market entry.
I join growth-stage companies as embedded C-suite leadership, focusing on strategy, commercial GTM engines, and operations. To accelerate business growth by opening the correct doors to related stakeholders within ASEAN. Sectors: TravelTech, PropTech, Climate & Sustainability, FinTech, Embedded Travel Connectivity. Fractional Chief Commercial Officer (also known as a fractional Chief Growth Officer), based between London and Singapore.
Proof: S$250M asset portfolio value · 3 startup businesses built to date · 18 years building B2B across ASEAN and Europe. Operated for Shangri-La, Taj, Marriott, KINN Capsule Hotels and Rocket Internet.
Point of view
“Growth-stage companies treat ASEAN as one market and their first in-region leadership as a luxury they'll afford later. Both are expensive mistakes. ASEAN is a dozen regulatory regimes and relationship networks. The operational and commercial relationships groundwork have to be laid before your business acceleration can take shape in ASEAN.”
Systems thinking, not siloed advice.
I connect the pieces that usually sit in separate functions: commercial build, product/tech readiness, org stabilization, and capital positioning, because in a market entry they succeed or fail together, not separately.
A stabilizing force through transformation.
Having built 3 startups to date, I am comfortable with organised chaos and agile nimble navigation needed to scale a fast-growing business. I build the processes and retain the people who carry institutional knowledge through this transition, whilst closing deals that open the market.
Opening the right doors into public and private sectors.
Eighteen years in the region built trust at the institutional level: statutory boards, government bodies, and corporate ecosystem partners. When a mandate needs it, I bring the network, not just the strategy.
How we work together: services
Advisory Retainer: Starts from S$8,000 / month
A senior commercial mind on call, without the headcount. We set your APAC go-to-market, pressure-test pricing and pipeline, and make the strategic calls that turn funding into B2B revenue. Counsel and direction; your team executes. Minimum three months.
Fractional C-suite: Starts from S$15,000 / month
I join your team and own the build of your strategy, commercial and ops architecture. Embedded and hands-on across go-to-market, partnerships, pricing and people, closing the first deals myself and setting up the engine behind them. A seat at the table, accountable to the number. Minimum six months.
Founder & Commercial Coaching: Starts from S$450 / session
For the founder or chief commercial leader carrying the region. Candid, one-to-one sessions on the decisions that builds B2B revenue engines. Minimum four sessions.
Selected work: case studies
APAC B2B market entry for a travel-tech company (Travel eSIM brand)
Market entry · B2B enterprise channels. Fractional commercial leadership for a funded travel tech company entering APAC. I built the B2B distribution channel from zero: the first tourism board, airline, forex and MICE partners. Highlights: 4 firsts (tourism board, airline, forex, MICE); B2C → B2B new vertical from scratch; a recurring enterprise sales engine; an embedded connectivity GTM model.
Situation. A funded, telco-backed, leading data-roaming eSIM brand had a sole B2C focus previously, with minimal B2B distribution channels established. To acquire end-users at scale across APAC travel, it needed an enterprise engine it did not yet have.
Action. I built the B2B strategy from scratch and signed the firsts that prove a channel: the first tourism board, the first airline collaboration, the first forex branch network and the first international MICE partner, to activate a GTM motion that acquires end-users at scale. I originated, structured, implemented and scaled these enterprise channels, generating value and recurring sales as channels and campaigns launched, and built repeatable GTM models within the enterprise channel, delivering embedded connectivity as the strategy.
Result. Enterprise channels that are established create IP assets for the organisation. As these GTM pathways are built: partnership models, deployment mechanisms and embedded-connectivity models, these enterprise IP assets are value-adding, recurring sales generators across the travel vertical.
Hospitality B2B revenue from a cold start to S$263K (KINN Capsule Hotels)
Market entry. A capsule-hotel concept with no B2B channel, built to S$263K from a cold start in twelve months. Highlights: S$263K B2B revenue; 3,800 bed nights; S$69 average daily rate; 12 months from a cold start. staywithkinn.com
Situation. KINN had opened its first site with 100% reliance on online distribution and no B2B commercial channels established. It was also launching another 16,000 sq ft hybrid hotel and needed a revenue diversification strategy. A capsule-hotel concept needed a story that made affordable, design-led accommodation credible to institutional buyers, fast.
Action. I activated Singapore's education vertical first: universities, language centres and overseas colleges hosting incoming student groups. The opening deal came from a university educator hosting twenty guests on a three-night learning mission on architecture, urban design and its application to hospitality. From there I built repeatable institutional relationships and secured KINN as the exclusive affordable-accommodation partner on ACE.SG, Singapore's startup-ecosystem platform.
Result. S$263K in B2B revenue across 3,800 bed nights at a S$69 ADR within twelve months of a cold start. A Vietnam education centre rebooked for a second year, where I upsold the rate by 10% to roughly S$30,000; the single largest group, twenty-eight exchange students from the Netherlands, stayed eight nights for nearly S$16K.
Luxury hospitality repositioning that grew suite revenue (Shangri-La · Valley Wing)
Product repositioning. Recurring suite-night sales were stalling, so I stopped selling a room and started selling a stage. Highlights: Chanel and Prada booked the suites; repeat luxury buyers retained; a new product narrative. Valley Wing
Situation. The challenge was selling suite nights to a recurring corporate buyer who saw the product as just a “room.” Luxury clients felt the Shangri-La brand had become dated and needed a refresh, and a price conversation alone wasn't going to change that.
Action. Rather than reposition on price, I repositioned the product. I moved the Valley Wing suites away from traditional accommodation and toward accessible luxury: an elegant backdrop for luxury brands' product launches, make-up especially. It was my idea, and it gave the sales conversation an entirely new frame.
Result. Chanel and Prada booked the suites as the set for their models and product-catalogue shoots, turning recurring suite-night sales into a new narrative and opening a new category of high-value luxury corporate clients for the property.
Scaling commercial operations through an M&A to S$2M (FOUND8 · 100 Amoy Street)
Scale & operations. Three sites, an M&A and a brutal market: roughly S$2M revenue and a team scaled from one to seven. Highlights: ~S$2M annual revenue; >S$200M real estate portfolio; team scaled 1 → 7; largest 23,000 sqft site launched.
Situation. Going from two sites to three, the third site was the largest at 23,000 sq ft at 100 Amoy Street. This meant building a fresh slate of corporate clients whilst navigating an M&A. The macro market was unforgiving: rival co-working brands were opening new sites with higher brand recall at a lower per-seat price.
Action. I focused on what I could control. I built and strengthened client relationships with new scale-up businesses entering Asia Pacific, positioning our Google for Startups campus as an integral ecosystem partner. I stayed honest about development timelines and pricing, and lent steady support to my team members through the hardest moments.
Result. Generated approximately S$2M in annual revenue across a >S$200M real estate portfolio at FOUND8, a Google for Startups partner, and scaled the team from one to seven, launching its largest site and building its corporate client base from scratch through the M&A.
Pre-opening hotel go-to-market to #1 ranking in 90 days (The Vagabond Club)
Pre-opening GTM. A brand-new hotel at S$0 with no distribution, taken to #1 on TripAdvisor in ninety days. Highlights: distribution built from S$0 to live; #1 on TripAdvisor; 90 days pre-opening to top. The Vagabond Club
Situation. A brand-new boutique hotel launch: S$0 revenue, no online distribution, and no B2B channel of any kind. Everything had to be built from a blank page.
Action. I built offline B2B sales from scratch. Media buyouts, where the entire hotel was booked and sold as “a house,” marked the beginning of B2B distribution. Marketing drove brand awareness and online bookings, while relationship-building drove offline sales and partnerships with tourism boards, media and corporates. Affordable-luxury pricing positioned the hotel as a boutique lifestyle product.
Result. From unknown pre-opening to #1 on TripAdvisor in ninety days, with both online and offline B2B channels live and a partnership pipeline feeding the property.
Institutional Access
Eighteen years in Singapore and ASEAN built relationships with the statutory boards, government agencies, and private ecosystem partners that shape how business gets done in the region. When your market entry needs a door opened: a regulator, a statutory board, an industry convening, I bring the relationship, not just the strategy.
- 2025 · NSEW2050 Summit: Spotlighted Climate Youth Development Program (CYDP) leaders selected by Singapore's Prime Minister's Office.
- 2025 · IMDA: Invited participant, closed-door roundtable on emerging tech in retail, lifestyle & tourism, alongside 16 senior industry leaders.
- 2023 · Singapore Tourism Board: Referred directly to Resorts World Cruises to support engagement on the SG Green Plan 2023 initiative.
- 2022 · Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong: Featured guest, Celebrating SG Women exhibition.
- 2021 · Prime Minister's Office / MCCY: Competitively selected into a Prime Minister's Office / Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth-led leadership programme.
Speaking
On stage with: CDL, U.S. Department of State, Microsoft, ACE.sg, De Beers, Google Women Will, Inchcape Singapore.
- 2026 · Vlerick Business School: Panelist, EMBA: Doing Business in Asia, to an executive MBA cohort visiting Singapore.
- 2025 · NSEW2050 Summit: Founder & host. Convened an intergenerational cadre of 24 thought-leaders across food, fashion, travel and transportation on building a climate-responsible business.
- 2023 · The Indie Summit: Opening keynote. Day-two opening speaker to 100 global CEOs: “The New 3 i's: Impact, Inclusion and Innovation.”
- Recognition: U.S. Department of State: Champion: #1 startup winner out of 75 female-founded companies across the Indo-Pacific.
About Han PingPing
“I spent eighteen (18) years building commercial operations for Shangri-La, Taj and Marriott across Asia, and then went on to build three (03) start-ups. I have been intrapreneurial and entrepreneurial. Now funded technology companies seeking to establish a travel and hospitality vertical bring me in fractionally, to be their first commercial leader they can't yet hire full-time, and to build the B2B engine that wins APAC.”
London and Singapore-based fractional commercial leader, with domain expertise in travel and hospitality. I help founders and chief commercial leaders build their B2B vertical and open APAC, from first deal to repeatable revenue, with a track record across markets like Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the wider ASEAN region.
Frequently asked questions
What does a fractional C-suite officer do for a growth-stage company entering ASEAN?
I join your team as embedded C-suite leadership, covering strategy, commercial GTM engines and operations, without sitting on your permanent headcount. In practice that means designing the market-entry strategy, building the commercial engine, and opening the institutional doors a market entry needs. You get senior leadership at the stage when a full-time hire is premature but the market-entry work is real.
When should a global CEO make their first C-suite hire for ASEAN?
Usually earlier than founders think, and more embedded than they expect. Once you have capital to deploy and a mandate to expand, the constraint becomes who is designing the strategy, running operations and opening the right doors in region. Bringing in a fractional C-suite leader first lets you build that engine and prove the model before you commit to a permanent hire.
How is a fractional C-suite officer different from hiring a full-time regional GM?
A full-time GM is a long, expensive commitment you make before you know exactly what the role needs to be. I give you the same seniority on a flexible basis: I build the commercial and operational foundation, open institutional relationships, and define the role properly so your eventual full-time hire inherits a working engine rather than a blank page.
Which markets and sectors do you cover?
I have built market entries across the ASEAN region, with a track record across Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the wider region. My sector depth spans TravelTech, PropTech, Climate & Sustainability, FinTech and Embedded Travel Connectivity. ASEAN is a dozen regulatory regimes and relationship networks, so I treat each market as its own, not a single rollout.
What kind of companies do you work with?
Growth-stage, funded companies expanding into ASEAN, typically with capital to deploy and a mandate to grow. The global CEO may have hired an ASEAN CEO who then needs an in-market C-suite leader. Regional CEOs and boards who need their ASEAN market entry built properly the first time, backed by real institutional relationships rather than a cold start would hire me.
How does institutional access speed up my market entry?
Eighteen years in the ASEAN region have built trust at the institutional level: statutory boards, government agencies and corporate ecosystem partners. When a mandate needs a door opened, I bring the relationship, not just the strategy, so the regulatory and partnership groundwork moves in parallel with the commercial build rather than after it.
The Passage
Stories from the commercial arena, where the same business questions appear in different forms. The industries may differ, but human behaviour does not change. The Passage editorials are written in the hope that they become useful to someone building the next chapter of their own business.
Work together
Let's find the fastest path to your first ASEAN market entry. Book a diagnostic. Connect on LinkedIn. In the Arena: field notes on building B2B revenue in travel and hospitality, opening APAC, and making your first commercial hire count.
