♪ haslinda: hello and welcome to high flyers. a show that gives you a 360 degree view of asia's business in the east. on today show, we are joined by a woman whose mission is shaking up the environment. she drew on personal experience to set up asia's vast marketplace for employee benefits. it is attracting the attention of worldwide business leaders including google and american

express. >> growing up in a ghetto in los angeles, roslyn always had to make quick decisions be a there was no time to waste peers sometimes, it was a fight or flight as one of the few chinese people in the area. massively made her stronger. it made her fearless when she decided to set up her own company and go her own way. she explains how and why we should transform the workplace. haslinda: welcome to high flyers. you started this because you said employers are not maximizing the benefits of their employees. explain that to us. >> benefits should be

personalized to each and every employee. ,f you are young and healthy you are not going to need that much insurance even though companies spend thousands. ,r, if you are already married it is a raise. why not allow employees to personalize their benefits and decide for themselves how much they need? and housing can do yoga or pilates or mindfulness or travel. thatody married can use money for pediatrics or maternity or dental or to exercise. that insurance money shouldn't just be used for treatment. why not ship a paradigm and use it for burdett -- prevention and get people healthy? haslinda: you talk about shifting the paradigm. you have a certain advantage.

you also have to convince people that what you are doing and offering is right. has it been difficult? rosaline koo: it hasn't been. for the same money you spend on insurance, our competitors are only offering insurance and we, for that same money, can make your employees healthy and save money and engage employees in changing the lifestyles. why not? it has not been difficult for us to convince employers. we are getting all of the text companies and now all of the banks. haslinda: what has been the most difficult part? rosaline koo: fundraising is one. starting from scratch to build something. i think a startup is like sprinting a marathon, but may be in the dark because you are uncertain about the future. you have to get traction. you have to get clients before you run out of money. part for usficult was getting the approval of the

regulator and the regulator telling me that to get approval needed aition, i single shareholder. even though i had investors lined up, i couldn't use investors, i had to calm in my own money. i pump and $5 million along with bank loans for the acquisition in order to do it. that was a difficult conversation with my husband. he may not have given you because he had to get back to working life and early retirement. rosaline koo: he had retired so he went back to work. we have been married for 25 years. he is my best friend. he is the most supportive person ever. he went back to work. he is not so happy about that. he is still really supported. haslinda: the thing about starting or giving a new product is that there are others who will do the same really quickly. what is to stop your competitors from offering what you are

offering right now? rosaline koo: nothing is there to stop them. we have a one year start before them. it would mean they have two completely change their business model. irms willing to willinf change their business model? the difference with us as we use technology to not just aggregate insurance companies but gyms, hospitals, clinics. haslinda: you say you invest more than the big boys were technology is concerned using your own money. money, now,: my own the investor money, and the bank loans. in beingt quite further ahead than anyone in using technology. the neat part about our technology is we have the data. if i have health screening data,

lifestyle health, habits and hospital claims, we can figure out what lifestyle changes lead to less claims costs and a healthier health screening. haslinda: skin in the game, but it also takes grit. we should say that grid comes from experiences of a childhood. rosaline koo: my parents have a lot of grit. my dad left china at 19. for 40in san francisco years before he gave himself up to my mom, during the communist revolution, at her land and property taken away. her mother was taken to labor camps. my mom left to daughter's behind to hong kong to make money for the family. u.s. et and moved to the then, my family grew up in south central los angeles during the

riots. we learned to overcome a lot of hardship. it is probably from my parents. haslinda: it has been quite a journey. is there one moment that makes you proud of what you have achieved? rosaline koo: my daughter. i am most proud of her. when she was four years old, i andworking during the .com malaysia. comingom commuting home midnight every friday night. one of those weekends when i was building a startup, my daughter had a long epileptic seizure. i went to the school because i haven't been to school in a long time. i found out she had a learning disorder triggered by the epilepsy. luckily, it was benign and triggered by sleep deprivation. she had to work so much harder than others to make it. she did. she is in a great college in

boston. she has made it. her.so proud of that is when i look back -- it is not my compliments, it is my daughter's accompaniments. >> coming up. rosaline koo: at my last company, they told me in order to have more diversity, i needed more women. ♪

♪ haslinda: you didn't set out to be an entrepreneur. you have a degree in cybernetics. what happened? rosaline koo: i think it is destiny and serendipity that brought me here. each decision led to other decisions along the way. becaused cybernetics when i was young, we were really poor. the first person with a nice house i babysat for was an engineer.

that is how i became an engineer. i wanted to get out of my own neighborhood. i followed him. he was the first professional i have ever met. haslinda: your first job was with procter & gamble. you managed a team of 33 in a manufacturing plant producing crest toothpaste. that was a life-changing -- event. rosaline koo: i moved from los angeles. i was 21 years old. i walked into this manufacturing plant. i discovered i was the first asian they had ever met. i discovered i had 33 people to manage. they were all older and more experienced than me. it was a shock, to say the least. haslinda: you said you sucked. [laughter] rosaline koo: that is the best term. it was either i sucked or i was like a substitute teacher.

at 21, i didn't know how to manage. they took this chance on me to manage this large group. that i neededed to learn business and be a better leader. i left for business school after that. haslinda: you went to columbia. rosaline koo: what they told me a procter & gamble that saved me is that i tried so hard. sucking but me for he gave me the impetus to be better. haslinda: what changed the course that you took? why go into health benefit? it has to do with mercer. rosaline koo: it does. i worked at mercer for eight years. the only reason i got there is because i worked at an insurance company. when i was there i said forget the broker. you don't need an intermediary. come to me directly. after i took 200 clients from mercer, they actually hired me to run 14 countries. that is the only reason i got to mercer was serendipity.

haslinda: you grew the business at mercer. 800% in eight years. that is phenomenal. rosaline koo: i had a great team. countries with four and expanded to 14. we came up with so many creative ways. we decided to get the small clients in a portfolio. we also told hr, give us all 14 of your countries so that we manage them for you. it grew 800% during my time there. haslinda: mercer didn't bite when you said you wanted to change benefits for asia. it didn't think asia was important enough, a priority for you to be working on. rosaline koo: i begged for five years. every year for five years, i built a business case to say asia is different from the u.s. asia is different from the rest of the world. there is a way to actually grow much bigger than the 800%.

please let me do it. unfortunately, they never said yes. haslinda: and, you left. rosaline koo: i left after the ceo changed. she was my big supporter. haslinda: you managed to gain the attention of big businesses like google. how does it feel? rosaline koo: it feels great. i think it is the proposition we are offering. if you go to any other broker, they will get you insurance at the best rate. you come to us, and for the same price, we help to make your employees healthy. we cut costs because they don't have as many claims. we engage the employee so that they will actually change their lifestyles in order to be healthier. i really believe that we should shift the paradigm from treatment to prevention. haslinda: what is interesting is that companies that choose to

seek your services do not have to spend an additional sense. how do you make money? rosaline koo: we have brought .own the cost of doing this the reason we have done it is because we have integrated and aggregated the insurance companies, the gyms, the hospitals, the clinics, the disease management. we used technology to integrate with everyone and aggregate them in our own e-commerce platform. if you take all of those work our way but leverage all of the other companies, technology can do wonders. haslinda: i was your psyche different from an american company? we have localized everything we have done to asia. every country in asia is so different even though in the

west, they think, it is all asia. china is so different from ,ndia, singapore, hong kong malaysia, thailand. because i worked in all 14 countries, i understand the differences. i want to localized for companies here. we understand the differences. haslinda: it is very interesting that you have chosen to hire more women than men and you have always chosen to do that. rosaline koo: at my last company , they told me that in order to have more diversity to my needed to hire more men. now, 80% of my leadership team is female. it is amazing how much we get done. there is no ego in the way. haslinda: women are known to be catty. rosaline koo: i hired non-catty women. [laughter] i found really strong, confident women who are passionate about making the world a better place.

also, they can multitask. many of them have kids. they know how to multitask and get things done. haslinda: investors are taking notice. you have ahead offers -- you have had offers. they want to buy you out. rosaline koo: we are fortunate because we had traction, we were able to attract to the investors we wanted. we turn away a lot of investors and picked three that without would be great for us. haslinda: will you be up for sale? there are people who want to do that. are you waiting for a better price? [laughter] rosaline koo: we don't want to sell for a long time. we think that we want to get to all 12 of the key countries in asia first. then, really go for explicit growth -- for explosive growth. we don't want to sell for a long time. i want to stay with the companies be it typically, the ceo is locked in for another

three years. i plan to stay here until i drop. haslinda: quantify explosive growth and how soon do you see yourself getting there? rosaline koo: we only launched a year ago. so far, we have 530 clients. 80,000 participants already. i believe we will get to 100 million in revenues and over one million participants. years, bute us five i would like to work those five years. if we need to exit, exits, but stay so that i can continue taking become economy forward. it is my baby. -- so that we can continue taking the company forward. it is my baby. we were picked on because we non-black kids. we learn to fight, but mainly, we learned to run really fast.

♪ earlier, we talked about how your dad fled a village. he was an illegal immigrant. , then made hisco

way to san francisco. somehow. he swam. tell us more. rosaline koo: my data was only 19, this was 1919. life.t china for a better he made his way on a dragon boat to mexico and somehow made his way up to san francisco through texas. he hated for 40 years in chinatown. there are a lot of chinese in chinatown. you can hide in chinatown. to procreateted and have children. he gave himself up for the amnesty program, went to hong kong where he found his -- where he found my mom. haslinda: your mom left a village, as well. rosaline koo: she was there during the communist revolution. her family were landowners and during theno-no communist revolution.

they took away their property and sent my grandmother to labor camp. my mother left her -- my grandma left her two daughters behind and went to hong kong. haslinda: they decided to go back to the u.s. for better opportunities. rosaline koo: my father wanted to find a wife and didn't know she had two daughters. brought her to san francisco. they wanted to own a property. only house they could afford in los angeles. they didn't know it was a bad neighborhood. haslinda: there was a 30 year age gap between your mom and your dad. he was 61 when you were born and you were the eldest of four. myaline koo: he was 66 when younger sister was born. he wasn't working when i was growing up. my mother worked two jobs. she was a seamstress and then she cooked at night for a restaurant. i still remember at night when

she would take the bus for an hour down the san pedro. one night, i woke up because she was telling my dad, if mad men comes up and harasses me again, i will teach him a lesson. i saw her but a cleaver in her back. [laughter] that is the image of my mother throwing up. -- growing up. she was really tough. haslinda: how difficult was life growing up? you grew up in a ghetto. you were the only chinese in a whole black make -- neighborhood. rosaline koo: we were picked on because we were the non-black kids. i learned to fight, but only if they were smaller. mainly, i learned how to run really fast. i was a track star later. i can run faster now. haslinda: what do you remember from those days? was the overriding thought to get out of that situation? rosaline koo: it was. . still remember eleanor brown i was the only one with straight hair.

it in fused a certain fearlessness and a drive to get out. haslinda: when you eventually and pursue to schools like ucla and colombia, with that sense of achievement, what was it like? rosaline koo: i am not sure there was a sense of achievement . like, i have to study really hard. i was the first in my family to go to college. both of my parents were illiterate. i was the very first. they didn't ever learn to use english even though they lived in the u.s. were so long. i mainly use my college money to help my brothers and sisters. haslinda: how is the relationship like between the siblings? rosaline koo: we are very close to my family is still very close. my mom comes at least once a year to see grandchildren. we go back every year. my family is very tight. haslinda: you bet your has been in new york. and you are a different

personality? -- you met your husband in new york where it rosaline koo: we had different upbringings. his grandfather was part of the military. he was a general. they left china the same time my parents did because they lost the war and his family made their way to south america. when they went to the u.s., he grew up in newark, new jersey as the one chinese family. he grew up fighting, also. in terms of work, we are the opposite. he is a phd in economics and a lawyer. he grew up managing risk. haslinda: and you are taking risk. rosaline koo: he helps companies manage their risk. he is so supportive. haslinda: what do you make of the perception that startups in asia will never be as big as those in the u.s., for instance? rosaline koo: i think they well.

i think it is a matter of time. haslinda: why? the difference between u.s. and my time inspent half both, in the u.s., failure is a badge of success. rosaline koo: failure is just something you go through so you build character. in asia, it is all from confucius. my mom is right confucius so i know. there is a fear of failure. the u.s. started much sooner. because there isn't a fear of failure, there are entrepreneurs everywhere. rebel andhave to be a countercultural to rebel against -- you don't want to lose. the u.s. got a head start, but i catche the -- asia will

up to look at alibaba. it is bigger than all of the u.s. firms. haslinda: are you more excepting of failure? is it ok for your daughter or your son to fail? rosaline koo: i want them to experience life. failure,u experience you will learn that you can get up. it is very ok for my kids to bump and scrape and get back up. i think that is the only way to build character. know true character into you go through crisis and find that you can get back up. , thanka: rosaline koo you so much for being on high flyers. it has been such a pleasure. ♪

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