How This Strategy Consultant Turned Private Equity Investor Is Reshaping the Global Financial Ecosystem Through Sustainable Investment Edward Chang, an Asian-American Strategy Consultant turned Investor, after leading multiple high profile IPO, Merger & Acquisition, and Strategic Expansions in the USA and in Asia both independently as well as through his firm The Spectrum Solutions Group (TSSG) is now disrupting the landscape through his sustainability focused equity fund Origin Equity Partners

For investor, investment banker, and strategy consultant Edward Chang, life has always been about the hustle of chasing a higher goal and staying ahead of the curve. But, while it all may seem obvious for a wall street veteran, it was not a coincidence.

Growing up as an Asian-American from Taiwan, Chang spent over 20 years of his life living on the east coast of the US prior to moving to Singapore in 2018. While the east coast lacked a vibrant asian community during the early 2000s, Edward Chang did not let that serve as a hindrance to him taking pride in his heritage. While he embraced his American environment by becoming active in multiple sports teams, even captaining his school's tennis team, he also stayed true to his roots by giving due impetus and focus on both English and Mandarin.

Reminiscing about his childhood, Chang says that none of his childhood friends spoke Mandarin, but thankfully his dad made it a point to only allow mandarin at home and always encouraged him to read more mandarin novels. Before long, reading mandarin novels became one of his favorite pastimes. It is the perspective of always doing more than the people around you and to enjoy the learning process that have since emerged as the fundamental principles of his life.

Taking the Leap Of Faith

After graduating college with honors, Edward decided to pursue law and graduated with a juris doctorate and joined one of the most prestigious law firms as an M&A attorney. This was the lucrative path that most top law school graduates aim for. However, Edward had been keen to push his boundaries and go beyond the comfort zone. In his words, "The intricate details of deals never failed to intrigue me. I always loved my job in the deals back in those days, but I did feel boxed in and I was sure that if given the chance, I would be able to provide much more value to those transactions. I knew that I could do more than just being an M&A attorney. So, I left." Moving ahead, Chang was recruited as an investment banker at a bulge bracket firm and as a strategy consultant at top strategy firms. Surrounded by investment bankers and consultants who were classically trained in their fields, Chang was eager to learn. Chang applied what he knew as an attorney in the field of M&A and capital markets while learning other perspectives about the art of mergers and acquisitions (M&As), capital markets and strategy to complement his legal knowledge, knowing very well that the perspective of a deal is drastically different whether you are an attorney, a consultant, an investment banker, or an investor. Accordingly, he made it a point to study and understand everything relevant in detail and always tried to see the transactions from many different perspectives.

He quoted his oft repeated mantra of "When you enter a meeting, assume everyone there has something to teach you, which will turn out to be more often than not true." The penchant for learning came in handy as promotions continued to pour in for him in a workplace dominated by people who had way more experience than him. But, he was still not satisfied. For Edward, it was always about what was next. He wanted more freedom in making decisions i.e. more control on the design and execution of entire transactions.

At a crossroads in his life, he was confronted with a big decision - to continue at a global strategy firm as a widely favored rising star or to switch to a boutique advisory group that provided him with the freedom to make decisions. He chose the latter. That is how he joined The Spectrum Solutions Group (TSSG) as its youngest partner and built the firm's strategy practice from the ground up as a way to complement the company's already mature transactional practice. Within a short time, Edward was helping to generate eight figure revenue for the practice group.

The subsequent years saw Edward lead multiple high-value initial public offerings (IPOs), M&A, and restructuring efforts in the US and Asia. He has also served as the lead advisor for cross-border transactions for large Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and multiple North-American mid-sized private equity firms. Chang has also helped multiple Fortune 50 clients save more than $3 Billion annually in corporate transformation. Not just this, he has also executed and deployed over $4 Billion investments for private equity clients from North America and China and became a venture partner at SGI partners, a well known private equity firm headquartered in New York.

The Sustainability Switch

What also began to emerge during this phase was Chang's successful tinkering with emerging fields and him tapping into areas well-before they were thought of as lucrative. Beginning 2017, Chang began advising companies on SPAC listings, way before the SPACs became the norm.

While leading his advisory firm's efforts to foray into China, he became the lead strategy advisor to many Chinese SOEs and helped them with their global investments. It was during this phase, he discovered the relatively new sector of sustainability and realized the huge latent potential in it from the perspective of both corporate strategy and investment. In his words, "At that point, most of my colleagues were veteran investment bankers who weren't very keen towards such non-traditional modes of operation. This is understandable, especially since the sector was not as mature as it is now. Influenced by that general mindset at the time, my general notion towards sustainability was that it would not be an efficient tool to generate great ROI or to assist in corporate transformation for my clients. However, I didn't just accept that notion as truth, and being curious by nature, I started to read up on case studies on sustainability transformations and exploring the feasibility of implementing such transformations for my clients." Chang saw a business case in adopting sustainable practices as a way of either cost cutting or increasing revenue for his clients. But, this had to wait due to the explosive growth he was experiencing with his strategy practice, until something fantastic happened to him. The birth of a child brought forth the realization about what kind of world he was building. After over a year of self learning,and attending Harvard to become certified in sustainable strategies, Chang became confident that sustainable practices not only had a positive impact on the environment but was also a catalyst in improving the bottom line of businesses.

After initial opposition and internal hurdles, he convinced his partners of the potential of sustainable investments based on his track records. He officially formed TSSG's sustainability strategy practice group in 2019, way ahead of many other big strategy consulting firms, and he never looked back. On top of engagements in the private sector, he was also the keynote speaker at the G20 circular economy summit held in 2022 and is the current lead consultant to the Indonesian city of Makassar on smart city transformation.

Under his leadership, TSSG also served as the knowledge partner to UNIDO during the recently held G20 summit in Indonesia and he has also authored multiple white papers on circular economy.

Taking the Plunge

After realizing that he had the potential of creating much more value for companies, Edward took the plunge into the world of entrepreneurship and began building something of his own. The result was Origin Equity Partners.

He is a founding partner at Origin Equity Partners, a sustainability focused private equity fund that was launched in 2022 licensed in Singapore.

In his own words, he said, "I decided to start Origin Equity Partners because I believe I can create even more value for these companies by investing and bringing them to the capital markets instead of just advising them."

Building on his prior experience in the field, Chang wants to convey to the world that investing could be extremely profitable, when done with sustainability in mind. He wants to be the enabler of this change and wants to take the world one step closer to net zero emissions.

On his future plans, Chang said that given the positive reception from the investors, Origin Equity Partners could move forward with two additional funds. He wants to establish his fund as a premier investor in the sustainable investment space and at the same time he wants to be a good role model for his son, wanting him to take pride in his line of work.

While doing so, he is also keen to share his experiences with the world, governments as well as think-tanks. He continues to serve as the circular economy expert for the ministry of industry Indonesia and is the blue economy financing expert for the Indonesian government for the upcoming Asean Summit in 2023, tasked with identifying the right pilot project to be adopted by the Asean nations, while investing and consulting companies that are looking to do well by doing good,

On what is his recipe for success, Edward Chang notes that he never chose the easy way out but rather worked hard on what he truly believed in and having a supportive wife was also key to helping him take those scary steps. He also puts the onus of his success on not being satisfied with comfort. He believes in continuous learning and to not rest on your laurels, and that has yielded him results so far.

Sharing his learnings, he feels that it is important to stay confident but humble and gather knowledge from whoever and wherever one can.

Wrapping up the conversation, he notes that he intends to leave the world a better place than what he was born in. With sustainability and environment still his focus, Edward Chang looks at another innings of his, investing all of his experiences to build his newest venture. He concludes by saying, "take risks in your career but remember that risk is a luxury for people that have prepared for it".