Now The Great Room was also not Ang’s first entrepreneurial play. The Raffles Girls’ School and Hwa Chong Institution Boarding School alum had started her first business at the age of 21 – an art school for children named Art Bug, which underwent two rounds of successful funding before she exited the business in 2012.
Fast forward a decade, Ang’s vision of marrying upscale design with premium hospitality not only transformed Singapore’s co-working scene, it attracted the attention of international players like Industrious, which scooped up The Great Room business in 2022, setting the stage for its global expansion beyond Singapore.
Then, global real estate giant CBRE Group came knocking. In January this year, the group completed its acquisition of US-based Industrious, adding to its network of more than 100 flexible workspaces worldwide, in a US$400 million (S$514.6 million) deal that placed the business at a US$800 million valuation.
“I’m a very hard worker; it comes from my competitive swimming back in school. So, I have a lot of endurance,” said Ang, who earned the nickname “pocket rocket” amongst her peers growing up.
“Small and powerful,” she added, likening her personal strengths to that of The Great Room. “We call ourselves a small giant because we feel like we punch above our weight in terms of how we push boundaries.”
“Better than chilli padi,” I mused, to which she nodded in agreement.
THE ART OF THE EXIT
“We’ve gone through tumultuous times and quite a tricky journey over the last few years to arrive at this point,” Ang shared. “It feels like a validation of an entrepreneur’s hard work, starting from zero, to get to a point where there’s an acknowledgement that you’ve created something valuable.”
Her decision to exit the business comes six months after the acquisition. “I wanted to leave when the company is at its peak; when there are no existential problems like a pandemic or debt, when we have strong cash flow and are at a point of positive opportunities like expansion,” she said.
