The 'underachiever' student who became a successful private banker and now gives back as a respite foster parent

Growing up, Mr Leon Qiu lived in a home surrounded by stacks of scripts written by his father who had an unwavering dream: To create Singapore's first commercially successful film.

His father, filmmaker Tony Yeow, spent much of his life searching for potential investors and writing scripts nonstop.

He created Singapore’s first gongfu film, Ring of Fury, in 1973 but it was not screened for more than 30 years due to its depiction of gangsterism. The movie, one of his many films, was later restored and finally screened in 2017, two years after his death.

With his father struggling to find success in filmmaking, paying the household bills fell to Mr Qiu’s mother.

Mr Qiu said: "She did a great job, really, of keeping our family together, making ends meet and keeping a roof over our heads … she had it tougher, juggling multiple roles."

The family lived then in a Housing and Development Board flat in Hougang.

As Mr Qiu described his childhood during our nearly three-hour-long interview, it became easier to understand how he has achieved so much, so early on in life as a 39-year-old.

It appears that his father’s drive and single-mindedness in realising a dream, tempered with his mother’s practical and steadfast nature, is the perfect combination for powering through goals. 

Successful career? Tick. Start a business overseas? Tick. Get a PhD? Completed. Write a children’s book? Done. Give back to society? Done on repeat.

After completing in three years a four-year bachelor's degree programme, majoring in marketing at the Singapore Management University, Mr Qiu rose through the ranks in private banking, eventually earning more than S$1 million yearly. 

When he was 31, he moved on to starting a business. A chance meeting with a secondary school classmate from Myanmar led to a micro-financing business in the country, which the duo later sold for an undisclosed sum.

While managing his business, Mr Qiu also began studying for a PhD in philosophy and decided to write a children’s book called Be More, Little Ice Cube! in 2019.

Today, he is a desk head in private banking and a philanthropist with plans to launch a charity this year.

In the midst of all this, he married his soulmate and they both have a son, who is now 10 years old. An energetic Siberian Husky was added to the household.

More recently, as a family, they decided to open their lives up to children under foster care when these children's biological or foster parents need some time off from caregiving.

As Mr Qiu recounted all his achievements, I was in awe of him but also felt a little exhausted on his behalf.

He said with a laugh: "I always complain about it, like, 'Why did I start this', but at the end of the day, I get it done and don't regret it." 

"UNDERACHIEVER" STUDENT

Funnily enough, Mr Qiu said that while he is perceived as an overachiever now, his teachers considered him quite the underachiever in secondary school, even using the term to describe him in report cards. 

"I was a very boisterous student … I don't attend class and don't study (much)," he added.

Little did his teachers know that in the months before examinations, Mr Qiu would “mug” (slang for study furiously) at home late at night and that led him to fall asleep in class sometimes during the day. 

"To the school, I was playing truant. But I felt I could get more done this way."

While serving his National Service, he became more aware of the stress that his mother was under to provide for the family and the threat of retrenchment that loomed over her. She worked in advertising,

That was when he decided to pursue a career that could pay him well. And because he wanted to get into the workforce quickly, he overloaded and packed all the time he had for his studies and the modules he had to complete in the day, while spending his nights working part-time as a bartender.

Eventually, he graduated a year earlier than his peers.  

While his career choice was purely out of practicality, Mr Qiu found himself to be a natural at private banking, managing funds for high-net-worth individuals.

His relationships with his clients became mutually beneficial, with them being more than eager to share their success stories. 

"Affluent people who have made it in life are very open about sharing what they do, what mistakes they made. It was a great opportunity to learn. It was very beneficial being so young (in my 20s) and being exposed to who you might consider the 'creme de la creme' of Singapore.

"I would think to myself, 'If I ever start a business, I will do this (or) I won't do this.' You just kind of distil ideas from them by harnessing these conversations."

When I asked why he decided to leave his cushy million-dollar salaried job in 2019 at the age of 33, he said that it was simply because he wanted to see if he could "build something from nothing with the aim of building a company attractive enough to be acquired".

"I wanted to see if I could do more ... And what kind of person it took – or that I needed to be – to achieve that."

While Mr Qiu was sold by the idea of starting something to capitalise on the vibrant and growing Myanmar market, the practical side of him did have concerns about leaving his stable job. 

At that point, his son was just two years old and his wife had left her teaching job with the Ministry of Education to focus on her own florist business, Bloom Box.

His wife, 37-year-old Ruth Ng, did encourage him to take the leap of faith, because they both could return to their careers if their ventures did not work out as plannned. 

So Mr Qiu founded Daung Capital in 2019, a financial technology firm that offered unique credit solutions catered to Myanmar’s working class, such as a rent-to-own payment model for motorcycles. In its Series A investment round in 2019, the company was valued at S$16.5 million.

During this time, Mr Qiu decided to work with a publisher to create a children's book about an ice cube in a refrigerator that worked hard to become an iceberg.

His motivation, he said, was that he simply wanted a picture book describing the life values he wanted his son to embrace.  

In 2020, he sold his business for an undisclosed sum to Myanmar-based digital commerce platform Get, but continued to work for the company from Singapore. 

When the Myanmar military coup happened in 2021 and affected businesses there, Mr Qiu had to find alternative work and went back to private banking.

"People protested on the streets, the internet was shut off. There's no way to help and the country went into a standstill," he said, adding that he had been worried for his company employees who had their lives halted by the coup.

FINDING WAYS TO GIVE BACK 

While on his entrepreneurship journey, Mr Qiu was simultaneously pursuing his PhD at the Singapore Management University. 

During that time, he focused his research on charitable giving in Singapore, inspired by his experience raising funds on Giving.sg for oxygen chambers to be sent to Myanmar during the COVID-19 crisis.

As he spoke with charities and engaged them in discussions, his desire to give back to society grew.  

His wife, who felt the same way, had started hiring and offering internships for at-risk youth in her florist business.

From her interactions with the Ministry of Social and Family Development and other social agencies on hiring these youth, Ms Ng learnt about foster-care work and became curious about it.

As fate would have it, Mr Qiu then met a team at the Boys' Town, a charity that helps at-risk youth and children in Singapore, for his PhD research. Ms Ng decided to tag along.

She recalled: “While we were listening to a presentation on the work it does, the charity talked about respite foster parenting. I had tears in my eyes and decided there and then that Leon and I were going to become respite foster parents."

Ms Ng had more free time then, having just sold her business.

So in 2023, after completing a lot of paperwork and going through rounds of interviews, they became respite foster parents, providing temporary short-term care for infants and children up to eight years old when these children's biological parents and foster parents are unable to care for them.

To date, they have cared for four children: An infant girl for six months, a pair of sisters for a weekend and a toddler every weekend for the last three months.

The couple admitted that they had concerns about whether their own son would adapt well to them showering attention on other children in their own home, or if they would become overly attached to these children.

“When we see a child thriving in a safe space and fixed environment during the few months or weekends with us, we know it's worth the time and effort," Mr Qiu said.

"This has taught us both how to let go and how to love someone unconditionally, even if they are not our blood and are with us for a short period of time."

STAYING ADAPTABLE

It is clear that Mr Qiu and Ms Ng share a similar outlook of living life to the fullest and latching onto ideas that they want to pursue quickly. 

Despite being financially "comfortable", they both do not own a property of their own.

Instead, they have chosen to rent a condominium unit in the north-eastern part of Singapore to remain "adaptable" and ready for whatever they want to pursue in life without the shackles of a mortgage. 

Their home was well-organised except for the dog fur around their furniture and floor. The culprit? The family’s fluffy Siberian husky that constantly runs around the house and sometimes snuggles on the couch.

Half of the living room was also full of flowers as Ms Ng has started a second flower business.

I cannot imagine that all these pursuits did not come with some sacrifices. Notably, the couple were having their first meal of the day at 3pm during our interview last Monday.

When asked whether something had to give to complete all these goals, Mr Qiu shrugged and said he felt that nothing else in his life had suffered as a result of these pursuits.

"Everything I've done is a decision I've willingly made, so I don't regret or feel like I had to sacrifice anything for it." 

He is hoping that how he views and tackles life will eventually rub off on their son Jude.

"He'll learn to pursue what he wants, know how to seek help and be adaptable. He meets many people through our work, so hopefully, he’ll grow to be a very open-minded and resourceful boy." 

For now, Mr Qiu is busy working on the launch of a charity later this year, but he declined to share more details about it.

It will no doubt just be one of the many achievements he will achieve, because he shows no signs of slowing down to take a breather any time soon.

After all, when asked if he considers his life so far to be a success, he replied: "Who do you compare against? What is the measure of success? There's always someone better, so I would not say I have achieved success."