DR LEE OI KUMFOUNDER, HOUDE FOUNDATION
Dr Lee Oi Kum is the Founder member of her own family foundation, Houde Foundation. She is the second generation in a family business, the Taiko Group, started by her father in the palm oil plantations, chemical and land development sectors. She sits in the family business holding group as a director with her four siblings.

Dr Lee is the chairperson of the agritech company, Ekomoditi Sdn Bhd, servicing the plantation industry players with ERP systems for estates management operating in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

With her continuing interest in the world of “internet of things”, Dr Lee is a key partner in innovating a traditional barter business into a global trade portal in 9 countries for trade settlement between business owners in trade credits, under the brand name BBX.

A fintech company, Kashtec Holdings Pte Ltd was founded in 2017 with bankers, to develop financial solutions for SME, using digital trade credits as a form of cashflow management for settlement in transactions. The entity won a Monetary Authority of Singapore fintech award in 2019. Kashtec Holdings Pte Ltd partners with Banks to deliver financial solutions to the SME customers.

Throughout her career as a business entrepreneur, Dr Lee has also dedicated her time and involvement in social causes.

As a member of the Asia Philanthropic Circle (APC), her group of companies provide both financial and professional support to “Thousand Day Fund”, an initiative to reduce stunting for children below age 3, where the right nurturing environment for growth of brain and muscle function is needed to enable the child to attain adulthood with better potential in academic and job opportunities. She is involved as a key partner with APC to spearhead livelihood programs in Myanmar.

In line with her medical training, Dr Lee organized medical camps for the last 20 more years to the Himalaya countries of Nepal, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh. Such missions have a 5 year impact program to share with the local villagers and government health centers in setting up “bare foot para medical teams” in the hillside villages. Such villages are in many cases at least 3 hours walk to the nearest medical help.

As a past National Representative of the International Inner Wheel clubs, for Singapore and Malaysia, Dr Lee, over the past 30 years, contributes her personal efforts to maintain a framework for women in this, the largest women organization worldwide, to various social impact activities in South East Asia.

Dr Lee has been invited as a speaker with Business Family Institute BFI (Singapore), Family Business Network International (Rio de Janeiro), Business Family Foundation BFF (Montreal), FBN Asia (Singapore), APAC family business Forum (Manila), UBS (Suzhou), WCES (Macau) on the “Role of Women in Family Business”, “Succession Planning for Intergenerational family members“, “Philanthropy for family business”.

Dr Lee believes you do not need an organization to do something of value to communities in need. There are always resources to provide needed assistance to communities in great need. What the world need is a willingness to be kind and for everyone to experience once “the real joy of giving”.