Overview
Everyone talks about hiring across borders. Few talk about what actually breaks when scaling teams overseas — and how to prevent it.
Tea & Jam – Scaling with SEA Talent: Cost and Culture Hacking brings founders, operators, and leaders together for an honest conversation about building high-performing teams across Southeast Asia.
Co-hosted by JDI Group and BLOCK71, the session goes beyond simple cost-saving comparisons to share the ins and outs of scaling engineering, product, and operations teams across the region, highlighting what works, what fails, and why.
Participants will learn how winning startups choose the right hiring models, tap into strong talent hubs, and scale without slowing execution, diluting ownership, or breaking culture.
✨ Founder Panel — Real Wins and Hard Lessons Get honest, practical insights from founders and operators who have scaled teams across SEA — covering what hiring models worked, what failed, and how they balanced speed, ownership, and culture.
✨ Roundtable Sessions — Learn From Peers Facing the Same Challenges Join group discussions where leaders openly share hiring struggles, cross-border team setups, and proven strategies for building high-performing distributed teams.
✨ Networking Over Tea — Meaningful Connections, Not Sales Pitches Connect with fellow founders, operators, and ecosystem partners through relaxed conversations designed for real relationship-building and peer learning.
✨ Hiring Humans In The Age Of AI Playbooks — Exclusive Early Access Gain early access to actionable hiring frameworks focused on building strong, future-ready teams as AI reshapes roles, skills, and workforce strategies.
Panel discussion
Building Borderless Teams That Actually Scale From Talent Strategy to Execution, Ownership, and Culture
As startups grow beyond their early hustle phase, distributed teams are no longer an experiment; they’re infrastructure. This panel explores how founders and operators design borderless teams across Southeast Asia that move fast, stay aligned, and scale sustainably, without breaking culture or accountability.
Discussion Points:
Hiring models that scale, not just save costs
Right talent, right market
Ownership and org design across borders
Roundtable topics
1. Cost Hacking Without Regret: Hiring Models That Scale
Focus: Choosing the right build vs buy vs hybrid model
Discussion Points:
In-house, outsourced, or hybrid — what works at Seed, Series A, and beyond
Hidden costs founders underestimate (management overhead, rework, attrition)
When cost savings compound vs when they slow teams down
2. Choosing the Right SEA Talent Market: Vietnam vs Philippines vs Indonesia
Focus: Making intentional country-level talent decisions
Discussion Points:
Core strengths of talent pools across Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia
Engineering depth vs speed of execution
Product thinking, QA, operations, and support capabilities
Common misassumptions founders make when hiring “SEA talent” as a monolith
3. Org Design for Distributed Teams: Who Owns What, Where
Focus: Structuring teams to move fast without losing alignment
Discussion Points:
Org charts that work with SEA-based teams
Clear ownership, reporting lines, and decision rights across borders
Avoiding “HQ vs offshore” dynamics through intentional design
Schedule
Date: 23 Mar 2026, Monday
Time: 2:00 PM - 4:30 PM (GMT +8:00) Kuala Lumpur, Singapore
Location: Microsoft, 182 Cecil St, 069547
Speakers
Speaker's Profile:
Ms Cynthia Mak, Venture Builder, Blue InCube
Cynthia Mak specialises in the messy, exhilarating work of taking innovations from concept to commercial success. As Venture Builder at Blue InCube, she architects go-to-market strategies that unite sales and marketing into a unified growth engine for deep tech ventures across advanced manufacturing, robotics, material science, and quantum computing. Her path to industrial tech is unconventional by design. As Global Product Marketing Lead for an EdTech startup, she owned the entire commercial strategy—from demand generation and product launches to partner strategies and sales enablement across B2B and B2C segments. At Wiley, she led a team of 6 and orchestrated APAC go-to-market execution, managing high double-digit millions in annual sales, aligning cross-functional teams and resources to hit ambitious targets across multiple markets.
Speaker's Profile:
Tiziana Tan, Founder & CEO, Brain Juice Collective
Tiziana Tan is a leader and innovator dedicated to building responsible, human-centred solutions across Asia. She has consulted for and executed asset-based strategy, marketing, and organisational development for more than 100 corporate, NGO, and government projects. Tiziana is the Founder & CEO of Brain Juice Collective, a social innovation and integrated communications company working with governments, universities, and organisations across Asia to design responsible, human-centred innovation and community-driven change Recognised for her leadership at a young age, Ms. Tiziana became the Youngest Affiliate Faculty member at Singapore Management University, where she teaches and facilitates workshops on innovation, entrepreneurship, and purpose-driven leadership, bridging theory with real-world application.
Speaker's Profile:
Frank Lee, Managing Director, Jumpstart Disruptive Innovations
Frank Lee has been a Partner at TNF Ventures since 2012 – a seed-stage investment fund with a portfolio of 20 companies, most of which have successfully raised Series A/B investments or exited. In 2016, Frank founded Jumpstart Disruptive Innovations (JDI) – an investment advisory firm based in Singapore and Vietnam. Right from its inception, JDI has been focused on supporting fast-growing technology companies in stages A/B/C to expand their technical teams in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Since then, the company has diversified its services to include areas such as Tech (Web2 / Web3), Talent (recruitment, human resources, internships), Launch (market expansion, enterprise services), Venture (business innovation, startup support), and Capital (consulting and investment). To date, JDI has employed over 350 personnel across six offices in both cities in Vietnam.
Moderator's Profile:
Eugene Teo, Investment Manager, Antler
Eugene Teo is an Investment & Portfolio Manager at Antler Southeast Asia, where he focuses on pre-seed and seed investments across AI/ML, developer tools, and vertical SaaS. He brings a unique operator-investor lens from his time as Product Lead at Wagely, where he scaled the user base, product, and established the company's growth function to Series A. Prior to this, Mr. Eugene built and launched BCG's global fintech intelligence platform and incubated corporate ventures at FutureLabs Ventures and Wright Partners.
