This leadapreneur is ever ready for an adventure

Joey Ong Lee Hong

Adventure is her middle name. For someone who has tried everything from skydiving to hitchhiking, Joey Ong Lee Hong was excited beyond words when her manager proposed her name for the Elken’s Leadapreneur Accelerator Series (Cycle 3).

Joey is a Senior Application Technologist in the Research & Development department of MRT, a subsidiary of Elken Sdn Bhd. She is mainly responsible for the formulation of Elken health products

As a Biotechnology graduate, lab work has always been up Joey’s alley. She enjoys the idea of researching for new solutions and applying this passion towards discovering practical and profitable solutions.

When the opportunity to join Leadapreneur presented itself, Joey was pumped up with the thought of discovering an innovation that will help her improve Elken’s product convenience, but a surprise awaited at the start of her 4-month stint.

Upon joining, Joey was under the impression that her cohort, Elsome, was going to work towards one high-value project, as was the practice in previous accelerator series, but she was thrown off-guard when the facilitators informed that this year’s training was going to focus on individual projects valued at over RM45,000 in order for them to complete Level 1 training.

Although nervous and sceptical at first, Joey worked hard to balance her existing workload and her individual project and emerged victorious with not one, but two innovative product improvement ideas. What started out as a journey to find new packaging ideas got her innovating an existing health beverage and discovering a creative packaging solution.

Joey’s first innovation was a dispenser-like pack which allows consumers to easily grab their favourite Elken beverage or supplement with a quick pull instead of opening and closing the pack cover, as currently practiced.

In the process, Joey figured that packaging alone will not result in significant savings or earnings for the company. Hence, the idea of innovating Elken’s collagen drink, from an instant beverage to an oral powder for direct consumption, came into the picture.

This was aimed at making it convenient for consumers to carry the product and consume it anytime, anywhere – without the need to dissolve it into a glass of water.

Her beverage innovation idea was a huge deal. The reformulated product was much healthier as it contained less sugar and it came in smaller packs, increasing the product valuation by many folds. She projected that this would help Elken save over RM245,000 and record potential earnings of over RM2 million!

Leadapreneur had led Joey into newer territories. Innovating ideas for business improvement gave her the conviction that she was able to make a difference in her company. She also gained a great deal of confidence and improved her networking skills as she had to liaise with several departments during the ideation and formulation process.

More than anything, Joey learned to think like a leadapreneur allowing her to enhance her current work performance and training her mind to strategise even at the stage of ideation and if given a chance, Joey is ever ready to scale up and acquire new knowledge if it means new adventure. 
​
Congratulations Joey for becoming a Champion of the Accelerator!