Be bold in pursuing your passion

ARMED with just seven employees, Shashank Nigam commands one of the largest airline branding consultancy firms in the world: Simpliflying.

Today, Simpliflying works with over 75 brands around the world, making it one of the most successful aviation branding consultancy firms globally. Their clients include Singapore Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Latam Airlines, Emirates, Airbus, Boeing and Bombardier.

But Mr Nigam's success did not come easy. Indeed, he was by all accounts a typical Singaporean graduate ready to join the workforce as a white-collar worker, graduating from the Singapore Management University in 2007. He got himself a secure job in the technology start-up Endeca, in Boston.

Get a good degree, get a stable job, and settle down: that's the Singaporean way; but it is the very antithesis of being a good entrepreneur, said Mr Nigam. "There's something about the education culture in Singapore that doesn't encourage entrepreneu…