At Timah Partners, its CEO is betting that culture and long-term training, not quick deals, will secure the elusive SME succession

What makes the CSP radical is its cultural ambition: to make SMEs a first-choice career path. “SME succession should not be a concern — it should be a given. But that continuity as a given only happens when SMEs are not a last resort for a career, but a first-choice destination.”

Other regions have already shown this is possible. Conglomerates in Korea and India funnel top graduates into brick-and-mortar units. Private equity in the US attracts business school talent into “unsexy” companies. Chua wants Timah to be the gravitational centre for the same kind of talent gravity here. “If we can attract talent into SMEs, we can save SMEs permanently.”

This is why Timah’s first CSP candidate, Kelvin Ho, matters. He arrives from the upper echelons of professional services, pedigreed, capable, yet choosing SMEs as the arena for his life’s work. His decision signals what Chua hopes will become a cultural cascade: that the best and brightest will see succession not as compromise but as a calling.

The ambition is quiet but profound: a Southeast Asia filled with SMEs that endure across generations, led by people who see stewardship as prestige rather than penalty. A region where continuity is assumed, where the dignity of the towkay is protected, and where the next generation chooses SMEs not reluctantly, but proudly.