If you've ever tossed out a bottle of used cooking oil without a second thought, you've handed away a rapidly appreciating commodity. The aviation industry is racing to decarbonise, and the feedstock for that shift is sitting in home kitchens and restaurant fryers across the region.

Vinesh Sinha has spent sixteen years building the infrastructure to capture it. Founded in 2010, FatHopes Energy is now Malaysia's leading used cooking oil collector and distributor with its own digital traceability system. But the biggest change this year is an estimated US$500 million Sustainable Aviation Fuel refinery in Port Klang.

Vinesh joins us to unpack where the refinery stands after an independent feasibility study, the challenges and opportunities ahead, and how volatile fuel prices are shaping the economics of clean fuel at scale.

If you've ever tossed out a bottle of used cooking oil without a second thought, you've handed away a rapidly appreciating commodity. The aviation industry is racing to decarbonise, and the feedstock for that shift is sitting in home kitchens and restaurant fryers across the region.Vinesh Sinha has spent sixteen years building the infrastructure to capture it. Founded in 2010, FatHopes Energy is now Malaysia's leading used cooking oil collector and distributor with its own digital traceability system. But the biggest change this year is an estimated US$500 million Sustainable Aviation Fuel refinery in Port Klang.Vinesh joins us to unpack where the refinery stands after an independent feasibility study, the challenges and opportunities ahead, and how volatile fuel prices are shaping the economics of clean fuel at scale.

The flagship entrepreneurship show on BFM, featuring personal business stories from early stage start-ups, all the way to billionaire octogenarians in Malaysia and abroad. Notable guests include Martin Cooper (father of the mobile phone), Julian Assange (founder of WikiLeaks), Ralph Henry Baer (father of video games), Tony Buzan (Mindmap Guru), Isaac Tigrett (Hard Rock Cafe founder), Robert Kiyosaki (Financial Guru), Nick Vujicic (motivational speaker) and more. Tap into this valuable resource of shared experiences for the SME industry, which also touches on news, issues and trends affecting the business community and beyond.

Open For Business

Discover fresh concepts, tackle obstacles, and unleash growth - Open For Business is the dynamic show where BFM engages with entrepreneurs, business leaders, and industry trailblazers, igniting inspiration, sparking success, and exploring new business models.

Waste Oil, Real Fuel: Inside FatHopes’ Refinery Bet

In 2023, after nine years studying and working in New York, Michael Ang came home to join his family's hospitality business. Today PHASE2 runs full-service restaurants, casual dining, café concepts, a central kitchen, food production, consumer packaged goods, and beverage development under one roof, anchored by fifteen authentic Taiwanese-style outlets across the Klang Valley generating around RM30 million in annual revenue, entirely self-funded.

MJ will tell you the food is almost the easy part. What's hard is everything underneath it: the operational discipline, supply chains, culture, and technology that determine whether a restaurant group can scale. He joins us to unpack why menus can be copied but operating excellence can't, and what a Southeast Asian expansion and eventual IPO ambitions could look like over the next five years.

In 2023, after nine years studying and working in New York, Michael Ang came home to join his family's hospitality business. Today PHASE2 runs full-service restaurants, casual dining, café concepts, a central kitchen, food production, consumer packaged goods, and beverage development under one roof, anchored by fifteen authentic Taiwanese-style outlets across the Klang Valley generating around RM30 million in annual revenue, entirely self-funded.MJ will tell you the food is almost the easy part. What's hard is everything underneath it: the operational discipline, supply chains, culture, and technology that determine whether a restaurant group can scale. He joins us to unpack why menus can be copied but operating excellence can't, and what a Southeast Asian expansion and eventual IPO ambitions could look like over the next five years.

Building a Systems Business, One Restaurant at a Time

It is one of the most common paradoxes in business: an entrepreneur builds a company from scratch, grows it to multi-million-dollar revenues, and ends up trapped inside the day-to-day machine they created. They work through grueling hours, put out operational fires, and realise that scaling up has also scaled their stress.

Chan Boon Yong and Lau Huoi Seong, co-founders of The Better Business School, join BFM’s Open For Business to discuss how their executive education platform helps operators transition into strategic leaders running profitable, purposeful assets.

They break down their core curriculum, combining a "Courageous Leadership" mindset shift with the four pillars of the Scaling Up framework (People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash), to explain how neuroplasticity, Asian-centric case studies, and peer forum support prevent founders from defaulting back to old habits once training ends.

Download The Better Business School 2025 Insights report for full key takeaways, and apply for their upcoming executive cohort running October 12 to 16.

It is one of the most common paradoxes in business: an entrepreneur builds a company from scratch, grows it to multi-million-dollar revenues, and ends up trapped inside the day-to-day machine they created. They work through grueling hours, put out operational fires, and realise that scaling up has also scaled their stress.Chan Boon Yong and Lau Huoi Seong, co-founders of The Better Business School, join BFM’s Open For Business to discuss how their executive education platform helps operators transition into strategic leaders running profitable, purposeful assets.They break down their core curriculum, combining a "Courageous Leadership" mindset shift with the four pillars of the Scaling Up framework (People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash), to explain how neuroplasticity, Asian-centric case studies, and peer forum support prevent founders from defaulting back to old habits once training ends.Download The Better Business School 2025 Insights report for full key takeaways, and apply for their upcoming executive cohort running October 12 to 16.

Better Business School: Overcoming Founder Burnout Trap

Unicorn insurtech Bolttech has raised over US$600 million to build its global B2B2C insurance distribution platform, which now processes US$85 billion in quoted annual premiums and operates across 39 markets.



Rob Schimek, Co-Founder and Group CEO of Bolttech, joins BFM’s Open For Business to discuss his transition from corporate leadership at AIG to pioneering embedded protection technology.



He explains how Bolttech's orchestration layer enables telecom partners, retailers, and device makers to offer tailored protection products, details the capital-intensive infrastructure required to scale across four continents, and outlines the company's financial transition toward sustained EBITDA profitability and self-funded growth.

Unicorn insurtech Bolttech has raised over US$600 million to build its global B2B2C insurance distribution platform, which now processes US$85 billion in quoted annual premiums and operates across 39 markets.Rob Schimek, Co-Founder and Group CEO of Bolttech, joins BFM’s Open For Business to discuss his transition from corporate leadership at AIG to pioneering embedded protection technology.He explains how Bolttech's orchestration layer enables telecom partners, retailers, and device makers to offer tailored protection products, details the capital-intensive infrastructure required to scale across four continents, and outlines the company's financial transition toward sustained EBITDA profitability and self-funded growth.

Waste Oil, Real Fuel: Inside FatHopes’ Refinery Bet

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