Jian Ming Cheang didn’t plan his career — he reacted to the world changing around him. A chemical engineer who graduated as oil and gas prices crashed in 2014-15, he made a deliberate pivot into renewables at a time when most of his peers were heading in the opposite direction.
What followed was 15 years of building from the ground up — engineer to commercial, Singapore to London to Melbourne and back — culminating in a role shaping how one of the world’s largest energy companies bets on Asia’s clean power future.
In this conversation, we trace the real story behind that journey. Jian Ming opens up about being thrust into a leadership role in Australia — tasked with building EDF’s business from scratch in a market he barely knew — and what it actually felt like to figure it out on the ground: the visa issues, the office leases, the housing search, all the unglamorous stuff that comes before the €50 million investment headline.
We go deep on the energy mix — why nuclear is quietly back on the table across Southeast Asia, why hydrogen remains more promise than reality, what Australia’s “duck curve” problem tells us about the limits of renewables, and why Jian Ming believes the region is heading toward more oil and gas activity, not less — regardless of what the transition narrative says.
We also talk about Singapore’s national service, analysis paralysis vs. doing the hard thing, and why the people most equipped to lead change are often the ones who were first burned by the old system.
This is a grounded, no-fluff conversation about energy, ambition, and what it really takes to build something in markets that don’t yet exist.