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You don’t need to be a celebrity chef to know that the quality of food is pivotal to the success of a restaurant; The dishes on a menu are just one of many ingredients needed for a thriving restaurant business.

From John D Rockefeller, who established the Rockefeller Foundation over a century ago, to Bill Gates - who has donated over US$45 billion in grant payments via the Gates Foundation since its inception, charitable billionaires have been extending their influence from the business world to that of philanthropy.

In life, one sometimes needs to disrupt and break out of one’s comfort zone before reaping the rewards. That is exactly what happened to Peter Jorgensen.

Melissa Mithra is in a senior role at a top financial institution in one of the most sought-after functions in her sector: risk management. For most of the last decade, she has advanced her career via building up her technical skills.

The right kind of push that jolts you of your comfort zone can vastly differ from one person to the next. For SMU Executive MBA alumni Loy Sye Ling, that push was more of a shove in the form of the global financial crisis, during which she noticed many people losing their jobs and struggling to be re-employed.

As a senior private banker at Credit Suisse in Singapore, Mary Ann Gabriel serves some of Asia’s wealthiest entrepreneurs.