Leaving a high-paying, prominent job at the prime of one’s career to start a new venture from scratch may seem foolish to some, but an incident more than a decade ago made it much easier for Samuel Rhee to take that leap of faith.

The former chief executive and investment officer of Morgan Stanley Investment Management Asia left the asset manager in 2017 to embark on the second half of his career in financial technology, or fintech, eventually starting a new company called Endowus.

It was after the 2009 Great Financial Crisis. He and a colleague that co-managed Asia were in the running for promotion.

“If you work for an investment bank, many people will know that getting that managing director/partner title is the holy grail,” the 48-year-old said.

He had been performing well, ran the bigger portfolio and felt he deserved it. But there was only room for one promotion.

His boss flew in from New York and instead of picking the winner, told them to decide who goes first.

Rhee, at a loss, talked to his wife about it. In prayer, God gave them the story of Abraham and Lot. The pair had left Egypt and were about to set foot on the Promised Land. (Genesis 13:1-12) But because there was conflict between both men’s herdsmen, they decide to separate.

Though Abraham was older and had all the right to go first – because God spoke to him – he gave Lot the first choice.

Rhee and his family. He and his wife pray together over big life decisions. Photo courtesy of Samuel Rhee.

“I felt that this was an opportunity to show Christ-like servant leadership by saying that, if you really want it, I’m willing to sacrifice, and let you be promoted first. That was dying to self. It was so painful,” Rhee admitted.

After informing his boss about the decision, he went to his colleague, expecting him to be happy. But the mood in the room was somber.

The colleague said: “Throughout my life, I always thought that whatever anybody else could do, I could also do but I realised what you did today is something that I just cannot do. And I was wondering how you can do this, and I realised that it’s because you have your God, and I don’t.”

“This didn’t make me feel good,” Rhee recalled. “It actually made me repent, because the Holy Spirit revealed something to me. I realised that, until that moment, I’d actually been living for my own glory. That was the first time truly in my life that I died to self. As a result, God was glorified and He used my colleague’s mouth to encourage me at a time when I was still struggling with my desires.”

Living for God, instead of approval of others, is still a “constant battle of your soul”, Rhee emphasised. But that event, along with age and intimacy with the Lord, helps him even now to let go of the usual trappings of success.

“I never thought that the Morgan Stanley brand was mine. I was just working for a company, I was just what they call a salaryman. These fancy titles don’t really have a lot of meaning to me.

“I’m the son of God. That’s my title, that is so much bigger than any CEO of some company.”

Finding purpose

Rhee’s entry into finance was unplanned.

The son of a pastor in Korea, he thought he would end up like his father because of people’s expectations. So when he was 13, he asked whether it was those shoes he had to fill.

Fortunately, his dad was wiser.

“He told me, ‘I love pastoring and ministering to people. However there are a lot of pastors out there, but there aren’t too many lay leaders who are good examples, who are in the world but not of the world.’

“So, from that time, my dream was to be a wonderful lay leader,” Rhee said, chuckling.

As for what type of lay leader, Rhee, who is today a father of two sons and a daughter, was still at a loss even as he was about to graduate from college in the UK.

Rhee’s father went to seminary when Rhee and his brother were young.

Rhee studied economics and public administration at Royal Holloway, University of London because it offered a broader option than studying law at University College London.

After university finals in 1994, he made a short visit to Korea.

A family friend asked if he wanted to intern at a brokerage called Ssangyong. He thought it was an opportunity to practise his Korean and earn some pocket money. But then two months in, the firm asked him to stay, and Rhee never went back for his graduation.

After staying five years, Rhee moved to HSBC in London, then to Hong Kong in 1999, before joining Morgan Stanley a year later.

Having worked in several roles, he relocated to Singapore in 2005 as he joined the asset management arm.

There he helped sovereign wealth funds, pensions and endowments invest their money. Managing these pools of capital came with huge responsibilities.

“The way I found purpose in my work was to know that I was managing the pension for the guy who climbs the lamp posts and fixes electricity cables all his life and this is the money that’s going to send his child to college,” he said.

Focus on giving more than taking

Even though Rhee saw meaning in his job, he grew weary of it eventually. Having to constantly take late night calls and not feeling like he truly mattered in a big organisation.

He also saw gaps in the financial system. For one, he saw how institutional investors had unparalleled advantages over retail investors.

“When I’m investing for Morgan Stanley … all major investment banks provide me with research and access to great products at really low, institutional cost. And I get to achieve great results,” Rhee said. “Compare that to … your uncle and auntie who use a bank who charges really high fees and pushes products instead of giving good advice.

“They pay their CEOs millions, and yet they charge people as much as they can get away with,” he said. “This fundamental problem leads to poor outcomes and is something that is unjust.”

Rhee thought it was time to “redeem the space of finance”, armed with his quarter-century experience. He left Morgan Stanley in 2017, and later that year, set up Endowus with three others.

Endowus leverages technology to bring institutional investing to everybody at low cost. In a way it’s like Amazon, who disrupted retail and Netflix which disrupted the movie-rental industry.

The startup is a digital financial advisor that allows users to invest their CPF – the first digital advisor to be authorised by the Government – and all their cash savings across various solutions on their platform.

As Endowus negotiates with fund managers like PIMCO and Schroders on institutional terms – think of it as “group-buying” investments – it is able to secure lower fees than what banks offer. So the all-in fee is between 0.65% to 1.10% per annum – with no hidden fees – about half to a quarter of what the industry norm collects.

“This focus on transparency is really important as it is so lacking in the industry,” he said.

Rhee said that his faith guided him in deciding how much of the fees should go to his company.

“Christians should be actually giving more than we take. That’s the equation that Jesus taught us. He gave his all for us, even though we didn’t deserve it,” he said. The platform takes a fee of 0.05% to 0.6%, helping users to save 2-3% more than if they went to another bank.

“We should be building a service where the economic gain is much bigger than what they’re paying us.”

A Micah 6:8 lay leader

The firm, which now has 60 employees, recently raised S$23 million from external investors to expand its services in Singapore, and to enter Hong Kong.

“We also wanted to build a company where people can work joyfully. Unlike some large banks where they are sometimes made to feel like a cog in the system, when people are able to unleash their creative spirits in the workplace and flourish, they can also create products that give a joyful experience to clients, and I truly believe this flourishing is what glorifies God”, said Rhee.

Even though he is right in the centre of the world of finance, and Jesus talks more about money than any other topic in the New Testament, money isn’t actually much of a priority to God, Rhee thinks.

“God is the Creator and Owner of all things, so money is the least of his concern,” Rhee said. “Money is (a concern) for us, either because we want more, or because we don’t have enough. But money is just an instrument to make peoples’ lives better.

“The idea is to shift our priority away from money in and of itself, to focus on how we can be better stewards of what we have been entrusted. We need to learn how to use it effectively as an expression of love to God’s children around us, which is how we expand His kingdom.

“God wants us to focus on his creation – people and relationships – especially the relationship between us and God.”

The verse that has guided him throughout his life is Micah 6:8 – to “do justice”, “love kindness”, and “walk humbly with your God” – which he trusts puts him on the path towards maturity and his childhood dream of becoming a good lay Christian leader.

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