Our Story
Arowana is an award-winning certified B Corporation with operating enterprises in education, renewable solar energy, critical power services, asset management and venture capital, as well as other investments.
Established in 2007, Arowana has evolved into a unique global enterprise that directly owns and operates listed and unlisted enterprises, as well as having investments in specific sectors around the world. Today, we have offices in London, Dubai, Singapore, Manila, Brisbane, and Sydney.
With decades of experience as both an investor and operator in diverse fields ranging from enterprise software, education, media and training, road infrastructure services, solar development, and critical power services, Arowana formulated and executed on a strategy to build a differentiated firm that focussed on applying a combination of operational, technological, and financial skills to scale up companies in an entrepreneurial manner. As a result, the Arowana team today has an uncommon blend of cross-functional skills across operations, technology, and investment. We are constantly adding new expertise and capabilities to create a well-rounded, agile, and future-proofed enterprise.
We are proud to have been recognised for our impact, our innovation, leadership, and execution globally with awards from Real Leaders, the International Business Awards (IBA), the Asia Pacific Stevie Awards, and the Turnaround Management Association (TMA).
We took the name of Arowana, a tropical freshwater fish primarily found in Southeast Asia, because of its unique characteristics. The Arowana is a highly resilient and resourceful fish known for its boldness. Growing to an average of three feet in length, it can jump more than two metres out of the water to catch food. Rare in the wild, it dates from prehistoric times and are survivors with a long history of adaptation. For us, this fish is a good metaphor for our business: resilient, resourceful, bold, and adaptable.
An Entrepreneurial Hands-on Culture
Our culture revolves around our core purpose and mission to grow people, companies, and value. We value and respect the entrepreneurial spirit—in fact, we live by it. We are unique in that we truly know what it means to start, scale up, and operate businesses, because we count among our team those who have successfully done it.
Our business model reflects our core purpose and is simple: we directly operate as well as invest in impact-orientated enterprises that can be scaled globally.
We typically work in close collaboration alongside entrepreneurs, founders, and leadership teams to provide the support that is essential to realising great success. As entrepreneurs ourselves, we have the know-how and experience to help develop, grow, and overcome inevitable challenges along the way, never losing sight of the long-term.
We focus on businesses that serve a real purpose within their industries and in society but need our support to be transformed and manoeuvre into sustained growth. We are not passive investors who “hope for the best”, nor are we consultants who engage from the sidelines; our DNA is as entrepreneurial hands-on operators. The Arowana team is always ready to roll up their sleeves and work alongside founders and leadership teams, often during difficult inflection points to overcome any obstacle and develop creative solutions. We never give up, especially when the going gets tough.
Our perspective is distinctly global and cross-sector, from technology and finance to leadership and data science, among many others. Our team’s diversity enables us to join the dots, exporting learnings from our different backgrounds to innovate and grow value.
We combine experience and instinct with rigorous, forensic research and data analysis, allowing us to find opportunities for financial, operational, and technology-enabled value creation where others may not.
We understand that the work we do benefits more than the bottom line and we always consider the impact of our actions. Businesses are people: although we can make hard choices, we do so responsibly. We want to see businesses and economies grow in a sustainable way and in doing so, create value for our partners and ourselves.
Our Core Values
At Arowana, we value humility, solidarity, and tenacity. These values inform how we invest, how we operate, and how we recruit talent.
Humility means we acknowledge that we do not know it all. The world of business today is one based on imperfect, sometimes even fake information and rapidly changing sets of facts. Because of this, we consider hubris and dogma as dangerous. Instead, we are lifelong learners who seek to constantly grow our knowledge and enrich our experience.
Solidarity means that as a team, we have each other’s backs. We know the power of a cohesive team that is united and motivated by a common purpose. By fostering a transparent, collaborative, and communicative culture, we ensure that knowledge, insights, and experiences are shared. We strive to work closely with one another, and in helping our teammates succeed, our companies grow and our investors gain.
Tenacity means that we never ever give up. We know the realities of scaling up enterprises as a non-linear journey of ups and downs. We appreciate that persistence is the ultimate determinant of success. Our goal is to build the companies we operate and invest in so that they last. We build perseverance into their DNA and resilience into their modus operandi.
