An anterior cruciate ligament tear, more known as ACL, is a serious but common injury when playing sports. It happens when there are sudden changes in direction, pivoting, or landing awkwardly, especially with a planted foot. It can take six to nine months to recover on a wheelchair or crutches; some may require rehabilitation up to a full year.
But not for one Desmond Ng. Limping his way to his interview, Ng is just seven weeks fresh from his ACL injury and five weeks since his surgery.
But he is already up and about. He is too busy to rest.
“Sorry, I have to sit with my legs straight during this whole interview,” he says while readjusting his position on a flight of bleacher stairs at Big Boss HSP, a restaurant he helped start in 2022 with two other partners.
The HSP stands for “hot snack pack,” an Australian fast-food dish consisting of halal-certified kebab meat of either chicken or beef, a handful of fries, doused in various sauces (usually sweet chilli, garlic, and barbecue), cheese — all served in a box to go.
Ng is in charge of how well these HSPs sell, something the accounting and finance graduate has spent four years becoming an expert in.
Desmond Ng and his Big Boss HSP partners, who he met during his time in Australia. Source: Desmond Ng
“I went to Monash University Clayton campus in Melbourne, Australia,” he says. “It is well-known for the course that I picked at the time, which was the Bachelor of Commerce in the Accounting and Finance field.”
Out of hundreds of subjects, accounting and finance “made the most sense” to Ng.
“It is such a good all-rounder course that even if you might not be the fondest, most excited about what you are learning in school, it is 100% applicable in life and the future no matter what career you take on down the road,” he says.
“But if I’m very honest, I did not know what I wanted to do at the time.”
Just like most high school graduates, Ng was lost. In fact, a report from the University of Wollongong reported that more than 70% of Year 12 graduates do not have a clear idea of what to study for their higher education.
But one thing is for sure – Ng knew he was cut out for business. That was why he opted to enrol in a uni ranked #41 best in the world and #4 in the country for its accounting and finance programmes, according to the QS World University Rankings.
At Monash University, Ng received much-needed guidance on how to think conceptually and analytically and how to use data to make informed decisions in the accounting and finance sector. He used the latest tools and techniques to explore the complexities of the finance sector and financial markets.
“I was surprised by how much there is with accounting and finance. It’s a very broad terminology,” he says. “In accounting itself, you have taxation, audit, international tax, management accounting, financial accounting; there are so many different parts of it.”
Surfing is one thing Desmond Ng misses about Australia. Source: Desmond Ng
The latter two were standout courses, in his opinion, but not auditing as he calls it “a nightmare.”
However, it was these subjects that made him truly understand how to run a business.
“In hindsight, right now in business, I’ve come to realise that whatever I studied at the time, everything is related. Everything makes sense now.”
As much as he credits his success today to his accounting and finance degree, Ng knows he wouldn’t be where he is today had he not worked part-time at an Australian version of a Burger King.
“I was working as a kitchen crew at Hungry Jack’s for about a year,” he recalls. “I would say it definitely helped me understand the business that I’m currently in right now. So, you know, seeing how the operations work, how the storage and inventory system work, taking and counting stock, becoming a better manager, taking care of staff, understanding how they are feeling and everything else.”
Exploring Australian (food) culture
Being a part of the Group of Eight, leading research-intensive universities in Australia, Monash University has been the go-to for Asian students, especially those from Malaysia to pursue higher education at an international level. The Clayton campus, in particular, is the largest of the university’s, hosting about 30,000 students every year.
“To adapt is very easy because you get to meet a lot of Malaysians as well,” he says. “You have just the right amount of comfort in the Malaysians that you meet in Melbourne, but at the same time, the space to explore out of your comfort zone, to learn more about the locals, to explore their culture and everything else.”
What Ng gathered from his exploration was the food culture, and since he always had a business mind, he was constantly searching for the perfect food item that he could bring back to his country and start a venture.
HSP was it.
“HSP was not something that I thought of at that time,” he says. “It was my business partner Roger Then, but we knew it was a huge culture in Australia itself. You can find them literally in every corner and hundreds of them in Melbourne.”
“I think coming up, there will be a few other business ventures that I would love to involve myself in,” he says. Source: Desmond Ng
In fact, HSP was not his first attempt at penetrating the F&B market in Malaysia. It was hot pot, a Chinese communal dining experience where you cook raw ingredients in a simmering pot of flavourful broth.
“It’s a self-service hot pot concept that’s affordable and opens late at night as well, and when I pitched to this Chinese friend of mine, what I didn’t know was her family happened to actually own chains of hot pots in China,” he says.
“So she was very on board, and we were in the midst of securing funding, on top of developing the recipe with her family chefs all the way from Sichuan, sending all the frozen packs of the soup, layered broth, all the way from China to Malaysia. We tested in Malaysia, and all those things were ongoing, but unfortunately, lockdown hit.”
In the end, it all turned out well for Ng. From a bachelor’s degree to opening a fast-food restaurant with five chains and more on the way, it is only uphill from here.
“I think coming up, there will be a few other business ventures that I would love to involve myself in, hopefully. And yeah, just to continue exploring the route of our business, man,” he says.
“I think Big Boss HSP has turned out pretty well, but we have a very long way to go. We want to go interstate, and beyond that, we are trying to go international as well. But when the time comes and when we’re ready for it.
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