By Michael Angelo S. Murillo, Senior Reporter
TO SUCCEED in any business venture, one has to put in the needed work and give commitment through and through.
These are among the values that ONE Championship seeks to espouse in its version of the reality television show The Apprentice, now running across Asia.
A brainchild of ONE chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong and his group, The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition offers to the winner a $250,000 job offer to work under Mr. Sityodtong as his protégé at the group’s global headquarters in Singapore for a year.
The winner will also be named chief of staff and have the opportunity to launch a new business unit within ONE Championship.
In the show, the candidates’ creativity and business acumen are put to the test every week as well as their physical strength, stamina, athleticism, and ability to face their fears.
The show is designed as such, ONE said, so as to produce the “most deserving” winner, who is also expected to embody what the organization is.
Having overcome a myriad of challenges since their group was established a decade ago, Mr. Sityodtong shared that it has been whirlwind of a journey for them but that they have been able to survive it by being “ready” as it can be, something they are trying to share to the candidates and viewers of The Apprentice.
“Entrepreneurship is such a crazy adventure. When I first started ONE Championship, we faced thousands of rejections in the first three years. But ONE was fortunate to receive funding from some of the world’s leading institutional investors. Today, ONE Championship is one of Asia’s leading unicorns,” Mr. Sityodtong shared to BusinessWorld.
“So much of entrepreneurship is about gathering and attracting, and retaining resources, people, and capital; creating an ecosystem around your start-up,” he added.
The official went on to say that every time he speaks with the candidates in the show, he makes it a point to underscore that the whole adventure in The Apprentice goes beyond landing a job in ONE Championship.
“This competition has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with [the candidates] — [their] commitment, passion, desire to unleash [their] greatness in life. I’m willing to invest all my knowledge, all my ideas, all my experiences, my failures, my successes, into [them] so that [they] can become great. I want to see how badly [they] want it,” Mr. Sityodtong said.
And good for the organization, the message is being taken to heart by the candidates.
“The promise of this position in ONE Championship really makes me feel that I am in the right place at the right time, and there’s no way I’m going to take this opportunity for granted. I’m going to give it my all,” shared one of the candidates Jessica Ramella of Venezuela.
The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition features two Filipino candidates, namely Lara Alvarez and Louie Sangalang. Ms. Alvarez has since been eliminated while Mr. Sangalang is still in the mix and did well in the last business challenge.
The show is broadcast across Asia on AXN, the show’s official Asian broadcast partner. In the Philippines, it can be seen on Thursdays at 8:50 p.m. on AXN cable network and on Mondays at 9 p.m. on One Sport.