Read time: 6–7 min
A global network is not a number. It is not your LinkedIn follower count, your business card stack, or the contacts saved in your phone. It is a collection of people who would answer if you called — people in different places, different industries, different circumstances — who actually know what you do and why you do it.
The distinction matters because a lot of what passes for network-building is not that. It is presence. Attendance. Adding people after events and never following up. None of that is a network. It is a list.
Building the real thing takes longer and requires something most people are not willing to give it: genuine interest in other people that has nothing to do with what they can do for you.
Every meaningful professional relationship I have — across Southeast Asia, and farther — started with curiosity. Not strategy. Not a plan. Curiosity about how someone built what they built, about how a market works in a country I didn't understand, about what a problem looked like from a completely different vantage point.
The relationships that have lasted are with people I was genuinely interested in. Not people I identified as 'useful to know.' The ones I approached with a transactional mindset rarely developed into anything real. The ones I approached because I actually wanted to understand their situation — those became real.
If your networking feels transactional, it probably is. The fix is not a better strategy. It is genuine interest in people who are different from you. That interest has to be real, or it will not sustain.
Genuine curiosity shows up in your questions. In whether you remember what someone told you. In whether you follow up about something they mentioned three months ago — not to ask for a favor, just because you were thinking about it. People notice that. It is rarer than you think.
One of the simplest habits that builds global thinking: whenever you encounter an interesting product, business, or idea, ask yourself how it would work in another country. Would it translate? What would need to change? What assumptions is it built on that are specific to this context?
You do not have to be traveling to develop this habit. It is a mental shift — from seeing everything as local to seeing everything as one version of something that could exist in many forms. This habit is worth more than most formal 'global business' education.
When you read something relevant to someone in your network, send it to them. No agenda. No ask. Just: 'thought of you when I saw this.' When you meet someone who would benefit from knowing someone else you know, make the introduction. When you hear of an opportunity that fits someone better than it fits you, pass it along.
The introductions I have made that cost me nothing have returned more goodwill than almost anything else I have done. Being a connector is one of the most underrated things you can do in a network — and for the people in it.
These gestures are small individually. Over time, they build a reputation as someone who gives before they receive. That reputation compounds. The people who have it find that the network activates for them in ways that surprise them — because the goodwill they built without intending to came back when they needed it.
When you travel for conferences, meetings, or events, the difference between a trip that builds nothing and one that changes your network is almost entirely in the preparation.
Know who will be there before you arrive. Identify two or three people you most want to meet. Reach out before the event — not to ask for something, but to say you will be there and you have been following their work. Have a specific question ready, not a general opener. A question that shows you actually know something about what they do.
Most people show up and hope for good conversations. That is a passive strategy. Preparation is how you cut through.
Some of the strongest professional relationships I have are with people I introduced to each other — who then built something together that neither could have built alone. I had nothing to do with what they built. But I made the introduction.
When you see two people in different contexts who would genuinely benefit from knowing each other, making that introduction is one of the highest-value things you can do. It costs you almost nothing. And people remember who made the introduction that mattered. They remember it for a long time.
Global networks are built over years, not months. They require consistency — staying in contact even when there is no immediate reason to, showing up at the same places over time, building a reputation for reliability across contexts.
The people with the strongest networks are not necessarily the most talented. They are the ones who showed up, followed through, gave without calculating, and kept going after others stopped. The network is not a goal you achieve. It is a practice you maintain.
A NOTE FOR GVP STUDENTS
This course introduced you to entrepreneurs, practitioners, ASEAN friends, and cross-discipline peers you would not have met otherwise. That is the beginning of a network — not the network itself.
One practical step: within a week of finishing this block, send a personal follow-up to at least one person you interviewed during the course. Not to ask for anything. Just to say you appreciated their time and share something that came out of your project — a finding, a question, a genuine thanks.
That one message is worth more than a hundred passive connections.
Kasper-Tanakrit Sermsuksan is the Founder of SEA Bridge, Dean of SEA Bridge Institute of Entrepreneurship, and a Visiting Lecturer at Chulalongkorn University, Faculty of Engineering (Computer Engineering). Learn more →
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