From London to Singapore: How Mangla Sachdev Built a Business That Travels

Mangla Sachdev grew up in London, but her life and work have never stayed within one set of borders.

After living in the UK, Australia, Malaysia and Singapore, she understands something many internationally minded founders learn the hard way: when you move country, you do not only leave behind a home. You can also leave behind your network, your reputation and the business momentum you spent years building.

Sachdev decided there had to be another way.

Today, the London-raised business coach and marketing strategist helps expats, digital nomads and travel-loving female founders build businesses that can move with them. Through Expat Business In A Bag, she supports entrepreneurs to clarify what makes them different, attract the right clients and grow through strategic relationships rather than trying to build alone.

Her philosophy is simple: the right conversation can create more momentum than weeks of posting online.

Pivoting Under Pressure and the Power of Portability

It is a belief shaped by experience. Sachdev has been entrepreneurial since she was 17, but one of the clearest examples of her instinct for spotting opportunities came in Singapore in 2020.

After noticing a need within her children’s school community, she launched a printing business in just 48 hours. Seven days later, Singapore entered lockdown. What could have brought the new venture to an abrupt end instead became a lesson in listening, adapting and moving quickly.

The business pivoted, producing 4,000 masks and almost 1,000 T-shirts. It reached six figures in its first year and went on to work with organisations including Meta Singapore and the US Embassy.

But its success also exposed a problem familiar to many expat entrepreneurs. A business tied to one place can become difficult to carry when life takes you somewhere new.

That realisation led Sachdev to build Expat Business In A Bag around an idea she calls “Monetise as they Move”: helping founders create offers, audiences and income streams that are not dependent on a single postcode.

“Globally mobile women are constantly reinventing themselves,” says Sachdev. “But reinvention should not mean starting from zero every time. Your experience, relationships and reputation should travel with you.”

Strategic Networking and Turning Relationships into Revenue

Her own network now stretches across Singapore, the UK and international founder communities. She has been invited into rooms at Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn and the US Embassy, and is known within her community as the “Queen of Networking in Singapore” and a “Global Connector”. Yet she is quick to point out that effective networking is not about collecting the most business cards or knowing the most people.

It is about knowing what people need, making thoughtful introductions and following up.

That approach has produced tangible results. Sachdev has twice generated $2,000 in business following conversations lasting around ten minutes. One client generated ten times her investment within 16 days after working with Sachdev to position her offer as the obvious choice. Another phrase clients regularly use after speaking with her is: “Every time I speak with you, I make more money.”

The results reinforce Sachdev’s view that relationships are not a soft business skill. Used with intention, they are a commercial growth strategy.

“So many founders are focused on reaching more people when the opportunity may already be sitting inside the relationships they have,” she says. “Your next client may not be scrolling. They may be talking to someone who already knows you.”

This message has particular relevance for expat women, who can be highly experienced yet find themselves rebuilding visibility after an international move. They may have lost access to a previous professional network, face restrictions on local employment or feel pressure to prove themselves again in an unfamiliar market.

Sachdev helps them identify the value they already hold and use it to create a business with greater portability. Her work combines positioning, messaging, offers, audience growth and accountability, but connection remains the thread running through it all.

Growing up in London gave her an early appreciation for different cultures, communities and perspectives. Living overseas deepened it. Now, as she travels regularly between Singapore and the UK, she is increasingly connecting founders and opportunities across both markets.

For Sachdev, this is about more than networking for networking’s sake. It is about building a business ecosystem in which one introduction can lead to a client, a collaboration, a speaking opportunity or entry into a room that might otherwise have remained closed.

Her advice to founders is refreshingly practical: stop asking how many people you met and start asking what happened next.

“A contact is not a connection until somebody follows up,” she says. “The value is in what you do after the conversation.”

From London to Singapore and the many places in between, Sachdev has built her career on proving that geography does not have to limit growth. In an increasingly mobile world, her story offers a timely reminder: a strong business is not only one that can make money. It is one that can keep creating opportunity wherever its founder happens to be.

Mangla Sachdev is a London-raised, Singapore-based business coach, marketing strategist and founder of Expat Business In A Bag. She helps expats, digital nomads and travel-loving female founders attract clients, stand out in crowded markets and build profitable businesses beyond borders. Find out more at expatbusinessinabag.com.