Yenn Wong is just 29 years old. But she has already encountered much success as a boutique hotel and restaurant owner. The JIA group of hotels is her brainchild, and all is looking good on the business front for this young entrepreneur.

Today, she runs two boutique hotels in Hong Kong and Shanghai, as well as three other bars and restaurants in Hong Kong and Singapore. Two more restaurants, serving Italian and Thai cuisine respectively, are also scheduled to be open in February and March.

If you know about Yenn's family background, you may question her career as an entrepreneur

The daughter of a successful entrepreneur with businesses in interior construction, it was her father who pumped in the funds for Yenn's first project, JIA Hong Kong. She never had to worry where her capital was coming from.

However, Yenn herself tells a very different story.

It was her father who suggested that she should look into setting up businesses like him, after she graduated when she was 21. She began working life by setting up an interior construction company, which was her father's forte. Then they went on to buy over an online games business. Eventually, she got around to the business of setting up JIA, her first boutique hotel.

She said: "Of course, I had it much easier than him as I had financial support from my family.

 "During the Asian economic crisis, my father bought the building which is now JIA Hong Kong, and gave me the project to work upon. So although our interior construction company handled some hotels in Thailand, having the opportunity to be involved in the actual development and operating a hotel was something that chanced upon me."

And hotel management proved to be Yenn's calling.

She said: "I have been traveling a lot with my family since I was a young girl, and have put up at many different ones. I always find them very fascinating, and creating beautiful spaces has always been my passion."

But at 24 years old, she faced an uphill task of single-handedly ensuring the success of her hotel. When she began the project, she found it extremely challenging to get a good team together.

"Very stressful!" she exclaims of those trying moments.

"It was extremely challenging to make the right decisions. At the same time, it was the first boutique hotel in Hong Kong, and people were skeptical about it since most of them believed such hotels were unfeasible in a city with high property and staffing costs. It was a very difficult process especially with decision making and people management.

"Earning credibility at 24 is something that you really have to work hard at." said Yenn.

But the upside of it was having free rein to be as creative and flexible as she needed to differentiate JIA from other hotels.

Yenn explained: "Being a newcomer to the hotel industry then, I had no pre-conceived notions of how a hotel should be run. I could be as flexible and creative as I wanted to without being constrained by convention.  We strongly believe our hotels should be provocative and entertaining and are passionate about everything we do."

Call it an unwillingness to fail, but Yenn was determined that she would not be the one to fail her family. She said: "They funded me to do this, and I put in a lot of commitment."

She managed to convince some very experienced people in the industry who believed in her concept to support her, and that helped her to sail across a lot of the hurdles that were in her way.

It has been five years since Yenn started out as a greenhorn in the hotel business. She has proven herself and built up a considerable reputation for her group of boutique hotels. And she sees herself still on this trailblazing path to build more hotels and restaurants for the next five years.

"I feel we have managed to form a strong brand for JIA Boutique Hotels by staying focused on our brand positioning, through the services and facilities we offer. It is very gratifying to know JIA appears to be well-known internationally. I am continually looking for new projects and am hoping to develop the JIA group into an international brand and make Singapore proud.

"I have been fortunate enough to have my family's support and because I am privileged, the more I feel I should repay my family and be someone useful to society."