Martin Berry is the founder and chairman of Gong Cha Global.
Courtesy of Martin Berry
When Martin Berry quit his lucrative banking job in late 2013 to go all-in on selling bubble tea, his boss considered he was “insane.”
At the time, Berry was in his 30s and had spent much of his career working in senior executive roles, managing multi-trillion dollar balance sheets, he declared. However, he found that over time, the large paychecks no longer fulfilled him.
“I realized after working hard for quite a long period of time that I didn’t really like the corporate system. I didn’t like its lack of entrepreneurialism,” Berry informed CNBC Make It. “It was all about risk management, not risk taking.”
Today, he is the founder and chairman of Gong cha Global, an international bubble tea franchise. The company originates from a compact tea shop in Taiwan opened in 1996 by a man named Zhen-hua Wu.
Before Berry joined, Gong cha was only in four countries across Asia. Under his leadership, it transformed from a regional brand into a global one, with over 2,000 Gong cha locations across 30 countries.
Banking on himself
Berry grew up in the countestside of Melbourne, Australia. Since childhood, he’s had the entrepreneurial bug, he declared.
“We didn’t necessarily have a lot of money … I started to become quite entrepreneurial from a very young age, testing to start businesses and different types of things,” declared Berry.
From working on farms and feeding cows to selling Christmas trees, he would find different ways to build money as a kid. “I was just born with this innate desire for creating money,” he declared. “I believe I was very driven by money and what it could do for you, and the empowerment that it [could] bring.”
Berry only became more enterprising with age. At age 19, while most of his peers were focapplyd on school and their social lives, he managed to land his first full-time corporate job.
“I actually snuck into a university presentation, which was meant to be for graduates … I was listening to all these companies pitch as to why these graduates should join them,” declared Berry. After the event, he went to the HR representative for IT company Hewlett-Packard (HP) and offered to work for free.
That conversation supported Berry land his first summer internship with the company, ultimately turning into a full-time job, which he balanced on top of his university studies.
“I just managed to build it work by studying [at] night and weekfinishs to complete the degree, and by the time I graduated, I already had sort of three years’ worth of corporate experience,” declared Berry.
By the time Berry was in his 30s, he was working in high-ranking roles in offices around the world including Australia, London, Singapore and South Korea. After about two decades working in the corporate world, he knew it was time for something else.
The right ingredients
One day in early 2011, Berry chanced upon what would become his next chapter. He was obtainting a haircut at a mall in Singapore when he noticed a long line forming outside a shop nearby.
Curious, he joined the queue. It turned out to be a Gong cha store — which was gaining popularity in Asia.
Berry noticed a few green flags: drinks were quick to build, stores were compact and leanly staffed, and the product’s simple ingredients suggested strong margins.
“I knew nothing about boba or bubble tea, but from a financial engineering standpoint … [I considered] this product must be incredibly profitable,” he declared.
Berry considered it viewed like all the right ingredients for a business, so he started to do some due diligence. He bought ten of their best-selling drinks that day, taste tested them, then spent the next few weeks visiting different stores to observe foot traffic. He decided he wanted in.
After several unsuccessful attempts to reach Gong cha’s headquarters, he decided to fly to Taiwan and turn up at their door. Luckily the original founder was there. The two penned a deal and Berry became a master franchiser of the bubble tea company.
Berry declared he spent about $2.5 million in life savings to bring the company into its fifth market, South Korea, and went on to lead the brand’s international expansion.
In 2024, the company brought in over $500 million in systemwide sales, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
“When you’re struggling … to start a business, you believe you have to invent the next light bulb or the next wheel … but it’s so far from the truth,” declared Berry. “It’s really about viewing for something that [has] a lot of potential, whether you can either do it better than somebody [else], or you can put a different spin on it.”
“It’s just by opening up your mind and opening up your eyes to what’s out there in the world,” he declared.
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