Inside Asia Podcast

Thomas Morgan Part I: An Accidental Filmmaker and the Origins of Film-Anthropy

This week finds me with documentary filmmaker Thomas Morgan in the Screening Room in Singapore’s club district. It’s a four level shop house with a rooftop bar with a private “screening room” on the third floor. It seemed a fitting location for my conversation with Thomas.

If you haven’t Morgan’s work, you need to. He’s an up-and-coming documentary film-maker who through happenstance found himself moving from Charlotte, North Carolina to Singapore. From here, he struck out to identify projects with compelling protagonists and story-lines. And hit on them, he did.

His films are immersive and extraordinary. His protagonists are the unwanted, the disenfranchised, the poor, and the outcast. His mission is to levitate his characters from the mean streets of their worlds in order to transport them into our living rooms and our lives.

What’s most revolutionary is his approach.  When Thomas makes a film about a subject, whether it’s homelessness in America or a children’s shelter in Nepal, he asks how a situation can be improved and changed. The essential thing for Morgan is seeing it—and filming it—in a way that results in change. That’s not just film-making, that’s “film-anthropy”. A sublime blend of visual art and action—oriented philanthropy.

This is the first of two episodes with Thomas, in which he tells me about his early days and the twists and turns that led him to the work he’s doing today. Thomas started off selling copiers, moved on to investment banking, and then left that very lucrative career after being moved to make a film about homelessness in America. It’s a compelling, hilarious and remarkable story.

Ken Mandel: The Evolution of Social Media and the Rise of Artificial Intelligence

This episode finds me at the IBM Watson Center in Singapore. My focus is the evolution of social media and its implications in Asia.

My guest is Ken Mandel, President of Innovation and Commerce at Publicis Media, a French-based multinational advertising and public relations company, and one of the world’s biggest. Ken is a Digital Industry Veteran. He’s been in leadership positions with a number of cutting-edge digital media and advertising firms, first as CEO & Regional Director of XM Asia Pacific, and later as CEO of Neo@Ogilvy in Singapore. He also helped establish and grow Yahoo! in the region, and served as the company’s Managing Director for Southeast Asia. During his tenure he opened for the erstwhile Internet giant four new markets in less than two years.

No matter what sector you’re working in, digital transformation is a reality and companies around the world are rushing to think through what it means to successfully adapt. In his conversation with me, Ken provides a fascinating perspective on the emergence of digital disruption and its impact on the present moment. He’s someone who saw it arrive, which I think makes him uniquely qualified to speculate as to where it’s going.

One of the places it’s headed—and has already arrived at—is Artificial Intelligence, or AI. Perhaps the most fascinating part of our conversation occurs near the end of the episode when Ken speculates as to what impact Artificial Intelligence might have beyond digital marketing and social engagement. Mix AI with social media and might it lead to an ultimate undermining of the very democratic systems and principals that we now take for granted?

Peter Wall: Digital Nomads and the Culture of Taksu in Bali

This episode I’m on the beach in Bali with Peter Wall, Canadian documentary filmmaker and Co-Founder of the Hub in Ubud, a co-working space in the hills of Bali.

We’re not far from my home. I’m writing this in the same place where I recorded the voice overs for the episode itself, an antique one-room shack called a gladag. It sits surrounded by thick jungle and we use it as a kind of home office. The left wall has been replaced with a full pane of glass giving me a framed view of the lush surroundings. Through the thin slats of wood you can hear the sound of cicadas, wind chimes, the occasional cry of a rooster, and fluttering of palm fronds.

Most of the time when I tell people that I call Bali home, they get this dreamy look in their eyes. And it is dreamy. The town of Ubud, in the uplands of Bali, is stunning, but it’s also predictably over-run with women in yoga pants and men with man-buns, thanks in no small part to the Julia Roberts film Eat, Pray, Love.  

But Ubud is more than a preserve for neo-hippies. Increasingly, Ubud is also the destination a new generation of “digital nomads:” professionals in search of the prophetic work-life balance. It’s a place where people from every possible background can come together to work, play, and create. Despite the publicity, Bali remains a sanctuary for the soul, a place where mysticism and magic still abide.

A word in the local Balinese dialect—taksu—captures this blend of harmony, nature, and inspiration. It is more a “feeling” than an event, imbued with a sacred quality.

It might seem odd that in the absolute tranquility of these surroundings, Peter Wall co-founded a work space for techno-entrepreneurs. But as you’ll hear, it actually makes a lot of sense.

You can find more information about Peter and his work in film here including his important companion documentary for iconic Canadian singer Gord Downie’s “Secret Path.” And here’s where you can find directions to Hubud the co-working space that Wall helped found.

Rosaline Chow Koo: Disrupting Healthcare

The episode is the first of a series that will focus on healthcare in Asia. My guest is Rosaline Chow Koo, Founder and CEO of CXA, the first data-driven private insurance and workplace wellness exchange in Asia.

Put simply, Rosaline and CXA are revolutionaries. In an environment where disruption has become a buzzword, this is what it actually looks like.

You don’t need me to tell you that the insurance industry is notoriously convoluted and opaque, and healthcare insurance specifically is mired in issues around patient privacy, medical reimbursement and quality of care.

But maybe that’s starting to change. That’s what’s interesting—and thrilling— about my conversation with Rosaline. You’re going to hear how insurance is poised to become one of the last in a long line of industries to fall to the internet. This is a story you’ve heard before. Amazon started it, then Ebay, then aggregators like Travelocity. Now it’s hitting the insurance industry.

That sounds easy—even inevitable—but it isn’t. As Rosaline reminds me in the episode, I was one of the first to whom she broached her big idea (I connected her with her first VC, who, as it turns out, didn’t invest!), and though it was clearly brilliant, I had real doubts about whether it would fly or not.

Think of the industry she was looking to disrupt: health insurance. Though simplifying things would improve the lives of consumers, insurers have little or no interest in simplifying the process. They make big money by keeping data out of the hands of consumers and the employers who have to pay for health insurance. Their whole business model is based on the idea that a majority of healthy employees will make up and pay  for the healthcare costs of the few who aren’t so healthy.

It’s this playing the odds that has allowed healthcare companies to make an obscene amount of money.

Here’s where Rosaline comes in. She launched CXA as a better, more cost-effective, tailor-made alternative to the insurance products offered by others. It’s going to make life better for millions of people.

What’s her secret? Data. You’re going to want to listen to her tell the story. Thanks for listening.

David Shin: The Invention and Reinvention of Media in Asia

This episode I’m in Tokyo with long-time Asia media executive, David Shin, President and Representative Director for Fox International Japan.

Here’s the background you need. Call it Inside Asia’s “Guide to Asia Media.”

First, a few fun facts: over 800 million homes in Asia currently subscribe to cable or pay-tv services of some kind. That’s a lot. It’s all the more impressive if you consider that just twenty-five years ago, multi-channel pay-tv didn’t even exist here. Back then Asian viewers were on a restricted daily diet of B-class melodramas and government propaganda.

That all began to change in the early1990s, when Richard Li – the son of a Hong Kong tycoon – launched Star TV. It was a rough start and anything but conventional. Li assembled a ragtag team of former media executives, entrepreneurs and deal-makers who put their heads together and came up with a plan that sounded like a Hollywood screenplay than an actual business deal.

Li wasn’t prepared to place an order for a new satellite and then have to wait years for its delivery. Instead, he hunted down and purchased a second-hand satellite from the Soviet Union.

That was just the beginning. It gets stranger.

Sending his new toy into orbit posed another challenge. The French and Americans had virtually cornered the satellite launch business, so what did Li do? He turned to the Chinese. China’s leaders were keen to show the world they had the capacity and know-how to penetrate space. The fact that China had never before launched a commercial satellite didn’t seem to bother Li and his minions. For weeks, they ran full-page ads emblazoned with three large words – “Watch This Space.” If this were a great myth, in the next chapter we would have found Li lost in space.

But this was Hong Kong in 1990. Anything was possible. And so, on April 7, 1990, in the remote Chinese province of Sichuan, the Long March 3 rocket was launched.

It actually happened. I know. I was there. I saw the launch with my own eyes.

We’d arrived only hours before on a chartered flight from Hong Kong. Li and a bevy of tycoons in front and I and my journalist cohort consigned to the rear. Between us sat a phalanx of bankers and insurers.

We all thought StarTV a laughable idea, but damn if it didn’t work. Li’s media enterprise set in motion a tsunami of TV entertainment for a starved Asian audience that today generates nearly US$40 billion in annual revenue.

Which is not to say that it’s been easy. Not everyone liked the idea of people in Asia glued to “American Idle” and episodes of the “X Files.” For some governments in the region (China in particular), it was a cultural affront and in some case, in violation of censorship laws. For others, it was an opportunity to build new cable-TV companies to redistribute programming courtesy of the big Hollywood brands.

Whatever the feeling, it’s fair to say that in Asia it all started with Star TV. Post-launch and throughout the early 1990s, Star lay the groundwork. In those ensuing years, droves of US media executives ranging from CNN’s Ted Turner to Disney’s Michael Eisner touched down in Hong Kong for an audience with Li. They came bearing gifts of programming catalogues. Soon enough, Asians from Kyoto to Kabul were watching Hollywood films, American sitcoms and blockbuster game shows, all from the comfort of their tiny living rooms.

It was a virtual bonanza for companies like Sony, Turner, Time-Warner and Disney who cut lucrative programming distribution deals with the region’s burgeoning cable-TV providers.

Slowly at first, then more quickly, Asian production companies entered the fray, offering their own repertoire of programming that spoke more precisely to the tastes, preferences and aspirations of a growing Asian middle class.

Over time, US films and TV programs began to lose their appeal. The Hollywood crowd will deny it, but in Asia, a local fare of homegrown programming is quietly displaced American-style TV. Equally disheartening is the encroachment of video streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, and a slew of other Asian home-grown services. It’s a powerful entertainment substitute for a population that today watches more than half its video entertainment on mobile phones and devices. In this part of the world at least, video is on the go. The days of circling up around the living room TV set are pretty much over.

All of this leaves global media brands wondering where future Asia growth will come from. That was where I started in my conversation with  David Shin.

I hope you’ll take time to listen. You can do so by going to our website www.insideasiapodcast.com. You can also stream or download this episode and others by clicking here and going to iTunes. If you like what you hear, please rate any of our episodes and leave a brief comment. We want to know what you think.

Eric Rosenkranz Part II: Executive Mentoring

My guest is Eric Rosenkranz, former Vice Chairman of Focus Media China, now founder and CEO of Advisory firm, eThree. I’m speaking to him in the offices of one of Singapore’s original start-up “incubators.”

In case you missed our last episode, it featured Eric’s unforgettable tale of a billion-dollar startup that began as an insight about elevators in China.

It was that success that led Eric to position himself as mentor to some of Southeast Asia’s most promising young entrepreneurs. He’s the guy folks turn to in hopes of taking their game to the next level. That’s our focus this time: executive mentoring.

Most everyone will agree that supporting CEO's, senior leaders and managing partners is crucial, but often neglected. As a corporate headhunter—a guy who locates and positions talent for a living—I’m continually struck by how effective mentoring has fallen off the radar for many companies. It’s shocking, but they are simply not making the investments they should be making in their people.

It’s a different story in the startup space. Around the world—and Eric gives us a unique glimpse into the challenges specific to Asia—the concept and practice of mentoring has been widely embraced.

As Eric points out, the key to effective mentoring is to not to think of it as a one size fits all proposition. It begins and ends with the individual, with finding out what they need, what questions they’re not asking, and how to transform them as executives and as people. Subscribe to the podcast here on iTunes and to our InsideAsia Newsletter here and never miss an episode.

Eric Rosenkranz Part I: Incubating Startups

This episode I’m in the offices of one of Singapore’s original start-up “incubators” in conversation with Eric Rosenkranz.

Some listeners are going to know him already. Eric is Founder and Chairman of e.three, a strategic advisory that helps companies of all sizes on how to grow.

Powerfully insightful, brilliantly articulate, uniquely generous in taking me into the inner workings of his thinking and the work he does, Eric has had a most remarkable—and in a way improbable—career. He rose through the ranks of one of the world’s great advertising agencies and then threw it all in to dedicate himself to Asian start-ups.

It wasn’t the path he imagined for himself. But then, unexpectedly, he found himself brought on by an unlikely Chinese entrepreneur to help secure a listing on NASDAQ. What happened next is the stuff of start-up legend.

For most everyone else, that would have been a crowning achievement of a storied career. But not for Eric. Instead, he pivoted and turned toward start-ups. Since then he’s mentored, funded, and advised scores of young Singapore companies in search of the dream.

This is not a conversation you will want to miss. It’s absorbing and entertaining and, yes, it ends with there being more to say. Here’s the good news—there’s a part two that’s waiting for you and free to download and share. Subscribe to the podcast here on iTunes and to our Inside Asia Newsletter here and never miss an episode.

John Kao: Improv and Innovation

This episode I’m in the somewhat unusual office of John Kao, an author and strategic adviser based in San Francisco. When it comes to issues of innovation and organizational transformation, there’s no one better than Kao. You hear that in our conversation.

Probably you know Kao already. He was dubbed “Mr. Creativity” by The Economist, a publication that does not call anyone Mr. Creativity.

As I say in the episode, Kao sometimes calls himself an innovation activist. He’s been on faculty at the Harvard Business school and at MIT, authored several books, even advised a number of countries on the subject of how to speed innovation.

He also plays the piano.

There’s a lot of people who play the piano but Kao is serious about it. So serious there’s a Steinway and Sons piano in the center of it. It makes sense. Music is very much at the center of the work he does with companies and countries around the world. This is something we talk a lot about in our discussion, the way in which innovation is about inspiration but also about developing a set of core competencies that allow you to know what is an idea of interest and what isn’t. It’s like jazz that way. You practice your scales on the piano, drill yourself with etudes, and one day—magically, it seems, to everyone but you—you suddenly have a good musical ideal.

Innovation and entrepreneurship is like that. Kao makes business sound very groovy.

In our conversation, I take it a bit further and ask if there are companies who have actually put his wild ideas into practice. What corporations that have shown a willingness to let go of structure to let creativity come through? Is it worth the risk?

Frank Lavin: Export Now

On this episode, my guest is Frank Lavin. Bespectacled, buttoned-down, he reminds one a little of Clark Kent. And like Clark Kent there’s a lot of sides to Frank. He’s done a lot of things. A former Reagan aide, Frank has been the US Ambassador to Singapore and is a former Director of the Office of Political Affairs in the White House. That’s the short list. He’s also held senior finance and management positions in Hong Kong and Singapore. He’s anyone’s definition of an Asia Insider.

I wanted to talk to him about his newest venture, which turns a popular misconception about US China trade on its ear. Most of the time when people think about the economic opportunities offered by China, they think about importing goods. Lavin and Export Now do the opposite. Instead of looking for profits in exports from China, Lavin’s newest venture Export Now does the opposite and offers businesses a variety of solutions to import goods into China. It’s a fascinating discussion.

We met up on the 52nd floor of Singapore’s Tower Club, which has the best views in the city, looking out over the harbor, and Marina Bay sands. Our interview concludes, as you might guess, with Lavin Trump Presidency and how changes in the American political landscape might impact what it means to do business in China.

For more detail on Export Now and the possibilities it might offer you or your business, the best place to start is their website, which gives a complete picture of the different services they offer. For a deeper dive, there’s his book “Export Now.” A lot has changed since that came out in 2011, and you can find Lavin’s more recent take on China’s consumer surge over here at Forbes where you should also bookmark Lavin’s excellent and ongoing Forbes blog on e-commerce in China.

Jim McGregor - Nationalism, Trade, and China

Author, China expert, senior corporate adviser Jim McGregor on how to do business with the Party, the shifting shape of innovation in China, global ambition, and his visit to a rat restaurant.

When I started putting together the list of people and personalities I wanted to feature on this podcast Jim McGregor—acclaimed author, China expert, Senior Corporate Advisor—was at the top of it.

There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that Jim knows China better than anyone. The second is that I love talking to him. He’s a born storyteller and he always finds a way to make me laugh.

I first met him years ago, back when we were both journalists working an Asian beat. Since then he’s gone on to be one of the most respected China experts in the world. During our conversation he tells a mesmerizing story about a sit-down he had with Chinese and American diplomats. The Americans had turned to Jim to tell it like it is, and he did exactly that. His thoughts on the Trump presidency and what it means for Chinese-American economic and other relations are here as well.

Like all my interviews on Inside Asia, this one was not done in a studio. I’m on the ground. This episode finds me and Jim in the executive lounge of the Marriott Hotel Northeast, one of the first global hotels in the capital of Beijing, just a stone’s throw from the US Embassy. We sat in a darkened corner of the lounge drinking scotch.

One last thing. This is a candid conversation. Not exactly NSFW, but if you have little kids around, you might want to listen to it with the headphones on. That’s all I’m going to say.

If after you hear this you’re looking for more McGregor, check out his recent article on the “Art of the Deal” in China and his perspective on how Trump can with with China. While you’re at it, you might also want to get hold of Jim’s crucial book No Ancient Wisdom, No Followers: The Challenges of Chinese Authoritarian Capitalism.