Inside Asia Podcast

The Future of Food (w/ Isabelle Decitre)

My guest this week is Isabelle Decitre, CEO of Singapore-based ID Capital. She’s a future-of-food advocate, an investor, and convener of food innovators.

For many, there’s nothing more all-consuming and enticing than the topic of food. In these maddening times, food offers comfort, conjures up memories, and nurtures the body.

Unfortunately, food all over the world, is not what it once was. Whether in pursuit of economic profit, or in a bid to deliver greater variety at lower prices, mass manufactured food has its benefits and its drawbacks. Walk through the aisles of any major grocery shopping chain anywhere in the world and you’re inundated with choice. Variety, you might say, is the hallmark of the world’s leading food and beverage companies.

So what’s the problem, you ask? In a word: nutrition. In recent decades, global eating habits have shifted dramatically, enticed by the manufactured tastes and low price points of thousands of sugary, salty, and artificially conjured food products. The health impact is apparent. Obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are modern day ailments that plague populations the world over, perpetuated by our increasingly sedentary lifestyle. Millions of products compete each day for a piece of the consumer pallet. It’s big business with big health and wellness consequences.

Listen to the full conversation by visiting us as www.insideasiapodcast.com. As always, we thank you for listening.

Asia’s Shift in Consumerism (w/ Vaughan Ryan)

This week, we take a hard look at how consumption patterns in Asia have shifted as a result of the global pandemic. With me this episode is Nielsen’s Managing Director of Consumer Intelligence, Vaughan Ryan. 

I met Vaughan virtually during a recent Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry event where he, I, and others were asked to share our thoughts with the Singapore business community in a session entitled: “Gearing Up for the Next Normal.” 

Neilsen had just surveyed consumers in the region to see how Asian buying behaviors have morphed in a time of Covid. Now, in the course of our 30 minute conversation, we share these findings with you.

Mindfulness Inc. (w/ Davina Ho)

My guest this week is Davina Ho, Co-Founder and Chief Well-Being Officer at Hasiko, a Singapore-based advisory and training organization. She says that pre-Covid, stress levels in the workplace were on the rise. The global pandemic has only exacerbated the problem. So much so, she argues, that it’s time for employers to get involved. Davina says “mindfulness” is a solution for our times.

It’s been six months since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic, and for many – if not all – some aspect of our social, professional, or personal lives have changed – maybe forever!

As a species, we’re impressively adaptable. Through war, famine, and natural disaster, we’ve proven ourselves capable of rallying and coming together in times of need. This time around, however, coming together – at least physically – only exacerbates the problem.

So it is, in relative isolation, we are all looking for new ways to cope. Many of the tried and true ways of dealing with stress and anxiety are no longer available to us, whether that’s an after-work visit to the local bar to mingle with friends, a night at at the movies, or dining out at your favorite restaurant. Going to the gym or the yoga study poses its own set of risks and challenges. So what’s left? How does one manage stress, stay fit, healthy, and focused on the task at hand?

US vs. China: A Tale of Two Systems (w/ Clay Chandler)

My guest this week is Clay Chandler, Executive Editor for Fortune here in Asia. Based out of Hong Kong, he’s a long-serving member of the region’s journalistic community, holding stints with The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Time Inc. At Fortune, he’s created a niche in delivering nuanced tales, offering up an Asia perspective to challenge more populist US-centric views.

US and China, it seems, are caught in a downwardly spiralling political maelstrom and there is no end in sight. While the short-term implications appear rather petty, the longer-term issues could prove severe. Not just for the two countries, but for the world at large. 

It speaks to the essential nature of the two Superpowers. They set the tone for what comes next economically. Diplomatic squabbling isn’t helping, particularly in a time of pandemic when greater inter-reliance, not less, could make all the difference.

Which country comes out on top may have less to do with politics and more to do with which nation gets it’s economy back on track first. Through this lens, China would appear to have the upper hand. It’s economy is rebounding. And as my guest this week explains, it has much to do with China’s relative success in bringing Covid to heel.

The New Nature Economy (w/ Fraser Thompson)

My guest this week is Fraser Thompson, Founder and Managing Director of AlphaBeta, a Singapore-based consulting firm specializing in strategy and economics. Fraser and his colleagues teamed up with the World Economic Forum to highlight sector-specific ways in which business might profit, while enhancing bio-diversity and reducing the impact of climate change. He joins me in this episode to explain how they arrived at these figures and what it will take to deliver on it.

According to the report, investment in nature-friendly initiatives has the potential to generate $10.1 trillion in recurring annual revenues and up to 395 million jobs by 2030. To pull it off, we need new levels of corporate and government coordination to target the right opportunities and incentivize the right players.

US Voters and the World: Don’t Know and Don’t Care (w/ Steve Okun)

On this week’s episode of Inside Asia I’m in conversation with Steve Okun, political pundit and senior advisor with McClarty Associates. For years now, and with each new US political cycle, Steve steps up to offer an outside-in view of how things are shaping up. Understanding how politics shape Asia commerce is his forte.

 

Every four years, US presidential elections role around and Americans are asked to pick a candidate who best represents their needs and ideals. Bread basked issues like jobs, the economy, and healthcare top the list. Foreign Policy? Well, it barely ranks. In most cases, it doesn’t even make the top 10. 

 

It should not, therefore, come as a surprise that as the US enters this political season, America’s engagement with Asia won’t receive so much as a mention. The only exception, of course, is China. Every politician needs a bogey-man, and this time round, it’s the Middle Kingdom, or as, no doubt, it will be characterized in political ads and stump speeches as “the red threat rising in the East.”

 

It’s the kind of rhetoric that politicians like to bandy about. It’s good for public morale, they might argue, but it has little bearing on the outcome of an election. So why do it?

Building the Imagination Muscle (w/Tony Estrella)

These days, we busy ourselves 24/7 with emails, text messsges, spreadsheets and reports. Human contact is becoming obsolete, and Covid-19 and its social distancing requirements makes Zoom calls the last step in severing us from our friends and work colleagues. What’s left?

 

The imagination, apparently. I’m talking about the science of day-dreaming. Momentary opportunities to give your brain a break, and in so doing, restoring the capacity to create in new and unexpected ways. You think I’m dreaming? I’m not. Neuroscience holds the proof and here to assist me in understanding what that entails is Tony Estrella. Inside Asialisteners may recall a conversation we had a year ago, when we discussed the Science of Sleep. [Listen here: http://www.insideasiapodcast.com/sleep-science/]

 

In this episode, we take it one step further, drawing the connection between sleep as an essential function and dreaming as the creative output. Embrace dreaming as a practice of sorts, and the results could prove spectacular.

 

Somewhere along the way, we stopped listening to our dreams. For centuries, images conjured in our unconscious state informed our biggest decisions. Indigenous people even to this day describe the dream state as a gateway to the divine. Science put an end to that. For centuries dreams were discounted as nothing more than nighttime nonsense. Breakthoughs in neuroscience say that was a mistake. Time to get it back!

Finding Resiliency in Emerging Asia (w/ James Crabtree)

My guest this week is James Crabtree, an Associate Professor at the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy and a frequent commentator across news outlets here and abroad. In a recent Foreign Policy article entitled “The End of Emerging Markets,” James outlined many of his concerns as efforts are made to weather the Covid storm.

In this episode, we visit the developing markets of South and Southeast Asia. Well, maybe “visit” isn’t the right word. Most emerging markets in this part of the world remain locked down. This, in contrast to China, Europe and North America where re-opening is the theme of the day. It’s a balancing act between containing Covid and resuscitating economies on life-support.

It’s laudable that markets in this region are airing on the side of safeguarding the health and safety of its citizens. But its equally concerning - because in emerging markets at least - poor economic performance can quickly lead to political unrest.

Solar’s New Shine (w/ Gavin Adda)

This week my guest is Gavin Adda, CEO of Total Solar Asia. He is one of the true-borns who embraced solar and its potential nearly 15 years ago.

This week, we take a look at the burgeoning solar industry. To be frank, it’s been a slog in many parts of Asia, where the appetite and economics for solar have long struggled to add up. Only Japan, some might say, has proven the exception. Change, according to Gavin, has finally come, thanks in large part to a dose of good old fashioned economics.

Few people have battled as hard as Gavin to see this renewable source of energy begin to take its rightful place. Through a series of executive roles at Samsung, REC and Cleantech Solar, he arrived at Total, the French energy giant. His mission: to spread the word that solar is not only good for the earth, it’s good for the corporate bottomline.

Purpose Incorporated (w/ John Wood)

My guest this week is John Wood, Founder of Room-to-Read, one of the world’s most successful education and gender equality non-profits. He wasn’t always in the business of building and filling libraries in the poorest parts of the world. For years prior, he served as a senior executive with Microsoft. Then came his great awakening. I won’t spoil it for you. Our conversation takes you back to the beginning, and it’s quite a tale.

He’s a four-term member of the Clinton Global Initiative Advisory Board, a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, and a book author. His latest: Purpose Incorporated: Turning Cause Into Your Competitive Advantage. It’s a user friendly guide on how to steer an organization towards a world where purpose and profit co-exist.

John’s backstory is powerful. But it’s his thinking about the future that holds the greatest appeal. This is a story about possibilities. And at a time when the world is spinning from pandemics and economic displacement, John’s words of encouragement and their practical application are well received.