Inside Asia Podcast

Mindfulness: A Corporate Panacea? (w/ Sriven Naidu)

This week, I’m in conversation with Sriven Naidu. Sriven works in higher education and professional development consulting. He’s based in Singapore and has found a discernable increase in interest from corporations desperate to improve employee satisfaction, team performance, and commercial results.

Week-in, week-out, we introduce topics that organizations in Asia (and elsewhere) are grappling with. This week, we take a look at mindfulness. The term means different things to different people, and in preparation for this program, I spent some time perusing a number of descriptors. Wikipedia’s defines mindfulness as, “the psychological process of purposely bringing one's attention to experiences occurring in the present moment without judgment.”

What the heck does that have to do with the running and operating of a modern corporation, you ask? Well hold tight, because in this episode I tracked down someone who lives and breathes mindfulness at the organizational level. How can mindfulness help? That’s the question I put to Sriven. I asked him to explain how two seemingly antithetical concepts – mindfulness and commercialism – might, in fact, co-exist.

In Search of the Singapore Soul (w/ Nick Fang)

In this week’s episode I’m in conversation with Nick Fang, Managing Director of Black Dot, a Singapore-based media consulting and advisory firm. In our conversation we banter about the idea of what it means to design and imbed a national narrative. Nick has worked as a journalist, a presenter and a public commentator. Since leaving journalism, he’s dabbled in politics, served as a member of a local think-tank, and contemplated what we’ll call the evolving Singapore narrative.

It’s about the stories we tell ourselves. Curious, isn’t it. We, as humans, are masters of the art of story-making. Just as we design tales to project to the world who we are and what we stand for, so do nations employ similar devices to align its citizenry to a common set of ideals or principals.

Singapore has oftentimes been seen as a country small enough to test new ideas and approaches and demonstrate to the world what’s possible. It is exemplary in every way, but most notably in the roll-out of infrastructure, institutions and incentive structures that keep Singapore on the cutting edge. 

Asian Contagion (w/ Ben Rolfe)

In this week’s episode I’m in conversation with Ben Rolfe, CEO of the Asia Pacific Leaders Malaria Alliance. While most of us are out and about, getting on with living and working, a small but essential group of researchers are watching the way we live and work; studying disease patterns and contemplating the odds of epidemics.

Communicable diseases come in all shapes and sizes. And while many are encouraged by human activity relating to how we eat, greet, wash and copulate, others are more insidious. But here’s some good news. Malaria is in retreat. That right. One of the world’s most debilitating mosquito-born diseases is whistling its swan song throughout much of Asia. China, it appears, hasn’t had a case in three consecutive years. And other emerging markets like Myanmar are seeing such vast reductions that it too hopes to declare victory in just a few short years. And It’s Ben’s goal is to create a malaria-free Asia by 2030.

Revisioning the Silk Road (w/ Alex Pflaum)

My guest this week is young explorer and accomplished photographer, Alex Pflaum. In our conversation we turn back time and wander into the wily world of the ancient Silk Road, where Alex spends his time these days. He’s betting on a renaissance among budding Central Asian economies, not in trade, but in tourism. 

At the time we spoke, Alex was working round-the-clock, finalizing the layout for his new book. Captured in his images is the awe-inspiring expanse of virgin landscape. There’s a raw beauty to it. Not for the feint-hearted, I thought, but for the last of us who find pleasure in remoteness.

This is the Silk Road, after all. The very name conjures up images of camel convoys, Mongol hordes, boundless horizons, and of course, the Great Game, that period in the 19^th century when British and Russian spies vied for territory and trade rights throughout Central Asia.

But for Alex, the new Silk Road offers fresh opportunities for adventure seekers, eco-tourists and a few madmen as well.

 

 

 

 

Grappling with Cultural Miscommunication (w/ Kyle Hegarty)

My guest this episode is Kyle Hegarty, Singapore-based entrepreneur with an expertise in sales training and development.

For years Kyle has worked with multinational and Asia-based sales teams and culled from this experience a treasure-trove of tales on what it takes to do business in this part of the world. His new book, soon to be released, is titled, The Accidental Business Nomad: A Survival Guide for Working Across A Shrinking Planet.

Kyle’s diatribe comes at an interesting moment. There are countervailing forces in play. On the one hand, global commerce and Internet access are bringing people closer together. On the other hand, some countries are starting to think that too much economic integration is a bad thing. The prospects of Recession are on the rise and leaders from the US to the UK are calling for protectionism to safeguard jobs and bolster homegrown businesses.

Just as there’s no stopping the political winds from shifting, nor can one prevent the wings of commerce from beating. People are at the heart of all commercial exchange, and so it is that Kyle has turned his attention to the many things that can go wrong when diverse cultures meet in the marketplace. In this week’s episode we discuss tales of cultural communication mishaps.

 

A New Island Mentality and the Quest for Sustainability (w/ Gove Depuy)

My guest this week is Gove Depuy, sustainability consultant, community-based planner, project leader and an advocate for bio mimicry. What are we talking about? Islands, and the growing idea that islands might serve as learning ecosystems for new ways of communing with the Earth we inhabit.

It’s not an entirely new idea. In 1962, legendary author Aldous Huxley, wrote and published the book Island, as a utopian companion to his better known and more dystopian novel, Brave New World. Inspired by time spent in Bali, Huxley described a people living in harmony with nature.

Today there’s a lot more traffic and a concerning amount of trash and plastic, but it’s still Bali – an island where animism and Hinduism blend to create a unique pact between humans in rhythm with the environment.

I sat with Gove by the banks of one of Bali’s many picture-perfect rivers, adjacent to the Five Elements Retreat. It proved the perfect setting to talk about life in Bali, community-based projects, and ultimately, the promise of islands as a petri dish for exploring new, potentially more sustainable ways of living in the world. Amidst the thick, verdant jungle, cascading waterfalls and buzzing birds and insects, it’s hard to imagine we face a climate crisis of epic proportions. Yet, we do.

Titans of Tech (w/ Rebecca Fannin)

My guest this episode is Rebecca Fannin, founder of Silicon Dragon Ventures and author of the new book, Tech Titans of China. She’s been on the program once before. Exactly one year ago we spoke about the rise of China’s tech giants, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, known collectively as the BAT. Four years earlier, Alibaba became the largest initial public offering in US history and true to investor expectations, the company under Jack Ma grew from strength to strength.

Rebecca points out how few Westerners had heard of Toyota, Honda or Mitsubishi before the 1980s. It was on the back of the global oil crises that Japan offered drivers in the US and Europe a cheaper, more fuel-efficient solution. The rest is history. We may be looking at something similar this time around. Electronic Vehicles, or EVs are the next big thing in transportation and no effort or expense is being spared in China to become a world leader in EV design and manufacturing.

In this episode we delve into the shocking growth of China tech and how in just the past year, US and other Western markets have thrown up a defense against the Chinese onslaught.

 

Family Impact (w/ Rob Garrett)

My guest this week is Rob Garrett, Innovation and Impact Investment specialist and Managing Partner at Hezar Ventures.

We hear a lot these days about the escalating global wealth gap. How the richer are getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Much of that wealth is acquired and accrued by family dynasties. Globally, something in the range of US$ 6 trillion is thought to be controlled by private family interests, with Asian families accounting for nearly a third of that.

For historical and political reasons, Asian families are quiet about their money. How or where they invest is a private affair. But as my conversation with Rob reveals, opportunity, necessity and generational influence are converging. Profits are still important, but so is the positive impact of investments that generate environmental or social good.

In this week's episode, we discuss the rise of the family office in Asia, the breadth and depth of family money influence in the region, and what now moves some of these organizations to contemplate a shift in investment strategy.

The Science of Sleep (w/ Tony Estrella)

My guest this week is healthtech advisor, novelist, and lucid dreamer, Tony Estrella. We live in stressful times. Maybe not more stressful than times of yore when our ancestors lived in fear of war, famine, or plague. But a particular form of stress brought on by always-on technology, chaotic schedules, and data overload.

Our brains and our bodies can only withstand so much. And to manage that edge, the modern-day worker employs alcohol, exercise, or pills to calm the nerves and relax the body. It’s problematic and if you haven’t figured it out already, what the body really needs is a mental holiday. Short of throwing away your personal technology and escaping to a remote island, there is a more practical solution, and it’s available to you every day at no cost. What am I talking about? Sleep.

So it is in this episode of Inside Asia that I turned to health industry expert and investment advisor, Tony Estrella.

Asia's Future is Now (w/ Oliver Tonby)

My guest this episode is Oliver Tonby, Chairman of McKinsey & Company in Asia Pacific. As the firm’s top representative in the region, Oliver has developed a unique perspective on Asia, informed by access to the region’s presiding corporate and government leaders. In a newly released report entitled “Asia’s Future is Now,” he and his colleagues point to an unprecedented rise in Asia’s commercial, trade and infrastructure development. Nothing, so it appears, can keep Asia down.

For decades, the region - largely powered by China - served as a low-cost manufacturing base, feeding the world’s insatiable appetite for consumer, luxury and electronic goods. From advanced clean-tech solutions to the latest in digital media applications, the region teams with innovation at all levels. Throngs of engineers and entrepreneurs are emerging from Indian, Southeast Asia and Chinese universities with a license to design and build. Western markets and corporations are witnessing the technicolor change and in Board rooms from New York to London the question is being asked: What will it take to compete, now and in the future?