A school in Manila trained 500 blind people to use a computer. Five years of teaching, and not one ended up properly employed. Thomas Ng was a trustee, and he spent three more years walking them into every boardroom he knew. Lots of excitement. Zero result. So in 2008 he started a company to hire them himself, before he had worked out what the company would do. On TBLI Radical Truth, Robert Rubinstein asks him what that cost. Ten straight years of losses, ten years without drawing a salary, and a promise to his wife about the house. The episode makes three arguments: that the people nobody will employ are an underpriced workforce rather than a charity case, that you cannot be fully honest as a senior person inside a large multinational, and that the corporate career he walked away from is the only reason the second act worked.Thomas Ng spent 25 years at ABB and Rexam plc, starting ABB's first joint ventures in China and finishing as the first Asian country manager in the Philippines. He left at 47. Genashtim, the company he founded in 2008, was fully remote from day one out of necessity, employs 252 people in 39 countries, and has staff turnover of two percent. Its team does the certification analysis behind more than 11,000 B Corps in over 90 countries. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 00:39 Penang, a schoolteacher father, and a family with no car 02:06 Twenty five years at ABB and Rexam, and the China joint ventures 03:42 Walking out at 47 with all the trimmings 04:09 The computer school for the blind in Manila 04:54 Five hundred people trained, not one properly employed 05:04 Starting a company to hire them, before knowing what it would do 05:33 Fully remote in 2008, and the day the digital office vanished 07:17 Ten years of losses, ten years without a salary 08:09 What B Lab and B Corp certification actually are 09:33 B Lab scaled down for COVID, then submissions came in six times over 10:57 A pilot of twenty that became 150 people in 29 countries 12:04 From about 3,000 certified B Corps to more than 11,000 15:34 252 people, 39 countries, and 2 percent staff turnover 18:31 Blue switchgear, yellow switchgear, purple switchgear 24:28 You cannot be honest all the time in a large multinational 25:52 Japan, Indonesia, and the Malaysian government surprise 29:18 Can anyone purpose driven rise to the top of a listed company? 35:16 The promise about the house, and what his wife said back 44:39 Why greed is not a long term strategy ▶ Subscribe for a new Radical Truth conversation every week: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDBhRVM93uUnAAtqOMIz_yg?sub_confirmation=1 MORE ON THOMAS NG Genashtim: https://genashtim.com Thomas Ng:https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-ng-1497791/ ABOUT THE TBLI RADICAL TRUTH PODCAST Most finance podcasts protect the industry. This one interrogates it.I'm Robert Rubinstein. For 30 years TBLI Group has been the world's leading ESG and impact investing network.Every week on this show, one unfiltered conversation with someone actually moving capital toward a liveable future, and no polite silence about the ones only claiming to.No sponsors. No pretending. THE EXTRACTION MACHINE How business takes your money, your work, your resources, your data — and your future. The book examines the systems through which value is extracted from individuals, workers, consumers, communities and the planet — often while the system presents itself as something entirely different. If this conversation makes you question where your money is actually going, The Extraction Machine takes that investigation much further. TBLI GROUP https://www.tbligroup.comRobert Rubinstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertrubinstein/ Recorded August 2026. Thomas Ng joined from Kuala Lumpur.
