Rich Brubaker Rich

In this episode, I speak with mission-driven entrepreneur Sabrina Mustopo about her journey as founder of Krakakao.

A “farmer-to-bar” social enterprise founded with a mission to improve the livelihood of Indonesian cocoa farmers and the sustainability of cocoa farming.

Timestamps:

About Sabrina:
In 2013, Sabrina founded Krakakoa Chocolate, a "farmer-to-bar" social enterprise working directly with smallholder cocoa farmers to produce organically grown award-winning Indonesian chocolate.

In partnership with SwissContact, Krakakoa has provided training to about 1,000 farmers living in the sensitive border areas around national parks in Lampung, Sumatra and in West Sulawesi, to help improve their livelihoods and the sustainability of cocoa farming.

Krakakoa Chocolate has won a total of six medals at the 2017 Academy of Chocolate (AOC) Awards in the United Kingdom, making them the first Indonesian chocolate maker to win any AOC award.

Follow Sabrina:
Website: https://krakakoa.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabrinamustopo/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sabrinamustopo
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sabrinamustopo

About Rich
Driven by the belief that change begins with a single step, Richard Brubaker has spent the last 15 years in Asia working to engage, inspire, and equip those around him to take their first step.

Acting as a catalyst to driving sustainability, Brubaker works with government, corporate, academic and non-profit stakeholders to bring together knowledge, teams, and tools that develop and execute their business case for sustainability.

Follow Rich
Website: http://www.richbrubaker.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rich.brubaker
LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richbrubaker
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/richbrubaker

Contact Rich
social@richbrubaker.com

In this episode of the Mission Driven Podcast, I speak with Tom Dawkins, co-founder of StartSomeGood and LendForGood, about the current landscape for social innovation and entrepreneurship.

Through our discussion, we spoke about the general trends that are creating opportunities, but also around the core challenges that entrepreneurs often find themselves grappling with.

In particular, the challenges around finding the investment required as they are in the "middle ground" of having to come to scale, but closely tied to that, the challenge of articulating their grand vision for social impact while simultaneously outlining practical steps to engage stakeholders effectively.

In this episode, I speak with Neha Upadhyaya about her work in rural India as the founder of Guna Organics.

Neha's journey began with a powerful sense of purpose sparked by surviving an earthquake, which led her to witness firsthand the struggles of affected villages. Instead of opting for the conventional path of joining an NGO or government agency, Neha chose to take matters into her own hands by founding a new organization.

Through our conversation, we speak about her journey, and the lessons she has learned along the way as a young founder who has done incredible work to empower so many women.

About Neha
Neha Upadhyaya is a social entrepreneur based in New Delhi, India. She graduated from King’s College London and worked in the education sector in the U.K. Her focus was with children suffering from Juvenile diabetes , Autism , ADHD etc. She observed their lifestyle , was reluctant in treating them with western medication and received trainings in organics and Macrobiotics from Daylesford organic school , Wholefood Harmony and Navdanya Bina Vidyapeeth which have proven to be alternative healing practises.

Upon her return to India , she founded Guna whose vision is to empower women farmers through vertical integration of organic farming and solar technology for post harvest management and rural electrification in the hilly terrains of Ladakh , J&K India. She was the recipient of Future Leaders Connect (2018) & Social Impact India award (2017) by the British Council. Recently , Guna and her work won prototype grants and awards named Entrepreneur Excellence award by I.I.T. Delhi (2017) and Smart fifty solutions that will transform India by I.I.M C.I.P. (2018).

She has won full scholarship to study sustainability and responsible leadership from Govt.of Sweden with the course titled Swedish Institute Management Programme 2017. She recently won a fellowship from Earthwatch Institute to facilitate SDG’s in mountain communities.
She is well recognised by the media and featured in Economic Times , Time out New York , India Today , CNBC Young Turks.

Her NGO won the prestigious small grants programme from GEF UNDP and Ministry of environment, forests and climate change in 2017. With a strong commitment to environmental sustainability , she envisions an inclusive , equitable and healthy society where men and women support each other in every aspect of life and enjoy their right to realise their full potential.

Follow Neha
website: http://gunaorganics.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neha-upadhyay-249279a8/

About Rich
Driven by the belief that change begins with a single step, Richard Brubaker has spent the last 15 years in Asia working to engage, inspire, and equip those around him to take their first step.

Acting as a catalyst to driving sustainability, Brubaker works with government, corporate, academic and non-profit stakeholders to bring together knowledge, teams, and tools that develop and execute their business case for sustainability.

Follow Rich
Website: http://www.richbrubaker.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rich.brubaker
LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richbrubaker
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/richbrubaker

Contact Rich
social@richbrubaker.com

In this episode of the Mission Driven Podcast, I speak with Mayuree Aroonwaranon, a mission-driven entrepreneur dedicated to building a platform to close the loop on Thailand's waste.

Through our conversation, we speak about what sparked the initial idea, the process for understanding the pain point to be solved, and the lessons she has learned about building teams, raising capital, and maintaining passion.

ABOUT MAYUREE
Mayuree is the Co-founder & CEO of GEPP Sa-Ard and the creator of GEPP Platform – Thailand’s first waste management system.

Highly specialized in implementing organizational transformation, she founded GEPP in order to change how waste journey should be traceable and transparent and how all of us need to change our mindset from “disposal” to “management” when it comes to our own waste.

FOLLOW MAYUREE
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayuree-gepp/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mayuree.aroonwaranon.5/
Website: https://gepp.me

ABOUT RICH
Driven by the belief that change begins with a single step, Richard Brubaker has spent the last 15 years in Asia working to engage, inspire, and equip those around him to take their first step.

Acting as a catalyst to driving sustainability, Brubaker works with government, corporate, academic and non-profit stakeholders to bring together knowledge, teams, and tools that develop and execute their business case for sustainability.

FOLLOW RICH
Website: http://www.richbrubaker.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rich.brubaker
LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richbrubaker
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/richbrubaker

CONTACT RICH
social@richbrubaker.com

#richbrubaker #missiondriven

In this episode of Mission Driven, I speak with my good friend ( from Thunderbird) Kian Seah about his work to end plastic waste by driving circularity throughout the value chain.

It’s an incredible conversation that speaks to the megatrenda driving circularity, the structural challenges of closing the loop, and learning to take the “lessons” from failures along the way.

ABOUT KIAN
Seah Kian Hoe (“Kian”) is the founder and managing director of Heng Hiap Industries (HHI). Established since 2002, HHI is a fully integrated plastic recycling company, being the FIRST company in the world to receive Ocean Bound Plastic Certification co-developed by NGO Zero Plastic Oceans and Control Union. Having developed Smart Plastics to address plastic manufacturers’ need for high quality, customized recycled plastic resin, Kian also designed the Smart Factory in Johor Bahru from the ground up. The factory is GBI-certified (“Green Building Index”) Gold and is now producing PLASHAUS Ocean Plastic while implementing a full track-and-trace program that directly addresses plastic consumers’ concerns about marine pollution.

HHI Smart Plastics has reached the shores of 38 countries globally including China, Japan, Australia, India, and multiple countries in Europe, meeting customers’ high performance standards and stringent requirements in quality.

In the last 18 years, Kian and HHI have won multiple accolades for business leadership and product innovation – the more notable ones being: the Junior Chamber International (JCI) Ten Outstanding Young Persons (TOYP) in the World in the category of environmental leadership (2013), The Edge newspaper of Malaysia named him “The Michaelangelo of Recycling” (2018) and most recently, Frost and Sullivan awarded HHI “2020 Malaysia Smart Waste Solutions Technology Innovation Award”.

FOLLOW KIAN
Website: http://www.henghiap.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kian-seah-95428914

ABOUT RICH
Driven by the belief that change begins with a single step, Richard Brubaker has spent the last 15 years in Asia working to engage, inspire, and equip those around him to take their first step.

Acting as a catalyst to driving sustainability, Brubaker works with government, corporate, academic and non-profit stakeholders to bring together knowledge, teams, and tools that develop and execute their business case for sustainability.

FOLLOW RICH
Website: http://www.richbrubaker.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rich.brubaker
LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richbrubaker
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/richbrubaker

CONTACT RICH
social@richbrubaker.com

#richbrubaker #missiondriven

In this episode of Mission Driven Podcast, I speak with Project Dignity founder Koh Seng Choon about his work to bring his social enterprise to scale.

It is a journey that started 15 years ago, and over this time he has been focused on perfecting the business model, processes, and leadership models to deliver impact at scale... and hopefully become the first social enterprise to IPO on a MAIN board.

ABOUT SENG CHOON:
Mr Koh Seng Choon is the founder and Executive Director of Project Dignity, Singapore’s first social enterprise for the disadvantaged and people with disabilities.

The aim is to help these people regain a sense of dignity through their work.

Project Dignity comprises of
- Dignity Kitchen – hawker or street training centre for disabled and disadvantaged
- Dignity Mama – second hand bookshop managed by the mothers and their challenged children
- Dignity Cottage - bird’s nest processing for lower functional disabled youth
- Dignity Meal – free meal for foreign workers and the poor
- Dignity Angels – engages professional to support charities and corporate in their corporate social responsibilities

Mr Koh Seng Choon is an engineer by training and holds a MSc in Computer Integrated Manufacturing. His career spans UK, USA, India and China.


Authored of three books – Elements of Success: Business, Elements of Success: Education and Elements of Success: Living – of which the first book mentioned is a best-seller in India.

He is also the owner and management consultant of Christopher Benjamin Consultancy Services which help Chinese companies to develop business in India and Indian companies for the China market. He is an adjunct lecturer at SP Jain School of Global Management.

FOLLOW SENG CHOON
Website: http://dignitykitchen.sg/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sengchoon.koh
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kohsengchoon

ABOUT RICH
Driven by the belief that change begins with a single step, Richard Brubaker has spent the last 15 years in Asia working to engage, inspire, and equip those around him to take their first step.

Acting as a catalyst to driving sustainability, Brubaker works with government, corporate, academic and non-profit stakeholders to bring together knowledge, teams, and tools that develop and execute their business case for sustainability.

FOLLOW RICH
Website: http://www.richbrubaker.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rich.brubaker
LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richbrubaker
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/richbrubaker

CONTACT RICH
social@richbrubaker.com

#richbrubaker #missiondriven