The Zhen Way Podcast ZhenWei

This is an interesting conversation for me as we explore culture and life across multiple continents and hear it from someone who has set foot there rather than seeing it from social media or foreign media.

The news cycle has been distressing but as humans, oftentimes it is not representative of the full story, even if it comes from an elected official. Hoping this conversation can shed light on the nuances between actual people on the ground vs media portrayed stereotypes.



A couple of years ago, Kunal decided to leave his corporate job to experience cultures and life on another continent. Started as just attending the World Cup, but init ended up spending months in Colombia, Canada, and eventually settling in Moscow, Russia.



We spoke about:


The incredibly warm culture of Colombia vs the stereotypes of the country
What is it like teaching in a tough neighborhood where infamous gangs operate
Tales of bartending in Canada
Why does he feel more at ease in Moscow vs in Canada?
What is it like living in Moscow?

Sarah Wong is a podcast host of Make It Work, a new podcast featuring inspiring stories of working mums in Asia who have made career shifts for their family. She is currently based in Singapore and is a working mother to 2 young kids. Prior to returning to Singapore, she spent 6 years overseas - studying for her MBA  first and then working for a health startup-turned unicorn in Silicon Valley. 



In this episode we covered:

🌟How ‘hustling’ and not taking no as an answer had served her well since pre-university days till she landed her dream job in Silicon Valley

🌟Why she thinks value-based care is a game changer in health care for all of us

🌟Key learnings of the healthtech and insurtech space in Asia and the US 

🌟The story behind her podcast “Make It Work” and what she would write in her love letter to working mums



Links to articles mentioned in the episode - 

What is Value Based Care and why does it matter?: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-think-weve-reached-tipping-point-value-based-health-sarah-wong/

Medicare spending per capita has declined and no one knows why:

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/huge-decline-spending-medicare-begs-question-why

Value Based Care  in Asia:

https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2020/sep/the-march-to-value.html

In this episode, we speak Stef Sy, the Founder and CEO of Thinking Machines that builds advance machine learning and data platforms for businesses. Their internal tagline is making sci-fi into realities



In this conversation, we speak about A.I and its use case in HR. One of the fascinating use cases is really just-in-time learning, where we are able to provide employees with information and coaching at the time when it is most needed.



Here are some other conversation points during our chat:




How did Stef start her tech career in the Silicone Valley and the difference between the atmosphere their atmosphere and in Asia?
What are some use cases in A.I for HR?
What is the role of humans in implementing A.I if it can learn and improve?
What are some interesting stories that would further provide optimism about A.I?



#A.I #HR #learninganddevelopment

This is a special episode to me as I speak to a dear friend Douglas. We spoke about several aspects that we don't usually talk about so I'm glad we took the opportunity to do so.



We spoke about:




How a book in the school library set him on the path to study psychology
The path that he took that ended up serving the refugee community and why he stayed for 7 years
What are some "radical" ideas that he has tried and lessons that he learnt
Books that inspires him and changed his perspective



Hope you at least found a few new books to read!

In this episode, I had a chat with a fellow COO and Health Tech veteran, Jordan Masys.



Jordan's journey took him from Canada to Ethiopia, Taiwan and Boston.



In our conversation, we spoke about:




How he was reluctant to be in the healthcare space but ended up loving it
The encouraging and inspirational stories in Ethiopia and how the team succeeded in deploying an emergency response system but the UN failed even with millions of dollars.
How he co-founded a startup, LabFront that serves to accelerate meaningful healthcare research to deploy technology and research insights faster into the real world?
The role of the COO and the unique challenges that the role needs to solve. What is some advice for current or aspiring COOs?



Hope you'll enjoy this internationally diverse conversation!

In this episode, our conversation with Jo Fan covers a coupe of areas:


🎓 Explore Jo Fan's inspiring journey from law graduate to trying to make law services make accessible.
🌟 Why he thinks that product management is a highly political role
🚀 How his passion to solve various type of problems has propelled his career to try out many different industries and stories of solving some of the complex issues.
😺 What he does for the pet insurance startup, Oyen Insurance.
👨‍👩‍👦 We talk lil bit about tech and parenting


We hope you enjoy this geeky and interesting coversation!