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  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Doug Betts, an HR expert, about how founders can build more effective teams and the lessons that he has learned while growing his business.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    There’s a lot of things that happen on a daily basis in the corporate world that, when the pandemic happened, just didn’t make sense any more. I wanted to think about doing things in a different way and being a bit more of a positive disruptor in how I worked. For example, it seems pointless going to an office 5 days a week. If you allow a bit of flexibility you’ll benefit a lot of people’s lives.

    I’m working with some contractors on my business, so I don’t have employees. But I do have external support, where I need it, from experts who can do lower-level tasks that I can’t do myself or don’t enjoy doing.

    A lot of founders hit a sense of overwhelm, no matter how good you are, it can be a little bit too much and you’re not quite sure which thing to do first. Or it can be feast or famine where work can be so manic that you don’t concentrate on things like marketing and finding new business. Be on top of your numbers, because then you know when you can start to outsource tasks.

    You need to find people whop align to you business and have similar values to you, and not just about how you work. Ask some behavioural questions when you interview them not just competency-based questions, seeing how they react and what their behaviours are like will let you know if you can trust them or not. Don’t manage them but give them regular ongoing feedback.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘My motivation for getting out of bed in the morning and doing this is that I like helping people and solve problems.’

    ‘Lockdown gave me a good opportunity to reassess and think about what I was going to do next and think about my skillset in a different way.’

    ‘As a founder, the business is you and ultimately you’re accountable for everything, so make sure you have a clear vision, mission, and goals for your business and communicate those to your team.’

    ‘You’ve got to show up every day in your business, even if you’re not physically there. Your team will look up to you as the motivator and inspirer.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Doug Betts is a visionary HR leader with over 20 years of experience across various sectors, but with a particular interest in Charities/not for profits.

    Website

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Elin Bergman, the circular economy queen of Sweden, to talk about her company, cradlenet, as well as her career in sustainability.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    I our ‘Circular Friday’ meetings we teach businesses about the latest news in the circular economy, we invite speakers, experts and scientists. It’s unique that we meet our members every single Friday. On top of that we hold regular member’s meetings where we go deeper into subjects like standards and legislations, so they know what to do. We also do projects and write reports as well as pushing a lot of content out on social media and our website.

    Sweden has clean streets, and we’ve fought a lot of environmental problems successfully, but it’s extremely not sustainable, we push things out of sight and out of mind. We have fantastic wate systems and so on, but when it comes to circularity, we really destroy the precious resources we have and emit a lot of carbon.

    The reason for that is that we’re quite rich, we can afford to have big, heavy cars, we buy clothes like crazy people, every time we move somewhere we rip out perfectly fine kitchens because we want to put our own stamp on things, and we have multiple houses with the country house standing empty for most of the year.

    We’re destroying many of the precious resources we need for the renewable energy transition. We only have a certain amount of gold, copper, aluminium and so on, but right now we’re acting as if it will never run out. But prices are going up, there’s less to dig up out of the ground, and at the same time we’re wasting it by dumping it in electronic waste dumps and burning it. We really need to fix this system and the circular economy is a great way of doing that.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘Finland is much better at the circular economy than other countries.’

    ‘The planet is only 7.2% circular, and that number is going down. In Sweden it’s even worse: Only 3.4% circular, which means we’re one of the 20 worst countries in the world when it comes to circularity and over-consuming.’

    ‘If we don’t take care of the way we consume and produce things then we’ll have a problem.’

    ‘Recycling is the last thing you should do in the circular economy, it’ about resource efficiency and looking after the precious resources that we have. New things are coming into the circular economy every day, I’m never done learning about it.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Elin Bergman: I am passionate about accelerating the transition to a circular economy that enables humanity to live in harmony with nature. I have over 16 years of experience working in sustainability, working at organisations such as WWF, sustainability consultancies and the Haga Initiative.

    I currently work as the Chief Operating Officer, Vice Chair and spokesperson of the leading business network for circular economy in Sweden - Cradlenet. In that role I also serve as an advisor for various initiatives and being part of the reference group of the Swedish Delegation for circular economy, and the Circular Economy Coalition.

    In 2018 I co-founded the Nordic Circular Hotspot, a platform that connects and showcases circular economy actors and initiatives in the Nordic region and beyond. The organisation now has managing partner organisations in all Nordic countries.

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

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  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Chloe Wynn, director of Maven Design Studio, about sustainability in traditionally one of the most environmentally impactful and wasteful industries: construction.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    Unfortunately, the construction industry is incredibly wasteful. Similarly to fashion trends come and go quite quickly in interior design. In our homes we’re encouraged to revitalise with a new kitchen every 5-10 years. What do we do with all that stuff that gets thrown away? Maybe it goes to a second-hand selling site, but sadly a lot of it is cheap, disposable items that people don’t have an emotional connection to, so they don’t care what happens to it next and it ends up in landfill. Most of my work is in the commercial space and a lot of the briefs I get are from development managers who say they need to change things because their customers need to see something different as a reason to visit the premises, just for the sake of it. One of the trigger points for me falling out of love with the construction industry and wanting to change it to become more sustainable was a time when we wanted to reuse a granite work surface. The contractors accidentally cracked it, so I told them to find out how much it would cost to be fixed and the cost was more than buying a new piece of granite that was extracted from Italy and shipped to the UK. I was infuriated. It’s not just about carbon, it’s about water pollution, air quality, what are we doing about waste, what are we doing about labour exploitation, mental health pressures from capitalism. We need to find a better way of doing things.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘If we’re refurbishing sites every 5-7 years, which is the standard cycle is, we’re just getting a bigger and bigger pile of chairs for example, because they’re not cost-effective to take apart.’

    ‘It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility. I can see the problem and I choose to try and do something positive about it.’

    ‘Good maintenance is a huge factor of being sustainable, if you look after things they last longer.’

    ’10-15 years ago no design studios were talking about sustainability, whereas now it’s really encouraging the amount of studios, architects, and even some clients talking about it, because it’s important to their customers.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Chloe Wynn is a designer inspired by nature, culture, and the senses, with technically considered solutions and circularity in mind.

    Website

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Richard Lue, a fashion consultant, about fashion and working with big, global brands

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    I studied accounting and finance, and I got into fashion by accident. I started modelling at 16 years old and I saw a sign in a window of a Benneton shop, so I applied and got the job as a sales assistant. The brand was very prestigious at the time and the brand put its name to a lot of worthy causes and I was proud to be part of the organisation. At 17 or 18 I got to go to Italy to buy clothes for the new menswear department. Diversity is better in fashion, for gender than in almost any other industry, there are a lot of female bosses. When you look at people of colour or from different ethnicities, it feels like the ‘Guinness effect’ where it's brown at the bottom and at the top it’s very, very white, which is a shame. It has to do with the hiring process where people hire people who look and sound like them, but if you want to go into new markets and understand them you need people from those markets who understand that culture to give you the extra step to overcome those difficulties. In the 20-plus years I’ve been working with these big brands there have been multiple times where I’ve had to speak up and say “That sounds racist, that shouldn’t be happening in a business meeting.” All those things were passed off as “it’s not their first language, maybe you heard it wrong”, they always made it out that the things that I heard that were absolutely racist I’d taken the wrong way. After a while, you get a little bit nervous about being seen as the complaining person. Finally, I reported it and we had to go to court to sort it out. At the top level, everybody believes in the overarching themes, but when you get to middle management, people who are trying to hit targets and controlling their budgets, that’s where it’s in completely different hands and the ownership of culture gets lost. It’s a lot better now and now I can speak about it at that same company’s Black History Month events and they have protections in place.

    BEST MOMENTS
    ‘It’s important we have community in all these spaces because things can go wrong when you have the wrong network.’


    ‘These brands are so big and creating so much that even if they produce 10% of their collections sustainably, it would still be a drop in the ocean.’


    ‘At the end of the day being sustainable doesn’t mean not being desirable, I’m always working on let’s make desirable product and find a sustainable way of producing it.’


    ‘Who are you targeting? What are you trying to produce? What are the price points? Create a bible so that anyone working in the organisation can see what the brand stands for.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST
    Richard Lue has over twenty years of experience delivering exceptional business results for premium and luxury brands like Benetton, Guess, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein, his consultancy specialises in creating bespoke solutions for new, emerging, and established brands looking to develop clothing and business strategies in a sustainable way.
    LinkedIn

    ABOUT THE HOST
    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.
    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.
    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.
    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.
    CONTACT DETAILS
    Website
    Facebook
    Instagram
    Twitter
    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Maria Remy about circularity and fashion.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    The problem in the UK is there’s often quite a long time between swapping events where you don’t know what to do with your clothes, you want to consume more because of the fast pace of fashion but you may not have the chance to do so. We created a digital platform to be the bridge between the events. CLOSWAP is a Tinder-based model, swiping right and left releases dopamine, you then match with people and you can choose to meet up with them or ship the items to them via same-day bike delivery. People who are in fashion are often artistic people, they care about the purpose and the mission, which is great – that’s what sells the product. But, if you make that a business that can sustain itself the impact will be larger over the long term. Most people only care about themselves, which might sound pessimistic but it’s reality, so you have to match the behaviours that are there: Over-consumption, dopamine-hit-requirement, short attention spans. Circularity is one of the only solutions to prolong the lifecycle of clothing.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘CLOSWAP is Tinder for clothes and Eventbrite for swapping events combined.’

    ‘Swapping is probably the least financially viable business to get into, we’ve never hosted an event that was profitable!’

    ‘Impact is the mission I want to pursue throughout my life.’

    ‘Apps like Vinted take too long, when I buy something I want it right now.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Maria Remy is a former professional athlete turned marketing specialist, creative director and founder of CLOSWAP, winner of the Mayor's Entrepreneurship Award 2024 and a top 700 startup & social venture (according to Hult Prize) pioneering in circular fashion.

    With a background in fashion styling and a passion for social impact, she leads with creativity, strategy, and a commitment to change. Maria is also the president of the Women in Business, driving diversity and innovation in the industry.

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Adela Mei, founder of Jackdaw Coaching, to talk about ecology, conservation, business coaching, the rainforest, and more.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    I was running a bar, watching people drinking and I had this moment where I asked myself what I was doing. I ended up seeing a counselor by accident and he asked me what it was I wanted to know, and I said I wanted to find out how it all works. He said that was called ecology and I went off to university at the age of 25 to study ecology and conservation and went on to do a master's. Over the last 20 years, things have got better and worse. Eco-tourism, the idea that by bringing tourism to the rainforest you also bring income to indigenous villages, in theory, was fantastic: Villages worked in the biological research stations making handicrafts to sell, and some were taught English and worked as guides. The downside of that is that local people were earning significantly more money than they’d been used to and they spent it on alcohol, so it had a devastating impact on the communities, especially the young. While I was in Peru I got interested in web design and marketing because I was doing that while I was there. When I came back to the UK I started building websites for other wildlife conservation projects. That side of my business grew for quite some time and though I couldn’t get back out to the rainforest I really love technology and I bring all of that into my work now. We are intrinsically connected to the planet. It may not be obvious to everybody, but the air we breathe, and the water we drink, are all connected and underpin that belief. We must protect the planet and do our best.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘For my dissertation I went to Peru for three months with a friend to study emergent trees in the rainforest, and I got the bug. Over the next three years I was out there most of the time.’


    ‘When people talk about “nature bathing”, this was full immersion in the rainforest.’

    ‘Seeing clear-felling broke my heart. What was pristine rainforest that was thousands of years old decimated in days.’


    ‘I work mainly with positive impact projects – businesses or business owners who deeply care about the environment and who want to be a forced for good.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    https://jackdawcoaching.com/10-steps-to-build-a-sustainable-business/

    Adela Mei helps business owners take simple steps to sustainable business success, with digital strategy and business coaching.

    With her wealth of experience in web design, digital marketing, and online platforms, she helps business owners streamline their online presence, creating consistent and clear messaging, so they can attract more clients.

    Adela set up her own company Jackdaw Coaching Ltd in 2020 to support small businesses grow sustainably, through digital strategy, personal branding and business coaching.

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Rebecca Ghim, founder of The Firm, a company that produces kimchi – a fermented food made of commonly discarded food byproducts to talk about her product and food waste more generally.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    The work ‘kimchi’ derives from the word for ‘dunked vegetables’. It’s similar to lacto-ferments and sauerkraut but instead of vinegar, it uses salt brine to preserve the vegetables. Kimchi making was something I always did with my family and when I moved away I missed it so much that I started making my own because store-bought ones weren’t the same, but using local vegetables rather than importing vegetables. I was able to choose whatever I wanted to study for my masters, I chose food waste because it resonated with me the most and I’ve always enjoyed talking about food. I didn’t realize it was going to become the focus of the master’s degree! It led to modules on food insecurity, soil health, farmers’ rights, food sovereignty, and racial biases within the food industry and how colonization and industrialization have shaped the supply chain we have now. The main ingredients are rescued from restaurants and hospitality level (catering companies), they have about 100-200kg of cauliflower leaves and broccoli stems that they provide me with per week. I can’t take all of it, so I can only take about 60kg depending on demand a sales. Just in the UK we produce 9.5 million tons of food waste per year. That’s enough to feed the 8.4 million people in the UK who are in food poverty. Globally, one-third of all food produced goes to waste. This also means the water, labour, and transport emissions are all wasted too. 10% of global emissions come from food waste. Farmers’ rights are being overlooked, they’re not being compensated properly, and the people who deserve to have better food don’t have access to it either.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘The idea for my startup was that it would be an interesting, marketable idea to reduce food waste using kimchi.’
    ‘It was passion-led, I didn’t plan it.’
    ‘The only way to eliminate household food waste is through behavior change and education around what is “edible” vs “inedible”.’
    ‘I get rid of the pain points for restaurants and hotels by taking the food waste they would otherwise be charged for disposing of.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Growing up in South Korea, Rebecca Ghim participated in Kimjang, a collective ritual where a neighborhood comes together to make kilos of kimchi.

    She kept up the ritual while studying abroad, first with friends and now through partnerships with restaurateurs and farmers.

    Rebecca’s business, The Ferm, produces a range of fermented food made of commonly discarded byproducts. She hopes to bring better gut health to customers by promoting probiotic meals while helping to create a circular economy within the UK’s food systems.

    The Ferm’s products are being sold in farmer’s markets, delis, health food shops, and cafés in London. Rebecca has also trialed a fermentation service with the OXO Tower Restaurant where she collected their waste cauliflower leaves and turned them into kimchi to use in the restaurant.

    She’s now looking for ways to expand this B2B fermentation service alongside her products.

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing e-commerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channeling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Niclas Iren, an expert within the sustainability and circularity space, about his pioneering work in this area including wireless charging of electric vehicles while they’re driving and the issues around new technologies like this.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    My interest in sustainability and circularity started with my interest of the issues of the future; where are we heading, what will this world become far down the road, what are the big, macro issues for the future? It wasn’t called sustainability when I started but it got re-framed later. Why stop for an hour to charge your car? Why not charge on the move? It can be done via dynamic wireless transfer where electric coils are embedded under the asphalt and under the vehicle is a receiver so when the vehicle passes over the infrastructure in the road a magnetic field is created which transfers the electricity to charge the battery while the vehicle is driving. It’s part of smart infrastructure of the future. When I started my customers were the largest corporations, because they had pressure put on them to work toward sustainability, today it’s much smaller companies and startups which have circularity and sustainability at the core of the DNA of the company. To me it’s much more exciting to work with these small companies that want to change things for real, that want to have a transformative impact on society. Lots of companies are purpose- or values-driven. When it comes to building a team and an organisation as it grows, a lot of people are also very values-driven and they want to pick where they want to work. If the values in the company don’t align with what they’re looking for then recruitment won’t be successful.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘It’s really important for sustainability-based companies to not lose track of the fundamentals of doing business: Understanding their market/customer, designing products.’

    ‘There are different ways of forming your team but, typically, you need a lot of different skills, capabilities and competencies.’

    ‘In most businesses, the most important skill is the ability to meet the customer and make a sale. You can have the best product but, if you can’t sell it, it won’t work’

    ‘In any business you will consume resources, you can try and make as much of those resources circular, but you will never reach 100%.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Niclas Ihrén is recognized as one of the most influential thought-leaders on sustainability in business in the Nordics. Currently the CEO of strategy consultant Matters Group with a vast experience from; Tällberg Foundation, Global Utmaning/Global Challenge, World Climate Solutions, World Ecological Forum to mention a few.

    Website

    LinkedIn

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Angela Roth, an ex-police officer who is now a heart-led coach who coaches entrepreneurs in visibility and marketing to explain her journey.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    Policing took me to new places and parts of myself that I didn’t know existed. It stretched me in all sorts of areas and put me into contact with people I’d never have met. What it developed in me was a real compassion for people and the start they get in life. We have the power to help them change that. Once I had children, I started my first business which grew until covid shut the front-facing business down. I went online and discovered there’s a lot of really passionate people out there who want to help others, and I realised that I had the skills to help them do that. Many people I was dealing with while in the police force had never been given the chance to follow their heart. They’d been almost pushed into a way of life they didn’t enjoy or like. I as my business clients the same thing now: Deep down, what would you really like to do in life? Most of them had something but they never thought it would be possible. Often it was to support a family, have a business of their own, bring in an income, but they didn’t know how to do that. Changing peoples’ lives is wonderful. Watching them begin to access and do what they’re really capable of… I love it, it gives me energy every day.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘Policing taught me a coaching mindset.’

    ‘If everybody that I dealt with say thank you to me by the end of their journey with me, I’d feel like I’ve done a good job.’

    ‘If you had the choice to do what you really want to do, what is it that excites you and who is it you’d really love to help?.’

    ‘If you follow your heart the world is a bigger place, the imagination can take you much further than your mind can, and it can really draw out of you the magic that’s inside.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Angela Roth: My own Career path is many and varied, following our own travels around the country. But my passion, and first love, is helping coaches to thrive, giving them the skills they need to follow their own calling! Everyone should have the opportunity to Succeed From The Start - hence the name of our training and development community membership; none of us goes into business without experience to share, and drive to achieve - if you haven't hit your success yet, help is at hand!

    Website

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to David Chenery to talk about sustainable interior design and architecture and the differences and similarities between the two.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    We work with existing buildings. In the hospitality world, which we serve, the average space gets fitted out every 5-7 years. We need to look at that in terms of our duty as designers to avoid as much waste as possible and limit the environmental impact of that change. Sustainability and circularity weren’t discussed in this industry for many years because the job is hard enough with pleasing the client, meeting budgets, deadlines and building control regulations, sometimes you’re just trying to get through it. We focused and dug into sustainability about 5-6 years ago because we wanted to hold ourselves to account as well as attract clients that are interested in that agenda too. The industry has got better and there are people doing good things, but I’m also aware that we’re not really representative of the whole industry. The first thing we look at with a fit-out project is what will be demolished or removed and how can you keep as much as possible and make best use of the space there. Then we look at low-impact design to make the least number of design moves you can, bringing in the least amount of materials, optimising the layout for efficiency, using ethically sourced materials. We also have to design for end of life so that we minimised the waste and impact of the disassembly process. Does sustainable design cost more money? It depends how far back you go in the design process. 80% of environmental impact is baked in at the design stage. Rather than build a cupboard from more expensive FSC-certified plywood, could you build a set of shelves? Yes, you should, because you’ll be using 20% less material which will cost you less than a cupboard made from cheaper, uncertified plywood.

    BEST MOMENTS

    Restaurants can open and fail within 2 years, all the material, energy and effort involved in getting that open is then wasted.’

    ‘A lot of people think about carbon and NetZero when they think about sustainability, but in the fit-out world carbon is measurable and can be important, but it’s not holistic enough.’


    ‘When you throw something away there is no ‘away’, it has to go somewhere, can you donate materials to charities or break it down and process the materials in a genuine recycling way to avoid landfill?’


    ‘The deeper we get into it the more interested I am in the principles: What is the least we can do to be excellent?’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    David Chenery is the founder of Object Space Place, a sustainable hospitality design studio, working across architecture, interior design and branding. He also co-hosts the “Hospitality and the Infinite Game” series with Michael Tingsager.

    Website

    Podcast

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn



  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Joshua Prieto, co-founder of Seeds of Tao, about regenerative enterprises.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    The regenerative movement and regenerative enterprises are working towards is that we’d like to see a circular economy in the future, one that’s just and fair and actually has a right alignment with the natural systems that are at play. There’s not one circular/regenerative business out there today, we’re all very dependant on an extractive system, but we’re trying to seed the notion that business doesn’t have to be, that’s the vision we’re trying to bring to life. I discovered permaculture (the philosophy of moving beyond sustainability towards a more regenerative realm) around the same time I began my career in marketing, branding, sales and messaging. I found myself split; I really loved marketing and messaging and the creative outlet that provided me, but at the same time I found myself not wanting to be involved in capitalistic/consumer-driver, growth at any cost campaigns. Circular and regenerative are similar, though circular is more focussed on the product side. In a lot of ways, it’s harder to change a product/consumer-driver world into a more regenerative one. Its already ingrained in an extractive system. Regenerative businesses are coming up with new or different ways that detach themselves from the extractive systems that are at play.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘Truly regenerative businesses are in alignment with nature, they don’t take or extract from natural systems, cultures, etc.’

    ‘We can do business in a different way.’

    ‘We should never blame the tools (marketing), we should always take responsibilities for our own actions.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Joshua Prieto is the Co-Founder and Director of the Seeds of Tao learning platform for regenerative entrepreneurs. He has over 10 years of experience creating, building, and operating startup solutions alongside entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes. That experience has shown him that entrepreneurs have the biggest role to play in the Anthropocene as we either create the solutions for, or become the root problem of, our people, planet, and future. Josh now co-creates educational programs that disrupt the current way our entrepreneurs learn. His holistically designed educational programs empower entrepreneurs to stop chasing “silver-bullet” solutions and start designing solutions that use regenerative systems.

    Website

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Chris Desai, an award winning CEO, philanthropist and entrepreneur who is highly experienced in sustainability in the fashion industry and runs an environmental charity.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    Through working in music and fashion I ended up in fast fashion, which we all know is a massive polluter. 10 years into my career I started to see the amount of pollution we were causing and what we were doing to our planet and I though; enough’ s enough. I can’t say I love the planet and want to protect it whilst my industry is breaking the planet. I would click a button and order 400,000 T-shirts for the week. You don’t realise how much water, dye, polyester, plastic that uses. Then you think of the ethics of the working conditions in certain countries. The buying behaviours of people in the UK are causing a lot of these issues abroad. It’s so easy to press a button and alleviate the responsibility. I got to a point where I realised that my values of protecting the planet, looking after nature and my job were completely misaligned. I had an honest conversation with myself where I discovered I was a hypocrite; I’m not living what I believe. 90% of the world are also hypocrites, not living what they believe, their actions do not equate to what they believe. When I left that job I took six months out and spent it sailing, it wasn’t glamourous, it was damp and horrible, but it was at a time that I really needed to connect back to the planet and understand that I had a higher purpose and a better calling that just making money designing clothes. On that six-month journey at sea with no laptop or phone, meditating every day that I truly connected with myself and whether it made money or not I was going to live my purpose and have faith.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘Not many people know that the textile industry is the second biggest polluter in the world.’

    ‘I walked out of the big London fashion firm that I worked for because I seemed to be the only one that could see that we were killing the planet.’

    ‘When you ask people: “If I gave you £1million what would you do?” It’s never what they’re doing right now.’

    ‘We are all human and all living on one planet. Conservation is a uniting factor that transcends all beliefs, gender, race, we’re all on this planet and we can all look after it.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Chris Desai is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who set up The Vayyu Foundation in 2017, a registered charity that has made considerable contributions to the benefit and protection of the planet with its global projects UOCEAN 2050 and UEARTH 2050.

    Website

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Lydia Brearley, a sustainable fashion advocate, about fashion, legislation, and how we can make changes together as an industry.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    While I was living and working in Shanghai in 2016 the Chinese government was focussing on pollution levels and a lot of the factories had restrictions imposed on them in terms of their output. At the same time mills were closing down which meant that orders were going late, prices were going up and this started affecting my business. Occasionally a siren would go off in the city, which was panicking for me having never had it explained. It was a pollution siren indicating that the pollution level was so high that school kids couldn’t play outside. In that moment my business didn’t fell aligned with my own personal values and I started to pivot my career toward sustainability. When was first consulting and speaking to directors it felt like they had intentions, but trying to move the dial and impact change was quite difficult. A lot of us in the industry need to almost unlearn all that we’ve learned in our careers because it’s not fit for the future. Whether your business is impacted or not you need to have an understanding of what these legislations are about and why they’re being introduced, what the challenges and risks are in the textile industry and why they’re being implemented in the first place. Even if you don’t need to officially comply, it’s important that you understand the principles behind it and start to adopt that in your business.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘Enkel means ‘simple’ in Swedish, it’s all about simplifying sustainability.’

    ‘There’s so much happening in legislation, it’s really overwhelming. Everyone’s talking about it but there’s very few resources where you can identify what things mean, the differences between different acts and what acronyms mean.’

    ‘It can take seasons to implement change, when you look at the reports about where we’re going, we don’t have that much time.’

    ‘I appreciate how challenging it is for bigger brands to do a lot of this stuff, but I’m very much in the mindset of: You can’t just tick a box, it is a journey, start with the biggest impact and go from there and make sure that everybody in the business is aligned with that vision.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Lydia Brearley is a Fashion Buyer and sustainable fashion advocate, with over 20 years global experience, having lived and worked in London, Brussels, Shanghai and Sweden. She now specialises in Sustainability and Circularity @thisisenkel, and supports brands and businesses to drive meaningful change within the Fashion Industry.

    LinkedIn

    Website

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Dr Teri Baydar, a leadership development coach & author, about her book, ‘Flip The Switch’.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    The book is about the 2 forms of consciousness that most humans experience (only 3-4% of us don’t). We live in a state of almost perpetual conflict, inner and outer, which I call ‘war consciousness’ and it stems from the structure of the left brain where we spend way too much time trying to fix things, tactically/practically figure things out, where we feel like we have to capture, contain and control something out there. Systemically we’ve pushed ourselves as a species more and more into that kind of consciousness which is really bad for us. The other form of consciousness inhabits the right brain and that is where we take a step back, relax and know that pretty much everything is OK. From that state of mind we seek to comprehend, we want to connect with people, with life, we build relationships and solve problems. We’re open to not needing to be right or wrong and to solving the problem from a higher sense of consciousness. We have created a system – economically, socially – that has certain outcomes that are undesirable, such as trashing the planet, but we keep doing it. Why? Because we can’t get out of our own way to think differently. Any leader that wants to disrupt or change anything has to first understand that you have to do it in your own mind. We mistakenly think strategy is going to solve a problem. I can strategically destroy someone, but strategy is only applying very good tactical, practical techniques from a higher level, but what’s missing there is connectivity to life. Understanding that if I want to destroy something or someone that’s destructive, not creative, healthy or beneficial.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘In order to change things, to solve problems, to think critically, we have to get out of our left brain and into our right mind.’

    ‘The book is the MC2 of absolutely the thing you have to do as an entrepreneur, a leader, a person in order to solve problems from a higher level.’

    ‘Instead of disrupting in order to create better we end up disrupting and destroying and doing the same things over again, just in a slightly better, less toxic wat.’

    ‘A lot of high achievers think even of themselves as units of productivity, you’re not.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Dr Teri Baydar is the CEO of White Lily Individual Development, LLC. Dr. Teri is a leadership development consultant, executive coach, and personal development expert who educates and supports C-suites and high achievers towards their personal path of self-actualizing growth for the greater good. During the decades she has spent coaching high-potential individuals, she has filled the role of mentor, friend, confidante, counsellor, healer, educator, the “CEO Whisperer,” and even “my own personal Yoda.”

    Website

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Blaine Bartlett, a consultant who has impacted more than one million people globally about his role as a coach and motivator and how business can succeed by taking inspiration from nature.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    In nature, in my childhood, I marvel at the seasonality, the way life seems to fit together, nothing seems to go to waste, it’s utilised in some way, shape or form. Even in times of drought things still grow. From that childhood experience I started considering what is the purpose of business, so I went to study economics which is the study of scarcity. The universe is not scarce, it’s infinitely abundant, I wanted to study abundance and nature is abundant. I took the implication from that to how I run my businesses. There is no such thing that exists in real life as a free-market economy in the way that most people experience business. There’s restraints, guardrails, prohibitions, nature is truly the only free-market economy: When it’s left untouched it does what it’s supposed to do, which is grow and distribute goods and services for the consumption of those aspects of nature that need it. Compassion is predicated and organised around connection, it’s literally impossible for me to behave compassionately towards something or someone unless I feel emotionally connected to them. It informs the decisions that I make and my behaviours. This comes from being conscious that your business touches many more people than just your board and shareholders and that your decisions have ripple effects that affect more than just the bottom line. One of the catalysts for a move to utopia is to define in people’s minds what the purpose of a business is. It’s not to make money – that’s important to stay in business – but the purpose of business is to enhance the likelihood of thriving for the people that come in contact with my service or product.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘I work with some of the largest organisations on the planet and look at how we can make them more hospitable to the human spirit.’

    ‘Leadership, business, enterprises all trace back to: How do we succeed? The answer to that question is: We pay attention to what nature can teach us.’

    ‘The container that we operate in constrains our behaviour. If we change the structure of the container it makes possible different behaviours which generate different outcomes.’

    ‘The problem with large enterprises is that there’s so much inertia built into the system that it’s really difficult to turn them. It is possible. It may be utopistic, but who doesn’t want to live in a utopia?’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Blaine Bartlett is President and CEO of Avatar Resources, Inc., a consulting firm he founded in 1987. He is also Founder of the Institute for Compassionate Capitalism, a Managing Director of the Global Coaching Alliance, an Adjunct Professor at China’s Beijing University, Dean of Education at the World Business Academy, and a member of the teaching faculty at the American Association for Physician Leadership.

    Personal website
    Company website
    Email: [email protected]
    Facebook
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    Podcast: Soul of Business with Blaine Bartlett
    TEDx: Nature as the Ultimate Business Guru

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Dr Teri Baydar, a leadership development coach & author, among many other things, to talk about her journey and consciousness.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    My book, ‘Flip Your Switch’ is about the 2 forms of consciousness that almost all of us experience – only 3-4% of us don’t experience this. We live in a state of almost perpetual conflict, both inner & outer, which is what I call ‘war consciousness’ which stem from the structure of the left brain where we spend way too much time trying to fix things & tactically/practically trying to figure things out, where we feel like we have to capture, contain & control something that we’re fixated on. Systemically, as a species, we’ve pushed ourselves more & more into war consciousness & it’s becoming really bad for us. The other type of consciousness stems from the right brain/mind, which is where we take a step back, relax & know that everything is pretty much OK. From that state of mind, we seek to comprehend, we want to connect with people/life, build relationships & solve problems. This is ‘love consciousness’ which connects with life in a deep way personally & a larger way for solving problems & understanding things. We’ve created a system, economically, socially, that has certain outcomes that are undesirable, like trashing the planet. But we keep doing it. Why? Because we can’t get out of our own way to think differently. Any leader that wants to disrupt or change anything has to first understand that you have to do it in your own mind. If you’re living in a valley, you don’t know what’s going on in the next valley. The only way to see & understand is to rise to the mountaintop & look around at the different valleys & have a viewpoint where you can comprehend, on a wider scale, what’s happening. This leads to critical thinking, but we have to go a little father than that, we have to simultaneously contrast & compare with the left brain which is this logistical, statistical functionality, but it needs to be in service of the higher values that are coming from the right mind.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘To change things, solve problems, think critically, we have to get out of our left brains into our right mind.’

    ‘No problem was ever solved at the level of consciousness that it was created.’

    ‘We have a destructive mindset. Instead of disrupting in order to create better, we end up disrupting & destroying & doing the same things all over again, just at a slightly better, slightly less toxic way.’

    ‘We can only see other solutions once we elevate our consciousness.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Dr Teri Baydar is the CEO of White Lily Individual Development, LLC. Dr. Teri is a leadership development consultant, executive coach, and personal development expert who educates and supports C-suites and high achievers towards their personal path of self-actualizing growth for the greater good. During the decades she has spent coaching high-potential individuals, she has filled the role of mentor, friend, confidante, counselor, healer, educator, the “CEO Whisperer,” and even “my own personal Yoda.”

    Website

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Vincent Avanzi, the world’s only ‘chief poetic officer’ about how being poetic can change the world.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    I’ve had a real passion for poetry since I was a teenager, firstly from hip hop & then to a broader sense of playing with words & being able to speak to everyone. I studied at business school, worked 5 years in Microsoft, created 2 startups online, but I also did self-development work & spiritual exploration by travelling around the world for 2 years which changed the trajectory of my life. My life’s mission is to re-enchant the world with poetry to create a world of harmony. I work with corporations on climate change, how to elevate your leadership, I also work with schools & prisons. The idea is to elevate yourself, find a more poetic path & live a more poetic life. Poetry allows us to contemplate an ideal or a common future for tomorrow & also allows us to speak from our heart to another heart, which means you can speak to anybody. I want to deliver a message of harmony. There’s nothing more beautiful than somebody is aligned with what he or she does. Through this you see the blossoming of a human being, it’s the basis of what I do: You can write a speech with universal reach. People say you can’t please everybody, but I think there’s a thin line where you can express yourself in an inclusive way where you can touch people’s hearts because you’re speaking from the heart to the heart. You can do this for you team or your audience.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘Poetry will save the world, & we’re all poets.’

    ‘A poet is not just a dreamer, it’s also a changemaker, a creator of new worlds.’

    ‘Poetry allows you to take another look at life & allows you to be dazzled by things, you can see the subtle, the good, the kind, the beautiful in people & things.’

    ‘Poetry is a language of peace & freedom where we can find the right word in our communication to have a peaceful conversation & relationship.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Vincent Avanzi is a Chief Poetic Officer, TEDx Inspirational Speaker, speech writer, globe trotter and founder of A Human Odyssey - The Ink Of The Future. Former ESCP graduate, Microsoft manager and author of 10 books including "Harmony and The Genius Spot of Mankind" and "Trouver son Point Génial" (Hachette), he is also a journalist for the business newspaper Les Echos, a co-founder of the University of Happiness at Work and a Residential Artist at the Institute for Desirable Future.

    Website

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Aparna Agarwal, a student of sustainability management to talk about life as a student as well as culture within sustainability & sustainable fashion.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    I have a strong interest in storytelling, I’m especially interested in social media & how brands want to communicate their sustainability & social impact story to their audience. When something is ‘cool’, you need to understand that it’s going to stop being cool eventually, when it comes to sustainability & climate change, it’s the exact opposite; we can’t afford to have sustainability & climate change as things that are ‘cool’. It’s something that we all need to work towards on a daily basis until we die. It shouldn’t be a trend. It’s great that young people are so passionate about it & posting about it on social media. My biggest fear is what happens when sustainability stops being cool, which might happen in the next 2-3 years. Will we then go back to hyper-capitalism & going back to fast fashion. Most people look at shopping as a way to de-stress, as a leisure activity, to chill, take a break from work & not think about serious things. If a brand is shouting at me for buying so much & giving me so much factual information about climate change, I’m not going to buy that product! It’s important for a brand to make that communication cool, & working on climate change a nice & great thing to do.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘It’s cool to think about the climate on a daily basis. That’s something I really focus on by humanising the whole problem.’

    ‘Climate change isn’t just a flood that might randomly destroy your house, it’s thousands of people working with unethical brands & getting products made at less than $1 a day.’

    ‘I want to make sure that when brands are genuinely working towards sustainability or social impact, they shouldn’t lose out on an audience because they can’t communicate it in the right way.’

    ‘The communication has to be drastically different for an Eastern audience compared to a Western audience because the culture is so drastically different. You need to really understand the audience & what they want to hear.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Aparna Agarwal is a a mission-driven Communications professional, helping brands deliver impact through meaningful storytelling. With global experience in Sustainability, Luxury and Fashion in my pocket, based in Delhi.

    LinkedIn

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Kieron James, CEO & founder of the FinTech and payments company, Wonderful about his business and his journey in business.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    Wonderful started off as an aspirational online giving charity platform that was completely free for charities in 2016. We were looking at all these charities, donors & fundraisers doing wonderful things & we felt we could provide a platform that sat in the middle where we aspired to be as wonderful as they were. Every penny went to charity with no deductions. Money Saving Expert did a fundraising website comparison page, ranked us at number 1, & we were suddenly inundated with charities. This set in motion a success paradox where the more charities, donors & fundraisers used our website, the more our corporate sponsorship budget was handed over to payment processing fees. Covid gave us the opportunity to pause & reflect on what we did & we discovered open banking which was really quick and easy to donate. Open banking means the opening up of APIs from the banks to FinTechs. We can, with the consent of a consumer or charity, move money from their account directly to the retailer or charity’s account. We’re on intermediary in the middle of that process, rather than when you make a payment with a card there are several intermediaries. It’s a bank-to-bank transfer with no data to enter, like sort codes, account numbers & names. We have a tagline of “do good, do well, & be well”. There’s often a perceived tension between doing good & doing well, can these 2 things co-exist without people getting cynical about them? Greenwashing, for example. The moment of creating a fundraising platform leading to creating a commercial business – which will keep supporting all of the work that donors, charities & fundraiser do every day – means there doesn’t need to be a tension, there can be a synergy between those things.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘Open banking is simple, fast, secure, even with a third party provider in the mix it’s about 90% cheaper than cards.’

    ‘We retained the name Wonderful for the payments business because we really see that making payments using open banking is wonderful.’

    ‘Whatever fees we incur through hosting, staffing, processing, will always be covered by a corporate sponsor so it’s always free for charities.’

    ‘My son did a sponsored skydive in 2016 & was outraged at the fact that a load of the money he’d raised for charity was being deducted by the fundraising platform. We thought it’d be great to do something about this.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Kieron James: An entrepreneur with 30 years of experience in launching and scaling start-up businesses in the tech sector, I am the CEO and Co-Founder of Wonderful, a company that provides simple, fast, and secure, instant bank payment solutions.

    By harnessing Open Banking, and at just 1p per transaction, Wonderful payments are much cheaper than debit and credit card processing. Our payment processing service and fundraising platform are both completely free for UK charities.

    I am Non-Executive Director at the Fundraising Regulator, where I contribute to the regulation and promotion of ethical fundraising practices in the UK.

    I am passionate about making a positive impact (it's how we got started in payments - solving the problem of prohibitive card fees for our online giving platform).

    With several successful exits, my mission is to make Wonderful Payments the leading instant bank payment provider.

    Website

    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

    CONTACT DETAILS

    Website

    Facebook

    Instagram

    Twitter

    LinkedIn

  • On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Gareth Benson, an IP lawyer, to talk about purpose and how he applies purpose to his work.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS

    If you are a purpose-driven business it is still a business & it has to run like one. You cannot change & save the world unless it is providing an opportunity for everyone, including yourself. So, it has to be treated as such. You can only amplify this brilliant idea & take it to the masses by employing millions of people. Your ideas are valuable & they’re worthy of your protection. If you’re going to create an idea that changes the world then it’s got to be protected. It’s not incredibly expensive, you can get a trademark insured for around AUS$2,000, & that protects you for 10 years. Mark Getty, of Getty Images, said that IP is the oil of the 21st century, except that it doesn’t harm the environment. Ideas are priceless but the opportunity to bring them to market needs to be respected because your ideas have value. The more you share your ideas with others, the more you treat them as assets, the further they will go & the more people they will touch. Education has value. Universities are some of the most powerful brands in the world: Melbourne University, number 1 in Australian, Stanford, Stokholm. Thes institutions licence their IP for very capable people to earn a very good education & they licence it for a fee. Most people don’t realise, but education is a massive business in the world, we pay a premium for it, & we pay for the certificate that you get at the end. The second biggest industry in Australian is education.

    BEST MOMENTS

    ‘IP is essentially about ideas. I believe in the power of ideas, & I believe the best ideas can change the world.’

    ‘Purpose & profit do go together because they make the most impact.’

    ‘You’re not an entrepreneur unless you’re providing a sustainable business that can affect thousands of people.’

    ‘We now live in an ideas economy that’s being accelerated by AI in front of our eyes.’

    ABOUT THE GUEST

    Gareth Benson is a qualified lawyer with the Law Institute of Victoria, admitted to the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2003 Gareth commenced his articles with boutique media entertainment practice Hebert Geer and Rundle (now Thomson Geers) and for Bradley Allen lawyers in Canberra, Australia’s national capital.

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    ABOUT THE HOST

    Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

    In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

    Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

    Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

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