It’s 2021. A new year brings new hope. For those of you who’ve generously followed Inside Asia for the past two seasons, we thank you for listening and for your loyal support. Over the course of the past 30 months, we’ve produced nearly 170 episodes, bringing to you insights through conversation from some of the region’s most compelling thinkers, leaders, and entrepreneurs. We’ve covered geopolitics, trade, technology, sustainability, the future of food, and leadership trends. We’ve covered vast...
Feb 07, 2021•3 min•Ep. 226
Something special happened in recent days, and in a slight departure from our regular format, I bring you a discussion held with one of the great environmental thinkers of our time, Hunter Lovins. It was on the occasion of one of our regularly scheduled gatherings of the Asia Corporate Leadership Council that Hunter joined us virtually from her ranch in Colorado. The Council is a partnership between The Conference Board, the Center for Creative Leadership, and Inside Asia, and is comprised of a ...
Dec 11, 2020•47 min•Ep. 225
This week on Inside Asia, we take a look at just one more way in which artificial intelligence is ingraining itself in our daily lives. With so much hype around AI, it’s hard to know what to think of it. In one moment, AI applications can appear benevolent, even helpful. And in the next, it can be intrusive. Facial recognition, for instance, can and has been used to track and screen innocent people simply going about their business. AI, you might say, wears many faces. One moment, it’s Big Broth...
Nov 26, 2020•39 min•Ep. 224
What a difference an election makes. Or at least, that’s the hope. It’s as if the world has been holding its breath and now – after no shortage of political drama – Joe Biden has emerged as the new President of the United States. Why’s that important? Because the world is suffering – environmentally, socially, and economically. The US can’t change all that, but it does bode well for a new era of greater international cooperation. As the world’s second largest polluter and the single largest econ...
Nov 12, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 223
When the influence of private capital exceeds that of a sovereign state, it raises an important question: Where does real power reside? Increasingly, it seems, money makes the world go round. At a time when stocks are over-valued, bond yields are flat, and property prices are inflated, private equity is where it’s at. Indeed, since the chaos of the 2008 Global Financial Crises, PE firms have only grown in size and influence. Asia has been a key beneficiary. And China – until recently – has absor...
Nov 02, 2020•51 min•Ep. 222
In the run-up to this year’s US Presidential election, the only Asia topic that appears to loom large is China. And during these days, no self-respecting US politician can talk about this rising Superpower without saying something disparaging. Indeed, there’s hardly a businessman, legislator, or policy wonk within the Beltway who has anything positive or hopeful to say about US-China relations. Maybe that’s simply because there’s nothing to be gained politically by doing so. Americans need to bl...
Oct 23, 2020•59 min•Ep. 221
2020 has been a headline year, dominated by news of a global pandemic, US elections, Brexit and China’s rise to power. On the business front, Corporate Purpose has emerged as the theme of the year. It comes on the back of an August 2019 statement released by the US-based Business Roundtable, calling into question the primacy of shareholders. For the past 50 years, corporations have operating on the principle that the only responsibility of business is to generate profits for its shareholders. Wi...
Oct 12, 2020•52 min•Ep. 220
If the world has a problem, technology will solve it. That’s the stance taken by many technologists and industrialists who trust that human innovation – when put to the test - will prevail. It’s the “human” part of the equation, however, that is increasingly in question. In Japan, for instance, where a demographic decline in working age citizens demands automation in order to fill the gap, Covid-19 has given the country further reason to invest in AI, robotics, and machine-learning wherever poss...
Oct 03, 2020•40 min•Ep. 219
After living in the shadow of Western-style development for the greater part of the last 200 years, China is in the throes of crafting it’s own vision of what it means to be a modern economic power. That doesn’t always sit well with other countries – and particularly the U.S. – a nation grown accustom to it’s hard-won hegemony. China’s demonstration of its new-found strength is showing up in dozens of ways. Militarily, as in its testing of its territorial rights with India and in the South China...
Sep 24, 2020•43 min•Ep. 218
This is Steve Stine from Inside Asia. Just 45 days from today Americans will go to the polls and cast a vote for the next president of the United States. By all counts, this is proving one of the most essential electoral decisions in modern US history. The outcome will fundamentally change the course of America and the reverberations will be felt throughout the world. As Inside Asia listeners, I’m asking one of two things of you: If you’re an American living abroad, please register and vote. If ...
Sep 17, 2020•4 min•Ep. 217
My guest this week is Isabelle Decitre, CEO of Singapore-based ID Capital. She’s a future-of-food advocate, an investor, and convener of food innovators. For many, there’s nothing more all-consuming and enticing than the topic of food. In these maddening times, food offers comfort, conjures up memories, and nurtures the body. Unfortunately, food all over the world, is not what it once was. Whether in pursuit of economic profit, or in a bid to deliver greater variety at lower prices, mass manufac...
Sep 17, 2020•33 min•Ep. 216
This week, we take a hard look at how consumption patterns in Asia have shifted as a result of the global pandemic. With me this episode is Nielsen’s Managing Director of Consumer Intelligence, Vaughan Ryan. I met Vaughan virtually during a recent Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry event where he, I, and others were asked to share our thoughts with the Singapore business community in a session entitled: “Gearing Up for the Next Normal.” Neilsen had just surveyed consumers in th...
Sep 10, 2020•34 min•Ep. 215
My guest this week is Davina Ho, Co-Founder and Chief Well-Being Officer at Hasiko, a Singapore-based advisory and training organization. She says that pre-Covid, stress levels in the workplace were on the rise. The global pandemic has only exacerbated the problem. So much so, she argues, that it’s time for employers to get involved. Davina says “mindfulness” is a solution for our times. It’s been six months since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic, and for many – ...
Aug 31, 2020•33 min•Ep. 214
My guest this week is Clay Chandler, Executive Editor for Fortune here in Asia. Based out of Hong Kong, he’s a long-serving member of the region’s journalistic community, holding stints with The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Time Inc. At Fortune, he’s created a niche in delivering nuanced tales, offering up an Asia perspective to challenge more populist US-centric views. US and China, it seems, are caught in a downwardly spiralling political maelstrom and there is no end in sight...
Aug 14, 2020•29 min•Ep. 213
My guest this week is Fraser Thompson, Founder and Managing Director of AlphaBeta, a Singapore-based consulting firm specializing in strategy and economics. Fraser and his colleagues teamed up with the World Economic Forum to highlight sector-specific ways in which business might profit, while enhancing bio-diversity and reducing the impact of climate change. He joins me in this episode to explain how they arrived at these figures and what it will take to deliver on it. According to the report, ...
Aug 07, 2020•53 min•Ep. 212
On this week’s episode of Inside Asia I’m in conversation with Steve Okun, political pundit and senior advisor with McClarty Associates. For years now, and with each new US political cycle, Steve steps up to offer an outside-in view of how things are shaping up. Understanding how politics shape Asia commerce is his forte. Every four years, US presidential elections role around and Americans are asked to pick a candidate who best represents their needs and ideals. Bread basked issues like jobs, t...
Jul 30, 2020•32 min•Ep. 211
These days, we busy ourselves 24/7 with emails, text messsges, spreadsheets and reports. Human contact is becoming obsolete, and Covid-19 and its social distancing requirements makes Zoom calls the last step in severing us from our friends and work colleagues. What’s left? The imagination, apparently. I’m talking about the science of day-dreaming. Momentary opportunities to give your brain a break, and in so doing, restoring the capacity to create in new and unexpected ways. You think I’m dreami...
Jul 24, 2020•50 min•Ep. 210
My guest this week is James Crabtree, an Associate Professor at the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy and a frequent commentator across news outlets here and abroad. In a recent Foreign Policy article entitled “The End of Emerging Markets,” James outlined many of his concerns as efforts are made to weather the Covid storm. In this episode, we visit the developing markets of South and Southeast Asia. Well, maybe “visit” isn’t the right word. Most emerging markets in this part of the world rema...
Jul 17, 2020•35 min•Ep. 209
This week my guest is Gavin Adda, CEO of Total Solar Asia. He is one of the true-borns who embraced solar and its potential nearly 15 years ago. This week, we take a look at the burgeoning solar industry. To be frank, it’s been a slog in many parts of Asia, where the appetite and economics for solar have long struggled to add up. Only Japan, some might say, has proven the exception. Change, according to Gavin, has finally come, thanks in large part to a dose of good old fashioned economics. Few ...
Jul 03, 2020•35 min•Ep. 208
My guest this week is John Wood, Founder of Room-to-Read, one of the world’s most successful education and gender equality non-profits. He wasn’t always in the business of building and filling libraries in the poorest parts of the world. For years prior, he served as a senior executive with Microsoft. Then came his great awakening. I won’t spoil it for you. Our conversation takes you back to the beginning, and it’s quite a tale. He’s a four-term member of the Clinton Global Initiative Advisory B...
Jun 26, 2020•37 min•Ep. 207
My guest this week is Daniel Moss, Bloomberg’s Asia Economy columnist based here in Singapore. In this week’s conversation, we contemplate the risks vs. rewards of urban living. We’re talking about mega-cities – defined as urban centers with a population of 10 million or more. What took hundreds of years in Europe has taken only decades in Asia, and the region for that – plain and simple – is economic growth and opportunity. For billions of Asians the city means jobs, new wealth, and opportunity...
Jun 22, 2020•34 min•Ep. 206
This week I’m in conversation with Mark Clifford, a long-time resident of Hong Kong, a former journalist and Editor-in-Chief of the South China Morning Post , and for the past 13 years, Executive Director of the Asia Business Council. In our conversation we look to Hong Kong. It’s been 23 years since the handover of the former British colony to to the People’s Republic of China. In that time, economic prosperity has grown, but so has political disharmony. In years past, public protests – sometim...
Jun 11, 2020•30 min•Ep. 205
This week I’m in conversation with Vivek Couto, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Media Partners Asia, a market research and consulting firm catering to the telecom, media and entertainment industry. According to Vivek, total minutes spent viewing online video in Southeast Asia jumped 60% in the first quarter of the year. Most of that new viewership occurred via smartphones, which suggests that video streaming is a private affair. Gone are the days when families circled up around the TV set t...
Jun 06, 2020•36 min•Ep. 204
After Covid-19, one of the biggest subjects occupying academia and boardrooms is Conscious Capitalism. You’re either deeply familiar with the term, or you’re not. If you’re not, climb aboard. Capitalism as we know it is about to undergo a major transformation. For the better part of a year now, the topic has been coming up in conversations with CEOs, investors and thought-leaders, who say the old paradigm of operating solely in the interest of shareholders is done and dusted. The new paradigm is...
May 29, 2020•50 min•Ep. 203
Lockdown to Rebound. That’s the theme of this this episode. But, unlike other episodes where we ferret out experts living and operating in the greater Asia region, this conversation brings it all back home - literally. Hunkered down in Singapore, I – like many of you – have had ample time to contemplate life and some of the bigger questions. We’ve all employed coping mechanisms, started new hobbies, or maybe just caught up on sleep. There’s no right or wrong solution. It’s all about creating som...
May 23, 2020•29 min•Ep. 202
My guest in this Inside Asia episode is Adam Schwarz, Founder and CEO of Asia Group Advisors, a strategy and investment advisory firm operating across Southeast Asia. Adam and his firm have made it their business to understand the economic and geopolitical complexities that inhabit this part of the world. In this conversation, we unpack some of the challenges the region faces from the Coronavirus outbreak to the rising influence of its neighbor to the north – China. As my conversation with Adam ...
May 15, 2020•35 min•Ep. 201
If this conversation with MyDoc CEO, Dr. Snehal Patel is any indicator, the Coronavirus pandemic has given the healthtech sector and unasked for boost. From Singapore to China, telemedicine is taking a load off bricks & mortar hospitals scrambling to care for Cvoid-19 patients. In Singapore alone there are nearly a dozen tele-medicine providers. Download an app, register, and within minutes, your in video consultation with a live doctor. He or she can diagnose and prescribe what you need. An...
May 09, 2020•37 min•Ep. 200
Earlier this week, the city of Wuhan discharged from hospitals the last of its patients infected with Covid-19, while nationwide, only three new cases were reported. In the latest official count, China reported 82,000 instances and 4,633 deaths. Many countries in Europe and the U.S. have blown well past that. Of course, no one knows if, when and how a second wave of the virus will come. The bigger queston – at least for the moment - is the economy. How hard was it hit and what long-term damage h...
May 01, 2020•48 min•Ep. 199
Prior to the outbreak, the greatest force in this part of the world was China. It’s awesome 40-year sprint to rise from ecominic backwater to international Superpower is the stuff of legend. For the longest time, it was a tale of economic prowess and an apparent embrace of free-market enterprise. A sign, perhaps, of China’s joining the economic league of nations. But appearances can be deceiving. The Middle Kingdom may have a plan of its own. The past few years suggest as much. Under the leaders...
Apr 24, 2020•37 min•Ep. 198
My guest this week is Andrew Hewitt, founder of GameChangers 500, an organization bent on identifying and ranking global organizations looking to make a difference. Andrew and his GameChanger colleagues have come to believe, and I quote, “that the profit-at-all-cost model just isn’t working,” end quote. Many of our listeners know, this is a subject near and dear to the heart. The world is coming to realize that the Earth is resource limited. The party is dwindling, and if, as a race, we hope to ...
Apr 14, 2020•38 min•Ep. 197
