Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
EP16 Kevin Yi: Phnom Penh’s Pandemic Policy & Advising Mongolian Government
36 Plays5 months ago
A fellow graduate of Cornell University, Kevin Yi started his career at EY in New York City, before moving inhouse to Dell as a strategy manager based in Singapore. In 2021 at the depth of Covid pandemic, he relocated to Cambodia to work for Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). Working at the frontlines at a developing country deeply shaped his outlook on life and career, and led his return to campus, where he is currently pursuing a dual MPA-ID/MBA degree at Harvard and MIT.
Whether it’s devising pandemic response at Phnom Penh, or adivising the Mongolian president on renewables energy strategy, Kevin worked at places where stakes are high but resources limited. Tune in to hear his stories as we catch up after 4 years.
Timestamps
(00:00:00) Introduction
(00:05:30) Relocation to Cambodia
(00:12:26) Clinton Health Access Initiative
(00:20:20) Combating Covid in Cambodia
(00:44:21) Renewables Work in Mongolia
(01:00:05) Future Aspirations
Disclaimer: This podcast is an independent personal project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any employer or organization. All views expressed are solely those of the host and guests. The content is for information and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, legal, tax, or professional advice. The host, guests, and associated parties assume no liability for any actions taken based on this content.
Recommended
Transcript
Kevin's Career Journey from Corporate to Impactful Work
00:00:00
Speaker
A fellow graduate of Cornell University, Kevin Yee started his career at EY in New York City before moving in-house to Dell as a strategy manager based in Singapore. In 2021, at the depth of COVID pandemic, he relocated to Cambodia to work for Clinton Health Initiative.
00:00:19
Speaker
Working at the front lines at a developing country deeply shaped his outlook in life and career. and led to his return to campus, where he is currently pursuing ah dual MPA, MBA degree, focusing on international development at Harvard and MIT.
00:00:38
Speaker
So Kevin, the last time we met was back in 2021 before you left to Cambodia. And, um you know, funnily it's not our first podcast together. and Kind of you launched my first interest into podcasting, you know, to your credit.
00:00:54
Speaker
So tell us what happened in between since you left. Wow. He knows. First of all, thank you so much for inviting me onto your podcast, Mikrid. ah Yeah, when we did the podcast, i e had like a small outfit a couple of years ago of a podcast.
00:01:13
Speaker
Mikrid, you were my one of my first guests. So thank you for having the honor of coming on and then bringing me back as well. ah I would have thought that was more than enough time together, but as is.
00:01:25
Speaker
But yeah, thank you so much for having me. And I guess just in terms of... Yeah, just in terms of what I've been up to, um like you said, out we were together in Singapore and until about 2019 or so. 2019 to 2021.
00:01:43
Speaker
And that was like the whole COVID-CB period. Everyone was stuck on the island. And... you got pretty close with the like the five other people on the island. So that's how we ended up up spending a lot of time together, right? That was during that time. It was good times.
00:01:59
Speaker
And um after 2021, left my corporate role in Singapore where I had been for yeah about a year and a half or two years. And I thought I wanted to do kind of more of like a passion role, something that was quite meaningful to the world, not that the private sector is not, but in a different way.
Role and Impact at Clinton Health Initiative (CHI)
00:02:17
Speaker
And so I joined the Clinton the clinton Health Access Initiative called CHI, which is basically an NGO that puts people typically from white collar backgrounds to work in house in developing country governments in the ministries of health.
00:02:33
Speaker
And they'll basically do the equivalent of like an in-house advisor, like internal management consultant kind of role for those ministries of health. So that was quite a ride. And I really enjoyed that step that I took during the COVID pandemic.
00:02:49
Speaker
And after about two years of that, I went off to grad school, like you said, doing two degrees. And in the middle of my degree, i've I've come back to Singapore for, I guess, what we call the summer or in Singapore, we just call every day.
00:03:03
Speaker
um Yeah, we'll come back. You know, I think it's a full circle. You left and then now you come back. And I think it's the in-between period where we'll focus on today since we haven't caught up in so long.
00:03:17
Speaker
And... um You know, I think after you left, ah you had a quite an interesting journey um to lots of places that people wouldn't think of as a career choice, which is why i kind of brought you back as well to speak on that.
00:03:34
Speaker
ah So maybe just jump back to the CHI initiative. How did it begin? Like, how they even find the opportunity that they were hiring? Yeah, I think like the interest in working in health and developing countries, that came when I was in management consulting and even in my time in undergrad at Cornell, where we both were.
00:03:54
Speaker
So I had done public health work with the student org in undergrad. Then I did some consulting project work at And when I decided, hey, this was an interest area,
00:04:05
Speaker
I didn't really know any orgs that focused on health in developing countries like full time, right? It was more of a side thing in school or a consulting engagement. But I looked pretty hard around and I initially just started with your development consultancy. So consultancies that work with developing countries like your Dahlberg and found related organizations, which would be like CHI, Clinton Health Asics Initiative.
00:04:30
Speaker
And there was a long history of people with management consulting backgrounds joining CHI and then realizing they needed to sell out again and go back to grad school. And I've been walking that path ever since. But I followed those folks and and went to CHI. And that's the typical, I think, org of choice of many management consultants who go into health, along with your Dahlbergs, like your men development consultancies,
00:04:53
Speaker
Or your Gates Foundation, which are like those philanthropies. I think these tend to be the typical avenues that corporate people who kind of make that like 180 degree turn tend to make it through.
00:05:06
Speaker
Did you have a ah background in health in college? No, i i I only had, it was a bit of like a very... fortunate series of events that brought me into doing it full-time starting in college actually so in college I studied finance I was in the undergrad business school at Cornell ah it's called Dyson I think by the time you showed up it was like merged with a bunch of other things to make like a Cornell College of Business not sure so I didn't really have any health classes even but
00:05:39
Speaker
I had joined like a club at school because I saw coming out of the lecture hall, URSSG01, that big lecture hall with 400 people at Cornell, there was a sign that says, want to go to Kenya in like size 500 font or whatever. So I can't miss that.
00:05:52
Speaker
And as like a very sheltered, like American person, i thought, oh, this sounds so exotic, right? And so, yeah, during my first semester of college, I joined this public health club, which basically produced pamphlets about sexual health, good health practices, you and sent students to Kenya. This was a student-run initiative, so students sending students to Kenya to like an orphanage where like a senior had a connection there to like distribute the pamphlets, okay?
00:06:20
Speaker
And the summer that I went, like we made the pamphlets, we went there, we distributed them, and then we're like, we have like one month left. Like, what what am I going to do at this point in time? So ah ultimately, it was not a very deep health experience, but that's where the interest in developing countries and the familiarity with health came. And when I went into consulting and I told you that I did that consulting project for a big public health client um that operates at like a Fortune 500 level, it's a company and works in the health space.
00:06:51
Speaker
um I was picked up at work to work on that project, which is a very cool sounding project, right, for many people. because I had had that very niche undergrad health club experience which I'd only gotten because I saw that size poster with like 500 size poster outside of USG01 so things kind of like snowballed from there and um when I ended up joining Chai I've been working at supply chain at Dell here and that was a role that I had kind of randomly taken coming from consulting because they just wanted to move to Singapore I didn't even know it was supply chain until I moved here this is going to come together just wait
00:07:27
Speaker
um And so after doing supply chain at Dell, I took the role and essentially i was selected by ah by by the team to join them, ah Chai Cambodia, working with the government there.
00:07:41
Speaker
And my initial motivation was like, oh, I see that they were doing HIV work, which is kind of the content that the undergrad club had focused on sexual health, HIV reproductive health. So that was the reason why I was pulled there.
00:07:56
Speaker
But I got to know the hiring manager while I had dinner with him like two, three weeks ago. He lives in Singapore now, actually. And basically, it was because i had consulting jobs, but also because I was supposedly like a supply chain expert because I had taken this job at Dell, which I didn't even know a supply chain. I just thought i was doing general business.
00:08:14
Speaker
So overall, the motivations for entering the job to your question, the motivations were kind of there from undergrad and grown through time. But the qualifications and why I was picked was almost through random things.
00:08:26
Speaker
I was picked to join the consulting project because I wanted to go to Kenya one summer in college, and it happened to align perfectly what they wanted. I came to Singapore just to experience something new, but Chai Cambodia picked me because I was a supply chain expert at a big corporate at Dell.
00:08:41
Speaker
And the supply chain role was not even something that I had originally wanted. I just wanted a general business role. So the qualifications ultimately kind of randomly but perfectly sort of fell into place. And this is only something I found out recently much further in time. Yeah. um Just let's talk more about ah Clinton Health Access Initiative.
00:09:02
Speaker
What's the background of that organization and what's their mission? What do they do? um like Obviously, Clinton, it's a famous last name, right? Yeah. like we can start from there.
00:09:14
Speaker
The founders of family and link to it. Does it does it relate? Is it linked to the U.S. government? my So that is a misconception, but there is a bit of a history, which I'm definitely not having 100% correct, so apologies in advance.
00:09:32
Speaker
But essentially, Clinton Health Justice Initiative used to be like the Clinton HIV-AIDS initiative, and that... And the Clinton HIV AIDS Initiative, which was the original name, used to be under, their I understand to be the Clinton Foundation, right?
00:09:48
Speaker
Which is like that philanthropy, that like like the Gates Foundation, the Clinton Foundation. And um you know as an arm of that philanthropy in the early 2000s, HIV AIDS was like the big at the epidemic.
00:10:01
Speaker
Many rich and powerful people are putting their efforts in terms of money, in terms of their influence to reduce that burden in the world, that disease burden. and cha And Chai was essentially focused on that.
00:10:17
Speaker
Now, over some years, Chai ended up breaking out of the Clinton Foundation, I think. And this is where I may be wrong. I think it may be because Hillary was running for office.
00:10:28
Speaker
And because Chai, and I'll speak to like what it is exactly, may have political connections from the outsider's perspective, not necessarily inside. It needed to come out as a nonprofit, as a separate body.
00:10:40
Speaker
I may be wrong on this again, but I think that's what it is. We'll fact check that. So he has a team of fact checkers. So this is where we'll actually test their chops. But um now what the organization does and why it may have been politically um sensitive, ah I would say it's two major things. There's like a set of people who work country team roles,
00:11:04
Speaker
So essentially what I mentioned earlier, the role that I had, which is basically in-house management consultants at ministries of health, ah working with them and bringing their chops of like financing, of like policymaking, drafting policies, of doing analyses to think like, where the best places to build a hospital?
00:11:21
Speaker
um How do we optimize like the cold chain for vaccines? All of these kind of like business challenges that governments face that white collar professionals can help with. Country team, that's the role I play. And typically a lot of corporate people do.
00:11:35
Speaker
And there's also kind of like the market shaping and the medical sort of advisory aspect as well. Market shaping being... For example, there's sort of these global health organizations like Gavi, G-A-V-I.
00:11:48
Speaker
And you might work with Gavi or you might work with like vaccine companies like AstraZeneca or whatever and say, hey, like I know your vaccines cost like $200 a dose or whatever, but why don't you help a brother out or help a brother out in a developing country who doesn't have the means to afford it but would be...
00:12:07
Speaker
having a huge health impact if you helped us out give it to us for like five dollars a dose but i can promise you because there's like 200 million people in congo 100 million people 200 million people in indonesia x million people other where i can get you like 800 million doses purchased in one go just give it to me for five dollars and you can see you're making like a A good thing for the world.
00:12:31
Speaker
Right. And that's like kind of the market shaping. You're shaping kind of that private sector engagement so that you're able to secure the supply, efficiently finance and distribute in developing countries. That's kind of the example of like the vaccines work.
00:12:44
Speaker
um And then there's like medical folks, like medical school professors in the US or Canada or elsewhere, like the folks that I worked with. um They're the ones who, if ah let's say the country team like myself were advising the government, we're doing that in-house advisory role.
00:12:59
Speaker
um We can't draft like a ah clinical law basically saying, oh yeah, you should take like two doses of this vaccine and then go lie down.
00:13:11
Speaker
I'm not a doctor. I can't say that. But there might be people who are pharmacists or doctors and medical school professors who have that knowledge and and can advise people on this might be the best practice.
00:13:21
Speaker
And the country team person like me might be the one who works with the government and says, okay, this is more practical for this setting. This maybe makes less sense, et cetera. So yeah, I would say those are like very broadly and that doesn't cover everything. Kind of the three like,
00:13:37
Speaker
easy ways to think about like what an organization like Chai does. And you'll see that like having a corporate skill set helps with those first two functions of country team and like market shaping. And then having more of a clinical background as a doctor or a pharmacist or even a lab background might help with the third where you're like actively engaged shaping health policy or at least like advising on it.
00:13:58
Speaker
So It's a very like, it's an amazing kind of role to have like a nationwide impact. And so a lot of people who join definitely do find it impactful. But, you know, is it financially the most rewarding thing? I don't know. Like, can you live in DRC, Democratic Republic of Congo forever? I don't know.
00:14:16
Speaker
And so people sell out, people go to a corporate, people maybe stay in the space, but go to like a... ah who or something which is more prestigious or more well-paying so mean it's just part of the journey for everybody shapes their career path you don't have to stay there for the rest of your career right but it doesn't take away from the fact that you took this step to work in that kind of a condition and you know taking a paycock i assume There's not a lot of people who stay long term coming the kind of path that I do.
00:14:51
Speaker
There is that churn for sure. And even the people who do enter, they expect people who have worked for a few years, if they're like expats at least, um which tends to be a good chunk of the workforce at CHI.
00:15:04
Speaker
to have come in with some like consulting training or maybe they worked in an NGO or another health organization before. So they want you to be skilled and then you want they want you to get experiences and contribute.
00:15:14
Speaker
But they don't expect you to stay for those downsides that were mentioned.
Navigating COVID-19 Challenges in Cambodia
00:15:18
Speaker
How long were you there? was there like two and a half years. Yeah, I was based in Phnom Penh. What were some of the ah major projects you worked on?
00:15:27
Speaker
I think the most impactful one actually happened at the beginning. um This is going to be long, so you can edit this as you wish. This is the long part for AI.
00:15:37
Speaker
i'll I'll ask you questions in between. So so tell us what happened. That was in the beginning of the COVID? I had basically selected the Cambodia role because I wanted to work on HIV and I wanted to do supply chain.
00:15:52
Speaker
And finally, I could work in person because in Singapore, we were still working remotely in like the end of 2020, which was when I was doing all this recruiting. Wanted to work in person to like build those connections and, you know, learning a new industry and new geography and all is best done in person.
00:16:09
Speaker
ah So to do the kind of learning of doing in person, going in, I picked Cambodia and I was basically brought in to like work on their HIV supply chain. So like prevention, condoms, medicine, people with HIV need to take a pill like every day, like managing the inflow of those products.
00:16:30
Speaker
Purchasing the right amount, distributing them to all the hospitals, that was the role, right? Really satisfying role. But the most impactful thing in this this in this job that happened was when I actually first moved to Cambodia, which was around February 2021 or March 2021 or so.
00:16:47
Speaker
barroomny twenty one or so At that time, Cambodia had no COVID, which is why I picked the job. But when I was in the quarantine hotel, essentially, um there were news reports coming out on my phone, which I am looking at all day because I'm in the quarantine hotel, right? You're in two weeks of quarantine hotel, you're trapped there.
00:17:07
Speaker
And we found out in Cambodia, which had no COVID, oh, yeah, some woman has escaped from the quarantine hotel. And the next day, the news comes out, oh, yeah, this woman has COVID-19. So now, mind you, she's like the first like open case of COVID-19 in Cambodia, a country with no cases.
00:17:24
Speaker
And oh, yeah, the third thing is, oh, yeah, this woman is like a female sex worker. So now like she's going around everywhere and she is in an occupation where she's very ah contagious.
00:17:37
Speaker
Right. So when I exited, it was not long before I joined like the COVID-19 task committees that were set up by the government tackling different parts.
00:17:48
Speaker
So there's like COVID-19 PPE, like the equipment you put on, like the masks and all that stuff. COVID-19 testing, which was me and like three or four other people. okay And the reason that I'm picked is not because I'm smart or anything, but because CHI, among a few other like foreign or international organizations in Cambodia,
00:18:08
Speaker
They're usually kind of like trusted to do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of policy and some implementation on behalf of the government. And so the government essentially makes like these SWAT teams to counter the new COVID-19 pandemic.
00:18:24
Speaker
And so I was essentially on a team of four or five with like a WHO person, National Lab of Cambodia, um CDC, Cambodia version. and your boots on the ground on the on the day one instead of sitting office. Exactly. yeah And so the overall picture of this project was like, okay, we need to like create clinical guidelines.
00:18:45
Speaker
Like, okay, like the rules of COVID testing, somebody has to make those up, the guidelines you get from the CDC, from the US, for example. So that had to be drafted by this SWAT team, which now involves a lot of those like medical professor folks that I mentioned before as like the key functions of CHI.
00:19:02
Speaker
You create those guidelines, you take the guidelines, and then on behalf of the Cambodian government, which has no money, apply for foreign funding. So like the global fund is like the, i guess the donor of choice. Global fund is like a international body that finances global health commodities around the world.
00:19:21
Speaker
Take those guidelines, apply for financing. So you have to estimate how many cases a day are there going to be because that's how many rapid tests we need. And then Global Fund and these sorts of financing bodies, when they ask you to submit application materials, they're like, tell me how many cases of COVID you're going to have for the next 18 months. like Meanwhile, this like disease has been here for two months. like How do you even estimate that?
00:19:42
Speaker
So a lot of assumptions need to be made. A lot of practical decisions needed to be made to basically secure COVID tests, receive them and distribute them. Because every day that there is no tests, people are getting infected.
00:19:55
Speaker
And if you're like immunocompromised, especially, you have a good chance of like turning into a statistic. so So what are you're describing, that's essentially how developing countries without funding, how do they get the first batch of vaccine, the medical equipments, the consumables, was through an application process with the help of professionals like you.
00:20:20
Speaker
professionals like you Many countries. Yeah. And it's not like this was the only channel to get COVID related supplies. Countries also receive supplies from governments like China or the US or other big countries that was also coming into Cambodia.
00:20:36
Speaker
Yeah. But you had to like mix and match them together. But that's right. A lot of countries are reliant on foreign aid. And this is sort of the nitty gritty of how they're able to access it. They need to prepare these sorts of applications.
00:20:48
Speaker
They're asked to provide this kind of like dumbfoundingly like precise calculations of how many COVID cases you think you'll have for the next 18 months when the disease has only been here for one year. And it's only been in the world for like one year.
00:21:02
Speaker
That needs to be provided. um But of course, without these supplies coming for essentially free, because all the folks who are in developed country governments, their foreign aid money is going to places like the Global Fund, which distributed as such.
00:21:14
Speaker
um So Global Fund is the centralized procurement agent that buys all the supplies from the pharmaceutical companies. Essentially. And then distribute them.
00:21:26
Speaker
Yeah, they have a gigantic chunk of money yeah and they would basically disperse like a budget for you to then go like procure it from like a UN procurement agency or a private company or what have you. Oh, so they give you the money. They don't procure it for you.
00:21:42
Speaker
They just... It would be like kind of case to case how involved they are with the procurement. yeah But the key thing is like they give you the money. Okay. And the money is allocated for 20,000 tests, 10,000 masks, etc.
00:21:56
Speaker
Exactly the amount. Yeah. and and um And they would provide like, okay, here's a standard procurement price for like how much a 30 pack of like condoms is or 30 pack of like HIV medicine is. And you use those to calculate.
00:22:11
Speaker
Then you bake in like a 15% like logistics cost, et cetera. And that's kind of the budget that you put up. And they will disperse the funding to you. yeah And you can procure it through approved channels, which is usually like a UN n agency or maybe even a private company. Depends on you. Depends on the country and the relationship that they would have.
00:22:29
Speaker
so If I'm wrong, I'm sorry, mobile phone. But yeah. and so how How did your application go? What was the outcome? So I guess you got the vaccine for Cambodia. Well, the incentives are there. Global Fund, their entire existence relates around like moving quickly in these situations. Yeah.
00:22:45
Speaker
They had two trenches of funding. The first trench was like, okay, you have a disease outbreak in March. All right go submit like a preliminary thing, preliminary proposal for a quick trench of funding by June.
00:22:59
Speaker
Mm-hmm. That moved pretty quickly. And then you give like the full, the next tranche, which is supposed to feed your demand as a country for like all of these supplies for the following 1.5 years or one year, which is a much bigger long and length of time as well.
00:23:15
Speaker
First tranche is just to make sure you have something to survive with. Now, the issue is when the funding approval comes in and the money actually hits the bank, you have to go pay someone, logistics moves, supplies will end up coming in like months and months later. Yeah, so by the time when when the supply hits, you're in shortage again because the the disease has spread so quickly.
00:23:34
Speaker
Yeah, so it would really depend on your country setting. And in other in some countries, You know, there would be this um thing where like people who are involved in this process, who have visibility in this process, they are setting up companies on the side to quietly procure this stuff. And they're government officials, so they know how to get it through the ports and everything.
00:23:55
Speaker
And they're selling it at a markup and pocketing everything because they know exactly what will happen. Right. Did you see that happen? Yeah, well, now the question I would have is like, if you're people who are working in this field, how do you sort of weigh this moral compromise? Where on one hand, people are like profiting from this with that visibility. yeah But on the, you know, at the same time, they're able to get the products in tomorrow.
00:24:19
Speaker
So you can count X number of lives saved per day times number of days until the official shipment would come in. You can weigh that versus going the straight route and the supplies will come months later. Yeah.
00:24:34
Speaker
But um you've avoided corruption in some capacity, right? That's kind of like a tricky decision. The moral dilemma, yeah. But how did these people, I guess they're government officials, so they they have their own avenues to get them faster, right? get their approvals faster um Is it just anybody or they had to be some high-ranked officials with foreign direct foreign channel connections?
00:25:02
Speaker
Well, you can be a working-level person who's like involved in the drafting of the documents, or you can be a higher-level person who's approving it. But you're going to be able to see like what brands of products are being approved, and you'll know the the date that they're scheduled to like be available or like allowed to be available in the marketplace, right? So you front-run the policy, and then you hoard the medicine before...
00:25:26
Speaker
There could be instances where that could happen, right? This would be country by country. Yeah. Like country by country, people by people basis. I'm not saying this is like a very rife phenomenon, but just to illustrate the kinds of things that can happen, especially in a crisis scenario. Yeah.
00:25:43
Speaker
And also to pose a moral dilemma to the listener or the viewer. Like what what would you do in this scenario um as well? Yeah. But yeah, like I'm sure there are other sort of permutations of this kind of thing.
00:25:58
Speaker
And smaller permutations, I think, are part of the day-to-day of like, I guess like working in different regulatory settings than, don't know, like the US or Singapore, for example.
00:26:09
Speaker
Not that the US s or Singapore is like without its shadows as well. Well, you have to be very careful with what you say. But yeah, um so so you saw... let's Every country, every country, right?
00:26:23
Speaker
let's Let's just call it corruption. um um um I mean... ah You're the host, man. You call it. Okay. So, I mean, your job was to draft the policy, get the logistics done, get the medicine in the hands of people, and then um you saw this happen.
00:26:43
Speaker
How... But you also worked with the officials at the time, right? As an advisory team alongside of them. um So maybe let's just fast forward to now the supplies has come, however month it took.
00:26:59
Speaker
um What do you do next? Well, they would be distributed through kind of the warehouse and distribution system we already have existing in the public hospital system.
00:27:11
Speaker
Yeah. We just simply leverage that, right? Same central warehouse. And then there might be big public hospitals in each province.
00:27:22
Speaker
They receive the supplies, distribute, pretty similar. You may need to have special um things for like COVID vaccines, especially like the ones that require cold chain.
00:27:36
Speaker
So like your Moderna or whatever. And those would require like to be in cold temperatures the entire way through in storage, in transport as you move it from place to place.
00:27:48
Speaker
That would require some special equipment. And this is also the reason why vaccines like AstraZeneca were very successful in like lower and middle income countries where they don't have this kind of equipment.
00:27:59
Speaker
ah versus in like high income countries where it's a bit more apparent. But aside from that, yeah, like the things that I work on, like COVID tests, rapid tests, for example, you would distribute it through the existing system.
00:28:12
Speaker
And um of course, there's like private sector distribution where like pharmacies just get their hands on those tests through other means. And that is that as well.
00:28:23
Speaker
Yeah. And would you say that was the bulk of your involvement after the arrival of the vaccines and the testing kits? Or did you move on to some other projects?
00:28:36
Speaker
I worked on COVID for like the first few months and then it kind of like left my control. Like Chai set up like a specific like diagnostics team, like a testing team.
00:28:47
Speaker
yeah And they kind of took over this like mantle of work. Then I went back to my regular like work that I was contracted to do, which was like HIV supply chain. Yeah. But really it was HIV ministry, like internal consultant, everything they needed, like financing for the budget in a similar sense of like estimating how many condoms do we need for the year, receiving it, distributing it.
00:29:10
Speaker
So financing, distribution, policy writing, because if there's new HIV medicines that come out, we may need to liaise with WHO, medical professors who work at CHI,
00:29:20
Speaker
um of course like the medical leaders in cambodian government as well to like craft the new policies so you know um how to distribute or how many to distribute um and then you know also there were a lot of fun field trips as well going out to like field hospitals and clinics whenever there's like new HIV medicine and saying, okay, for this one, for infants, you can like cut a tablet in half because we don't have the right dosage. It's appropriate.
00:29:51
Speaker
Or maybe for another medicine, it's not appropriate. Like you shouldn't do that. um Wait for the correct dosage to come next month. Which is very hands-on involvement. Hands-on involvement to the extent that someone who doesn't know the local language and customs can do. And that's kind of where you need to kind of of draw the line and find where is my role appropriate versus like where is not.
00:30:13
Speaker
So, I mean, on that point, if you take a step back and think about your involvement, um, working for international agency like that in a developing country, how effective do you think you were?
00:30:28
Speaker
And, um, And how rewarding do you think the whole experience on the personal level? Do you think you're actually making the impact you expected or it was kind of disappointing to see firsthand the inefficiencies and the limitations?
00:30:49
Speaker
Well, I think it was fun to moonlight as a government official because then you can see the power of what a government official who's given all of the green lights can do, right?
00:31:01
Speaker
For example, in COVID-19, it was such a massive scenario where ah basically all bureaucratic processes were chopped. They were just like, okay, testing committee, you go make the policies, you procure, you distribute, like no bureaucratic checks and balances, was just go for it.
00:31:17
Speaker
And so all of the people in this country were able to have access to tests within a few months, right? And they had guidance on how to do it. In that respect, I felt, oh, wow, working at the national level can be extremely impactful.
00:31:30
Speaker
And I felt like I was able to do the job well of, like, doing the calculations, figuring out the right way to distribute, coordinating all the ducks in a row so the right people are talking to each other.
00:31:41
Speaker
That I felt like I was able to do. And it's cool because, like, uh... I don't know, especially like consultants or like other corporate people, they're just like, you ah you're used to like running processes, right? So that was kind of cool.
00:31:55
Speaker
At the same time, it's like, um it's not like I'm Superman or whatever, right? Like I'm only given this like sort of like authority because there's like a pandemic going on. And like foreigners are given a lot of power because like, I mean, they rely on a lot of advisors. They may not have a lot of expertise,
00:32:14
Speaker
but they're also like receiving funding and part of that funding is saying you need to listen to the foreigner as part of the condition, which is very uncomfortable for a country as well and not really like the best thing in the world.
00:32:25
Speaker
So yeah, playing that position was great, but entirely happy about it and thinking like, wow, I personally made an impact? like Not so much. It's just like the way the system is set up. i I'm just like a fish that got caught on like a downstream and it just went straight down.
00:32:42
Speaker
And yeah that was that. And given that you don't speak the language, you didn't grow up there to experience the healthcare care system firsthand.
Comparisons and Reflections on International Development Work
00:32:51
Speaker
um I mean what do I know yeah I know what do I know so yeah that's the thing like what do I know so so it um it's it's not of course not a perfect comparison but it reminds me of uh when I went to Kenya after my first year of college I was uh tasked to teach science classes at local primary school like right before the exam period and again I don't speak the their local dialects I don't have a personal connection with the students not like local teachers
00:33:22
Speaker
um But I was put on the so spot just because I was a foreigner and you know I spoke fluent English and they assumed I had a better education, I could make an impact, but I wasn't very comfortable.
00:33:34
Speaker
you know I think um to have some humility like you do, it it It's great. and um There's many more humble ways to tell this story. I think like this is not humble.
00:33:46
Speaker
But um yeah, like we get sort of like these like plum opportunities to like ah do something cool for a few days, right? like Yeah. Whether it's in Kenya or Cambodia or elsewhere.
00:33:59
Speaker
But like the structural issues of like why those opportunities exist and the structural issues of like why these opportunities even need to exist of like bringing in people to like advise or to teach yeah um only for the same sort of issues to be ongoing because.
00:34:18
Speaker
um the structure just doesn't work that's kind of like a challenge like I don't think I'm smarter than like most of the people I worked with like there are like some damn smart people everywhere right in every country it's just like you're born into a system which is like so rife with like Lack of budget, lack of educational training, structural inequity where, like, you literally, like, cannot get anything done because you're just waiting for, like, 10 approvals to come through.
00:34:46
Speaker
Like, you can have designed the best supply chain, but, like, if the roads are broken and, like, whatever department in the government is in charge of that doesn't have the budget or the ability to do it, you're, like, done.
00:34:57
Speaker
Like, those that those are, these are all these, like, foundational issues that are, like, the challenge. And bringing, like, foreigners in, ah foreigners feel good for five minutes.
00:35:09
Speaker
But, like, we're definitely, like, not, not we, I am definitely not any more capable than, like, the people on the ground who are, like, basically checking my work for me as was, like, submitting it, like, Yeah. Yeah. Like, I mean, I think intelligence is normally distributed everywhere you go. There's no reason why can't a local person with um some level of education can do your job, right?
00:35:33
Speaker
um But what was the most frustrating moment you experienced working there? Was it dealing with the officials? um Was it I guess, I think frustrating thing is like, number one, seeing the moral dilemma and realizing that's like all the time.
00:35:51
Speaker
And then number two is like this structural challenge of like, there's a lot of like very able people Like very highly capable people smarter than me who aren't able to make the impact that they want to do or are not taking jobs that they would be excelling at or can contribute to their country with because it's not paying well enough.
00:36:16
Speaker
Like government jobs in Cambodia were not enough to like pay for rent in Phnom Penh. Like most guys like were working another job or they like joined the UN or like the U.S. Embassy or even Chai because those are considered high paying jobs like nonprofit and like.
00:36:34
Speaker
like aid agency jobs are the high paying lucrative jobs so people with ability leave government where they can actually make a difference and go there because cost of living is not working in these countries and so then like it's just like the brain drain is happening all the time by like the very foreigners who are like supposed to be like helping or whatever So um that I think I found quite sad. Then I was like, wow, I'm just like part of this process, which like never gets any better.
00:37:03
Speaker
And you just get short winds of feeling I just submitted like a nice financing proposal or whatever. But like you're just part of this system that continually is like brain drain, not enough budget, corruption, etc.
00:37:17
Speaker
I think those kinds of things were unfortunate to see because I'm sure those people also would have loved to make a good impact on their country and their careers, but doing so in public service or even private sector roles that are meaningful weren't as good as like, like shuffling papers at like a foreign nonprofit or a foreign organization, international organization.
00:37:39
Speaker
So I think that was a bit unfortunate. And, uh, So what do you think is kind of the root cause of this Malaisa? What's at fault here with the structure, with the healthcare infrastructure, with how the government set up?
00:37:57
Speaker
this this is like This is such a big issue. and Well, I think like the whole like international organization or foreigners coming in to like do a good thing or whatever, They themselves are creating and perpetuating a system which is not helpful for the country to advance forward, number one.
00:38:14
Speaker
But when you take that thing out, it's just like countries with like poor institutions, poor fiscal capacity who don't have the budget to like pay for enough medicine or like pay their people properly or to build highways or bridges that are needed or to build sewers, like period, just like to have sewers.
00:38:33
Speaker
Like, these are like the big challenges. And I feel like if you don't build good institutions where there's checks and balances, if you're not able to grow as a country and have enough money to like fund those essential services, pay the right people and have your independence to make decisions.
00:38:50
Speaker
um I think it's like a bit ah a challenging place to be. So countries that are able to like climb out of that, whether it's slowly or whether it's like in the snap of an eye, like, I don't know, Singapore or like these like Asian tigers or China or like, right?
00:39:08
Speaker
In a generation or two, just like went from like down here to like up here in terms of like quality of all of those things that I mentioned. Those stories are amazing and make me think like those are the things that like countries should aspire to. But how to get there is like beyond me as well.
Education and Internships in International Development
00:39:24
Speaker
So I think trying to understand that and learn that is why I went to grad school. So I'm studying like international development at HKS at Harvard Kennedy School.
00:39:35
Speaker
So it's basically development economics, studying from the economist perspective of like, how do developing countries become more developed for example um maybe there's better terminology but just to put it simply and then mba um just because yeah like just because i think it's good to kind of have that balance of like the very academic and government leaning side but then also sort of like access to private sector opportunities and network that eventually are the guys who get employed to build your bridges, right? Or to like build your hospital system.
00:40:13
Speaker
um The state cannot do everything except in rare cases. So yeah that's kind of my two grad school set up. And some of these like grievances are why why I found grad school particularly ah informative, educational um and a good stopping point to kind of assess what's ahead.
00:40:33
Speaker
So you have to have a foot in both private and public sector um as a potential doors in the future. this is This is like typical like yeah play, I would say, a full degree. yeah um Well, I mean, you you you did the job for me. you You did the transition, the segue to your grad school.
00:40:53
Speaker
And ah ah what did you do for the summer? I mean, we can now maybe talk about your next adventure. Yeah. having two feet in both places.
00:41:04
Speaker
Yeah. First year was at HKS doing the development economics. Thinking as an economist, thinking from the government perspective of socially beneficial, ah like socially optimal outcomes. What's good for society?
00:41:15
Speaker
I did a government internship in a Mongolian government last summer. Mm-hmm. This summer was my MBA year, so reconnected with a bit of the private side and kind of saw those opportunities and what learnings could be there.
00:41:28
Speaker
Me, having worked in management consulting and having worked at Dell, like at a corporate, I had a private sector training and familiarity. But I thought it would be good to see another corner of that. So I'm working more on the financing and I'm working on the investment and M&A team of a renewable energy company.
00:41:47
Speaker
So kind of to the point mentioned about companies are the ones who are probably going to be building your ports and bridges that the government tenders out or like looks for companies to help support it too. um I'm hoping to like learn and be part of like the companies that are building like your power plants basically to make sure you have lights running, for example. I think like the green transition is pretty important and being involved in infrastructure and renewable energy in particular is like a really good way to kind of ah support the green transition, learn the right skills of helping countries sort of build those important infrastructure assets to like build an economic base.
00:42:26
Speaker
And yeah. Yeah, like for the future of like wanting to play between these two public and private sectors gives me a good chance to like be in a position where I'm constantly thinking about ah how do I work with governments effectively like build this power plant, get the permits connected into the national electricity grid and essentially work for the benefit of the country. So I'm doing that role here in Singapore.
00:42:50
Speaker
Before this year, um you were in Mongolia, which is a place not many people went for internships or career. And I think on the LinkedIn, you said you're advising the prime minister, which is, again, like, it's, wow.
00:43:06
Speaker
um So just in summary, what did you do there? And i guess, um what what type of work, what did you learn? um Just the typical questions.
00:43:18
Speaker
Yeah. yeah So the initial thought on why I wanted to go, it started in a few stages. Stage one was there were my upperclassmen at HKS in the international development, that whole development economics program, who went to Mongolia and did a similar internship. Mm-hmm.
00:43:40
Speaker
And they told amazing stories of like the impact they were able to have, the level of government they operated at, and the Mongolian nature, which looked freaking amazing, man. So I thought, okay, like that's like the perfect package of everything you want in a summer. You want to see like unlimited green fields that look like the Windows XP wallpaper.
00:43:57
Speaker
You want to ride on horses at a million miles an hour. million miles an hour um And you want to be able to kind of see a ah different part of government or a different type of government at a very high level that you normally wouldn't be able to get unless you're in grad school.
00:44:14
Speaker
So um that was the initial draw was those things. And ah for this particular internship, the PM is a alum of HKS and his right hand man is an alum of HKS as well.
00:44:31
Speaker
And our upperclassmen in our development economics program. And that person has been recruiting interns from our class every year to basically be like policymakers um for the government.
00:44:46
Speaker
And the um the body that he recruits for was based on like the prime minister's delivery unit in the UK, which is like a SWAT team basically for prime minister. That model was replicated and headed by this development economics alum of my program.
00:45:03
Speaker
It works across all industries, but because Mongolia, um number one, their economy is based on coal, the energy industry, yeah and mining and energy. And so that is a critical part of their economy, and that's where a lot of the policy focus goes. so um And another reason as well is like Ulaanbaatar, UB is the coldest capital city in the world. So like energy and heat is like crucial.
00:45:31
Speaker
You will die. So for someone who thought I want to work on ah more structural sector of the economy, that's more important to like the big projects that governments build that like take a country forward in the economic scale. Mm hmm.
00:45:48
Speaker
doing energy policy at the highest level in a small country where we'd be able to have like a bird's eye view um and also to experience the amazing nature of Mongolia, go Mongolian tourism was like a very cool opportunity. So the summer was spent essentially working to design policies to attract private investment and grow the renewable energy ah industry in Mongolia. I can go further into detail into that, but Essentially, it was designing those policies. But ah the challenge was that that it was also the election season, the summer that I went there. So there was not a lot of ah opportunity to take policy design into implementation because everyone was sort of waiting to see the election.
00:46:29
Speaker
And there was a change in power as well. um But still a fantastic opportunity to be in that country. What did you learn about the energy landscape in Mongolia? like What's the setup?
00:46:42
Speaker
so I have some basic understanding of coal, renewable
Challenges and Opportunities in Mongolia's Energy Sector
00:46:47
Speaker
energy. so I know that's a huge ah exporting country for a lot of China's consumption through through the the railways.
00:46:56
Speaker
um But again, like you said, green fields everywhere, um a lot of spare land, low population density, so all the right setup for, I guess, the wind farms, um solar projects, perhaps.
00:47:13
Speaker
Yeah. How advanced were they in on this transition to ah renewables? Overall, i would say, let's start at macro level. Mongolia is like a middle income country.
00:47:27
Speaker
So middle income is like what? Like upper middle is like kind of like Mexico, Thailand, like somewhere in that like income bracket. Not like very, very poor, not very, very rich. Okay. And then second thing is like their economy is based on coal.
00:47:40
Speaker
And as you've noted, China is a big trading partner. So Mongolia is a landlocked country surrounded by China and Russia. All of the trade and its economy is basically to those two countries.
00:47:52
Speaker
okay Mongolia as a country, given like the crappy climate that I mentioned, it's cold all the time. You can't really grow things easily. Their biggest expo, I think 70% of the exports or something is like coal, okay? and coal as a dirty fuel is like not optimal. Many people are like burning it in their like, a lot of people live in like huts, like traditional huts.
00:48:14
Speaker
And you're burning that and that produces a lot of pollution in the air, which means the life expectancy in Mongolia is not as high as it should be. Many people that I know who have the means to leave Mongolia leave just because of the pollution. So for economic reasons, obviously when you expand your environment beyond coal, but for health reasons as well, there's a big impetus there.
00:48:36
Speaker
Now, in terms of how suitable is this country for renewables, very suitable. I think in terms of when you think about renewables of like Solar farms, right? Like those like panels on top of like car parks or like buildings, like wind farms, like, you know, you think of like Netherlands and like the, you know, um or hydro, which is not in Mongolia, like waterfalls and all this.
00:48:58
Speaker
um It has tremendous natural potential in terms of wind and like sun. Like the Gobi Desert is in China and Mongolia, right? Like inner Mongolia of China and then like southern Mongolia.
00:49:10
Speaker
There's tremendous potential from a natural environment ah perspective. But again, there are like these like structural issues that make it challenging to grow. Number one is like the coal industry is so powerful, right? They're basically the whole economy. So you can imagine the levers that they can pull in government and private sector, right? Is it nationalized or is are these private players?
00:49:34
Speaker
So there is a foreign company so that has a lot of development on the mines in Mongolia.
00:49:45
Speaker
Okay. and their interests are very much aligned with keeping coal as like the priority. So for example, um well, overall, like the energy system in Mongolia, electricity in Mongolia, the state runs everything.
00:49:58
Speaker
more or less. There are parts that are privatized, like some generation where you're like making the electricity, but the transmission, after you've after you've generated it around the country, sending it along like these like the grid power lines, like the grid, yeah that's state-owned.
00:50:14
Speaker
yeah Distribution is largely state-owned, but a bit of like private. It's very state-driven, and there are some powerful private sector interests from abroad as well that continue to feed those interests.
00:50:26
Speaker
Okay? Now, the issue is with renewables, there's a ton of natural potential. But if I produce energy and it's really cheap because there's a ton of sun, sunlight, right?
00:50:39
Speaker
um What if the national electricity regulator says, nah, I like the coal, ah the coal plants energy better. ah You can throw your energy away and do nothing with it.
00:50:51
Speaker
Hmm. For me as an investor, i literally signed the contract with the government that says you'll give me, ah i don't know, 5 cents per kilowatt hour or 20 cents per kilowatt hour. You'll give me a set amount of money for all the electricity that I pay, that I produce.
00:51:09
Speaker
But now you're telling me you're not going to give me that. You're only going to give me a fraction of that price or you're not even going to accept my electricity and just tell me to throw it away. Do I look like I want to build a wind or solar farm if you're going to do that to me?
00:51:22
Speaker
That's kind of the challenge that exists. right Coal is very plentiful and you can store it and just like leave it on the floor and just like throw it into the furnace and like you're generating heat and electricity instantly.
00:51:33
Speaker
Very cheap, very easy to store and powerful interest behind it. renewables if the sun is not shining like there's no energy i can't just like throw coal in at like 12 o'clock at night and we need electricity at night when it's dark so there's advantages from like the physical form but then there's also kind of like these regulatory and government policy challenges that emerge so how how could it make it challenging work against these incentives perverse incentives If I knew the answer, you know, I would not be sitting here, but I'd in Mongolia.
00:52:09
Speaker
Was that part of your internship was to find solutions? was to kind of like think about like particular solutions. Now, the solutions being suggested, they need to be pragmatic, like politically feasible.
00:52:22
Speaker
They need to be like technically correct. Right. They need to be like workable on a number of different dimensions. The issue is like when we tell the government, like you should just like prioritize renewable energy over coal.
00:52:34
Speaker
So every time you need a certain and amount of electricity, just promise all the wind and solar farm operators, I'll automatically buy your energy. I won't buy the coal. Make that promise, right?
00:52:46
Speaker
Or if you say you're going to pay them a price, like I'll pay you $100 for this much electricity every time you generate it stick to that price. Don't only give them half. Right. Or, oh, you can subsidize, right? Like their construction. You can give them like incentives.
00:53:06
Speaker
Go give those things. You would want to design all of these policies from the government perspective to incentivize people to keep them there. But once you've cheated them once or twice, it's hard to get companies to come back.
00:53:16
Speaker
So it was a bit challenging to say that we found like really good policies that would incentivize ah companies to come because once you lose trust in the government and the government runs the entire energy system and it is in is the ones like paying for the energy, you're in a bit of trouble, right?
00:53:36
Speaker
So one possible solution could be all the mines that operate with the private sector companies, foreign or not. You can sign like private agreements with them and like build power plants there. right Maybe I would trust a big private company ah to pay like the rate that they promised me on the contract every day.
00:53:57
Speaker
right Maybe I can somehow incentive companies to go talk to the like the power companies to go talk to those mining companies who need the energy. Hey, go sign those agreements. There's a lot of sun here.
00:54:09
Speaker
I'll clear all this land for you. You just go build it and you'll get your consistent revenue from the mining company. yeah That could be like one way, right? yeah But um you know theres there's a lot that needs to be done.
00:54:21
Speaker
And the issue is like that energy still needs to make it to the people in the capital, not really the mines who are like on the other side of the country. So it's challenging, man. Yeah.
00:54:32
Speaker
Yeah. Well, hopefully the next few batch of interns can advance, you know, this. I guess they've been asking for help on that for a couple, you know, series of classes already from from Harvard. Yeah. And it's not really like the interns as well. Like.
00:54:49
Speaker
There are folks working on the same issues who just to introduce another part of this whole like developing country, like blah, blah, blah, like landscape. Like you ever wonder where like the World Bank or the IFC do? They're like doing this kind of stuff. They're working with the governments. They're providing some like financing.
00:55:07
Speaker
And they're suggesting projects and policies for the governments to do. That's also what they do. But they bring reputation and they bring wallets. Like they bring checks. And they bring like real decades of technical expertise to be effective partners with governments as well.
00:55:24
Speaker
So we bumped into a lot of those folks as well. And they're also facing a bit of challenges. Disillusions. Disillusions. That's how people get disillusioned in this like kind of work, right? whatever kind of Whether you're at a CHI, like an NGO that simply advises, whether you're like a World Bank or IFC or you can name whatever, like AIB, anything.
00:55:45
Speaker
like All these different corners, you're doing interesting work that can impact an entire country. But how successful can you be? What handcuffs do you have? um Really, the government official is the one who has the power at the end of the day.
00:55:59
Speaker
You better hope that you're born in that country that you're eligible for election in the next life to make the change you're aspiring I guess we all come from one or multiple countries depending on the childhood that you've had.
00:56:14
Speaker
yeah But yeah, when you're meddling in other countries, like my career has effectively been, to put it very bluntly, Yeah, there's different kinds of avenues. And there's a one or many moments to think like, what's the right kind of role to play that can be helpful rather than detrimental?
00:56:32
Speaker
Yeah. Ongoing question. so So now I think we perhaps can tie everything together. Sure.
Future Aspirations in Renewable Energy Investments
00:56:39
Speaker
And um to your current internship, you're back to the private sector.
00:56:45
Speaker
You're looking at, again, like energy renewables making can an impact. um what What are your thoughts on what's next after you, you know, get those prestigious degrees?
00:56:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think... um Kind of like the the work that I'm doing now of like investing in infrastructure assets, ideally renewable energy, but could be like infrastructure as well.
00:57:11
Speaker
Doing that from either the private sector or a multilateral, right? Private sector being like an energy company that makes money off of it. Multilateral being like a World Bank or an IFC that does those projects and makes some return, but not too much.
00:57:27
Speaker
That would be ideal. And I think Energy being an industry that is so core to an economy that involves a lot of work and navigating with government policies, um that seems like an and industry of interest. So hoping to play sort of play that investing role with a private sector company or ah or a multilateral, which is like a World Bank IFC kind of org.
00:57:50
Speaker
but But somewhere yeah in developing countries make an impact. Yeah, I think building like on another wind farm in like Ohio or something is probably less interesting.
00:58:02
Speaker
But it's also finding like, again, where do you not crowd out the local talent and the local opportunity to do better? That's an ongoing search. And yeah private sector might be a more clear way to do that, right?
00:58:16
Speaker
Than some of those other roles that I've played in the past. Yeah. Yeah. So um if you have one advice, I mean, sounds very cliche, but if I have one advice to someone aspiring a career of change and impact, making the world a better place, um what would you tell them?
Advice for Aspiring Change-Makers
00:58:39
Speaker
Yeah, I would say that there is no perfect role, even if you sacrifice like the obvious things. Like you may think if I just sacrifice money and I'm willing to move to X country, everything else will be filled from a job satisfaction standpoint.
00:58:56
Speaker
That's not the case as someone who's kind of had visibility um in those respects. But it can still be satisfying to work in that field with those things in mind. And so if you're interested in working in this space, I would say keep that in mind of like, it's not perfect once you just give up the money and the location preferences.
00:59:18
Speaker
But the second thing as well um is that You know, do what you do well and enjoy to a moderate amount. Like if you enjoy building supply chains or something or like doing financing or like designing hospital systems, do that ah because these are all things that are valued in like the international development field.
00:59:41
Speaker
And there is always that the kind of demand for people who have built that in different settings to bring that in. So um do that until you find the right opportunity. So I would give those two pieces of advice to people who are interested in development and are doing it from a place where they're probably working like a pretty standard there job in like a U.S. or a Singapore or Europe or China or what have you.
01:00:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think i've I've had those aspirations as well doing during college days, working for nonprofits, working for a foundation, um you know, making an impact.
01:00:20
Speaker
um But again, I think... you have to be extremely lucky to be in the right position at the right timing, meet the right people to effect a real change. Otherwise, the real change only comes, um, once every decade after accumulation of, um, micro changes over time. Right.
01:00:42
Speaker
So it's not something one individual can, um, just at the touch of a finger on the keyboard can do. Right. um Yeah, I mean, I think we all have capabilities. It's more about being in the right place at the right time, which you only realize later, right? Like me taking all these different random opportunities in undergrad, in consulting projects, in like working in Dell supply chain, Cambodian government.
01:01:11
Speaker
These are all things that sort of like perfectly pieced together in hindsight, but in the moment or just driven by like impulsive things at the moment of like, I want to go to Kenya or like, I just want to move to Singapore.
01:01:21
Speaker
Like they only piece together later on in terms of telling the story. So definitely not overthinking it. But we're all very capable. It's just like, yeah, the moment comes and it's like purely down to chance. Of course, we don't want another pandemic to come, right?
01:01:38
Speaker
So we prove our capable. We don't want that. um But there are are other sorts of moments that can come and offer a chance to contribute. So it's out of your control. It'll come.
01:01:49
Speaker
All right. So on that note, we're coming to the hour. ah Thank you so much, Kevin, for coming to the show. Thank for having It's great to catch up.