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Mission Driven Podcast
Taking Over From The Founder
In this episode of the Mission Driven Podcast, I speak with Erika Sinner, who recently took over TinySuperheroes (TSH) from its founders, and is looking to take Tinysuperheoes mission forward to support 5 million beneficiaries.
What began as a heartfelt initiative to empower children facing illness and disability is now undergoing a powerful transformation under Erika’s leadership.
Erika shares how she stepped in at a moment of burnout for the founding team, acquiring the organization and reimagining its future. She walks through her bold plan to transition TSH from a for-profit to a nonprofit structure, her ambitious goal to reach 5 million children in five years, and how she's bringing a private-sector mindset to nonprofit operations.
The conversation explores how Erika is building a lean, mission-driven team, reshaping the funding model, and turning a heartfelt community initiative into a scalable, sustainable movement. This is a powerful story of vision, execution, and leading with both heart and strategy.
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Leveraging Entrepreneurship to End Poverty
45:37|In this episode of the Mission Driven Podcast, Theresa Carrington, Founder of Ten by Three, shares her 20+ year journey building a model to end extreme poverty through entrepreneurship. She discusses the origins of the organization, the deep impact created through artisan partnerships across seven countries, and the importance of quality, data, and story in scaling sustainable change. Theresa also reflects on critical milestones, hard decisions, and what has kept her focused through betrayal, burnout, and global complexity. Her insights into resilience, founder transition, and influencing policy with humility and proof make this a powerful episode for anyone building mission-led work.
Roadmap to Scale
41:39|In this episode of the Mission Driven Podcast, Tiffany Yeh maps out an early-stage founder’s roadmap to scale as she brings a novel, electricity-free cooling material from lab gel to real-world impact. It's an incredible discussion that speaks to how she has learned to lean into trust —of customers, teammates, and herself— to power fast learning: sees co-designing with early adopters as the key part of her iteration process, and is laser focused on build out a global supply chain and team to support her vision for scale.
Scaling Climate-Smart AgTech in Southeast Asia
36:28|In this episode of the Mission Driven Podcast, I speak with Max Nelen, founder and CEO of Agros, a climate-smart agritech startup scaling solar irrigation systems for smallholder farmers across Southeast Asia. While we explore Agros' origin story and pilot in Myanmar, the highlight of our conversation is Max’s deep dive into the real, gritty work of scaling. From adapting the product based on farmer feedback to building trust in new markets, deciding when to enter a new country, and navigating the cultural and operational challenges of a growing team, Max offers one of the most honest and insightful takes on what it really means to grow a mission-driven enterprise in emerging markets.
Pivoting Is Part of the Process
33:22|In this episode of the Mission Driven Podcast, I speak down with Ralph Becker, founder of Urban Greens, a Manila-based vertical farming startup about coming to accept that pivoting is part of the process. Through our conversation. Ralph opens up about launching one of the Philippines’ earliest urban farming businesses, the steep learning curve of building in an emerging market, and the difficult decision to shift away from production toward a service-based model. From typhoons wiping out early systems to navigating high electricity costs, Ralph shares the hard-won insights every founder needs to hear — especially those wrestling with whether it’s time to pivot.
Scaling the Right Way - Not the Fast Way
31:05|In this episode of the Mission Driven Podcast, I speak with Alasdair Pocock, founder of Socially Responsible, about his a new platform focused on increasing charitable donations across Hong Kong and his view that the key to scaling the right way is not the fast way. Drawing from his personal experience with disability support and his desire to create scalable impact, Alasdair shares the journey of building technology infrastructure to support local NGOs—many of which struggle for visibility and funding despite their deep community work. From tackling sector-specific challenges like Hong Kong’s Section 88 certification, to pivoting from a B2C donation app to a corporate giving platform, Alasdair offers a candid look into the realities of building a mission-led venture. If you're interested in philanthropy or how tech can enable social change, this episode is for you.
Pivoting Away From Consulting to Scale Green Technologies
33:55|In this episode of the Mission Driven Podcast, I speak with Sam Lee, founder of Good Bricks about pivoting his business from CSR consulting to commercializing green technologies. Through our conversation, Sam shares his transition journey, the importance of letting go, and the lessons learned from building scalable environmental solutions that address one of Asia’s most polluting industries — traditional brick kilns.
The Power of Social Entrepreneurs to Disrupt the Status Quo
34:26|In this episode of the Mission Driven Podcast, we speak with Teresa Chahine, Senior Lecturer at Yale School of Management and Faculty Director of the Social Innovation Initiative, about the power of social entrepreneurs to disrupt the status quo. Through our conversation, Teresa shares her journey into social entrepreneurship and her perspective on what it takes to drive lasting social change. Drawing from both academic and practitioner experience, Teresa discusses the evolving meaning of entrepreneurship, the need for measuring agency over metrics, her 10-stage framework for creating change, and the role of academia in transforming systems. The conversation provides rich insights for aspiring changemakers, researchers, and funders alike.
Empowering Tomorrow's Changemakers Through Experiential Learning
40:02|In this episode of the Mission Driven Podcast, I speak with Dr. Jason Blackstock, founder and CEO of How To Change The World, a social enterprise dedicated to empower tomorrow's changemaker to address complex sustainability challenges through experiential learning. Through our conversation, Jason explains how his personal journey—from quantum physicist to climate negotiator to professor—revealed a pressing need for experiential, interdisciplinary learning in higher education, and dives into how he has spent the last 10 years building How to Change the World to address that need.