1. What do you focus on at B Capital?

I am an associate at Strategy & Operations (S&O) team at B Capital. B Capital’s mission is to be the most value-added investor to our portfolio companies. The S&O team helps the portfolio companies by working side by side with incredible founders and leadership teams to unlock growth opportunities to scale their businesses. I also support building the B Capital network and connecting our portfolio companies to potential partners within it.

2. What attracted you to working at B Capital?

I like making an impact to the growth of the companies by driving strategic initiatives and creating a tailored roadmap to achieve portfolio companies’ objectives. The S&O role also enables me to apply learnings from my consulting and start-up days to understand founders’ specific challenges and struggles to find solutions.

3. If you weren’t in this career, what would you be doing?

I believe that there is nothing more rewarding than knowing you’ve made an impact in someone’s life. Therefore, If I am not in this career, I would be a teacher – a language schoolteacher. By teaching students languages, I would enhance their cognitive skills, as linguistic study challenges the brain. Also, learning a new language encourages respect to other people and cultures as it helps us to see differences and commonalities.

I have lived and studied in Norway and Japan. As a foreign student in both countries, I knew what it was like to struggle to learn a new language. But focusing on the benefits instead of the challenges helped me to learn Norwegian and Japanese. I used to be a summer camp leader teaching Japanese students aged below 15 years old to learn English. That was one of the most rewarding experiences in my life.

I hope one day I will be able to use my skills and interests to create a technology that helps to improve the language learning experience.

4. If you were to become an investor in one of B Capital’s sector or sub-sector targets, which would you choose and why?

From a personal perspective, the B2B commerce sector interests me as it presents a massive opportunity, especially in emerging markets in Asia. Traditional retailers account for 60% of the total retail trades in Asia.  Despite the increasing number of organized physical retail stores in the urban areas of developing countries, the semi-urban and rural area population continue to prefer traditional mom-and-pop stores due to their familiarity with the channel, favorable relationships, and accessibility.

B2B commerce helps to solve the common problems faced by traditional retailers and brands in Asia by introducing solutions to shorten the long supply chain problems by eliminating several intermediaries in the middle and optimizing cost and time of the supply chain. As the sector continues to grow, it’s crucial to consider the long-term role technology will play in creating new pathways for brands to redefine global retail landscape.

Here’s B Capital’s three-part animation video series focusing on the insights into market opportunities of B2B commerce in Asia.

5. What’s something many people may not know about you?

I love playing mahjong. Every week, I go to a friend’s house to play the game. I find the movement of matching the tiles therapeutic and soothing. At the same time, the game develops pattern recognition skills as it requires speed and accuracy in matching the patterns of the tiles.

Through mahjong, I learn the relationships between opportunity and necessity. The point in the game is not based on each suit’s value but instead is based on the sum of the whole and how it works together. Even if you have the worst hand, as long as you are strategic and flexible you can still win the game.

Connect with Cinta on LinkedIn!