Beyond Profits: Sasi’s Shift from Finance to Social Impact

What made a Wharton graduate give up her successful career in finance to lead a social enterprise focused on environmental development? In this episode, Sasi discusses her realisation that earning money alone wasn’t sufficient for meaningful impact and shares her experiences working with the UN and nonprofit organisations. The episode explores the challenges Sasi faced as a woman in finance and the social enterprise world, emphasising her resilience and the importance of defining one’s own path to success in both personal and professional life.

Discussion Topics: Sasi’s Shift from Finance to Social Impact

• From finance to environmental development
• Is a successful life a happy life?
• Being the only woman in the meeting room – a boon or a bane?
• Don’t compare yourselves to others – stay in your own lane
• Speaking about your degree – bragging or credibility?
• Have humility to ask – if you don’t ask for it, you don’t get it
• Find the right support system for your business
• People are willing to help – ask for it

Transcript: Sasi’s Shift from Finance to Social Impact

Ritu G. Mehrish: Good morning. Welcome Sasi to our new episode of Rewrite The Rules. I’ll be really looking forward to having this conversation with you. And before I start asking you about your journey, I want to do a quick introduction for our audience. Sasi is somebody who left a stellar career in finance to start a social enterprise, and I’m not giving away more than that because I want her to share her journey, how she went from Finance to now leading this brilliant social enterprise that I’m sure all of you’re gonna really enjoy listening to the journey. Sasi over to you. How did you land where you are today?

From finance to environmental development

Sasibai Kimis: I was working in finance. I thought that if I could earn lots of money, maybe that was one of the ways that I could help people in need in the world.

But it quickly became clear to me that in fact there is actually a lot of money around that wants to help, but there aren’t enough people at executing solutions on the ground that are working and that are making a difference.

So I thought then, I wanna go do a masters and I want to learn a bit more about development and environmental conservation because sustainability and environmental conservation has always been a big part of I suppose what drives me as a person.

So I continued in finance for a bit and then I quit and then I went to Africa and I worked with UNDP. And then I saw that even in the UN there is a lot of money and there’s a lot being done, but a lot of money is also going into projects that become white elephants. This is not a criticism, this is just my own personal observation and so I went to work with a nonprofit.

They’re doing a lot of good, but they just don’t have enough money. And that was when, like my boss at the time, Carla, she’s Haitian and she started doing consulting projects with large gold mining companies and we were using the money from the consulting projects.

To help our sort of nonprofit work. That’s when I saw that we actually need this combination of, a social entrepreneurship model where we can continue to make money and then use that money to do good because either side is like pure capitalists or pure nonprofit models.

Are not always working and there is a need for a middle ground. After Ghana, I went back into finance cuz I was looking for a development job but couldn’t find anything. It was quite hilarious. No, none of the development consulting firms were willing to hire me, but I got hired by a private equity firm.

And when I was about to turn 30, I started realising that um, I started thinking about my family where I come from. I’m Indian. But I grew up in Malaysia and I started thinking about the fact that my parents are getting older and I want to spend time with them.

So I thought, why not go back to the country that I came from and try to make a difference? So when I turned 30, I came back and I started working at Malaysia’s Sovereign World Fund, Kazana. I was working in the sustainable development team and we invested in a carbon emissions reduction company.

I actually quit Kazana after about two and a half years. Because I had an incident, when I was driving home at night and I fell asleep at the wheel because I was so exhausted from working long hours.

and I started thinking, what am I actually doing with my life? If I died or I could have died that night, or on September 11th, I, if I was, if I had gone to work that day, I could have died.

So it’s like what do I want my life to be? But I really felt like I wanted to do something more on the ground, and I wanted to understand and feel the impact of what I’m actually doing. So I quit my job

I Traveled to Cambodia where I was teaching English, and that’s when I met with women and children rescued. Sex traffickers rescued from brothels. But then I thought, what can I do? What skills and talents do I have that I can try to do something here?

So I started buying products made by those survivors and those who are rescued, and I just started selling them to my friends and family. And then I met with Dr. Kim Tan, who was an impact investor, and he said, look, if you really want to help these women and these communities in a continuous way, you have to make this into a business.

It was a scary thing, but I went and registered with the company and the first three years were probably the most difficult three years because that’s when I really wanted to give up cuz I couldn’t pay myself a salary.

I was alone. I was doing everything on my own. I was travelling to different countries, meeting artisans, learning about their challenges and trying to figure out what I can do and what we can do in this space to really make a difference. So essentially that’s how Earth started.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Wow. I know you talked about some common themes, but let’s say while growing up or when you just started working, did you always know you would end up doing what you’re doing?

Is a successful life a happy life?

Sasibai Kimis: No. I think when you’re a child, of course, like what the world teaches, like societal values are like, oh, you wanna make lots of money and have a big house and a big cow, or, whatever. So it’s, that’s probably what I was thinking is success or what I was feeling like that’s what.

The definition of having made it and having a happy life is, And I think in my own life, I, my father would work himself up. And educated my siblings and I felt very privileged and I felt like, I always had in my mind that the privilege and what I have been given is not something I should just keep for myself. It’s something to be shared.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Wow. Since you touched on the topic of success, how do you define success today?

Sasibai Kimis: I think for me it’s definitely. And it’s always been about family and personal relationships. It’s having people close to you that you love and you are loved by really, because in the end, money comes and goes. But it’s your family and your personal relationships that really keep you happy.

So good to hear that. I’m gonna switch gears a little bit because this podcast is about women’s leadership and inspiring stories of women like yourself. Given this extraordinary journey you’ve had from where you started and with the thought and now running a social enterprise what have been some of the challenges that you faced more from a women leader lens,

Being the only woman in the meeting room – a boon or a bane?

Sasibai Kimis: I’ve always wondered how other women who built these, like big businesses, did it, working full time and having kids and having a family. So I do think that having. A great support system helps. I have a husband who is incredibly supportive. He actually said that he’d be a house husband, and I can despite all that we say about, gender not having an impact, it does because,

Ritu G. Mehrish: Yeah.

Sasibai Kimis: It definitely has an impact because even when I was in banking and I was in the finance world, a lot of the times I was the o I could be the only woman in the room or the only person at the table. And I, there were times when the client asked me if I could get the coffee and I was like you think just because I’m the only woman in the room that I’m like the secretary? And I was like no, I think we can ask someone else to get that.

Ritu G. Mehrish: I, for me it’s, I had read these things and I’d thought it happened like 40 years back. I am almost really shocked to hear it’s happening even now, like 10 years back or whenever this incident happened.

Sasibai Kimis: This happened in the early two thousands, so it was almost 20 years ago, but it’s yeah and even in the social enterprise world, I think that with respect to what we are doing, like we’re working with artisans, it’s also seen as like a, oh, it’s a female kind of thing, or it’s not very same.

I almost find it amusing that tech startups or tech startups generally funded, run by men get funded in the millions and then they just go bust, and nobody says anything about all the millions. And I’m thinking if you put those millions into social enterprises, do you know how much impact it would get? Because,

Ritu G. Mehrish: Yeah.

Sasibai Kimis: The, you’re creating and helping create livelihoods. So I think those are some of the challenges I have felt because I feel like With the funding world, it tends to be like a boys club, like bros, and then all the women are like on the sidelines. So in the end, when I was building, building a, I, we haven’t had any external funding because I wanted to make sure that our business is um, running and profitable and has a profitable business model built on its own revenue.

I didn’t want to build something that, if my heart fully is not in this and I’m not gonna build something sustainable, I don’t wanna do it. So I wanted to really make sure that what we’re doing works and is making a difference before we let any external parties into what we are doing.

Ritu G. Mehrish: But I wanna come back to the insights in terms of how you overcame those challenges. How did you go about overcoming those challenges, and paving the away for yourself to get where you are? What were some of those, real insights or, your learnings from there?

Don’t compare yourselves to others – stay in your own lane

Sasibai Kimis: When I was struggling in the beginning and I was alone and you’re always comparing, like I was comparing because I was looking at other social entrepreneurs or other women or other men. And, then I learned a very important lesson: stay in your lane and run the race.

Don’t look to your left or right. And that made a difference. And also in the beginning, when we were just building ourselves up and. When you try to contact people to take part in events or find bias, they brush you off cuz they don’t know who you are and you’re a nobody, right?

And so there was actually a Japanese client who gave me this advice and he said, look, don’t go chasing after people. Do the good that you do. Keep doing it and then wait for people to come to you.

And in a way, that’s how Earth Heir has grown organically over the last 10 years. We turned 10 years old this year and, all the media attention, or media coverage, everything that we’ve received was organic and then also I think coming from a background of being in finance and, having gone to Wharton in Cambridge, I used that.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Thank you Sasi, thank you so much for spelling that out because I was waiting that in the conversation you would tell our audience, where did you do your finances from? Where did you do your masters as a woman, again, that’s just an observation, we underplay some of this stuff because I can bet my life if I was interviewing a man here with due respect to all my male friends and colleagues, if I was interviewing a man here, the first thing in the introduction. He would’ve started saying, I got my degree. I went to Wharton, I went to Cambridge. That would’ve come first, so I’m so happy you are bringing it now where you get your finance credentials from, so thank you.

Speaking about your degree – bragging or credibility?

Sasibai Kimis: I guess I try not to know, to talk about it. I suppose like women, you don’t wanna be seen as you’re bragging or whatever but for me, I realise that having had that background gives me credibility and a reputation that I should use.

It’s very sad, but people think that someone who doesn’t, who didn’t come from this background, look at them as or you must be like one of those tree-hugger idealist types that don’t know about the real world, right?

And then I come in and I’m like, no, I know about the real world. I have been where you are. I have been in your shoes and I’m still saying that this is the path that you should all take. And, in Malaysia, fine, I’ll brag a bit now, like we are the first B Corp certified social enterprise in Malaysia. So we’re very proud of that and to shine a token for that and for more social enterprises to follow the lead and of course more large companies to follow the lead, cuz I think that this is the way that business should be.

We can’t go through the same old thing like growing shareholder earnings without a thought of social and environmental impacts. So one of the things that we’re doing this year is, my husband also runs a social enterprise called the Seam Monkey Project. They work with pla they build machines that recycle plastic waste that make new products.

So they work with companies like Body Shop to recycle their plastic bottles. So we are actually combining our operations and coming under one roof, and we are creating a sustainability education centre and a social enterprise marketplace.

So we are now going to make Earth Heir.com an impact marketplace to feature social impact products from all over Malaysia. So from other NGOs, social enterprises, and individual entrepreneurs that are from marginalised communities. We’re gonna put their products on our website and also have them sold physically in our retail shop. We’re moving into the central market.

Ritu G. Mehrish: That’s super, super impressive. You’ve been running this successfully for 10 years now. What advice would you have for this? For young women leaders, whether they’re entrepreneurs, whether they’re in the corporate world, but basically young and emerging women leaders, what advice, what two, three pieces of advice would you give them?

Have humility to ask – if you don’t ask for it, you don’t get it

Sasibai Kimis: I think the biggest advice I would give is to have humility um, because I think when I first started Earth Heir, I was arrogant in some ways. Because I thought I could do things on my own. I thought that I didn’t need to ask for help. And then I realised very quickly that people cannot read your mind.

There are a lot of people around you who want to help, but I have no idea what help you need. So if you don’t ask for it, you don’t get it. So you have to have the humility to ask. And also the other humility point was, you’re an entrepreneur, you have to do everything including cleaning the toilets and, whatever needs to be done, you gotta do it.

So you can’t think oh, I’m a big boss or CEO and this is beneath me. I can’t do X, Y, and Z. It’s beneath me. So I think. That has been a continual journey for me as well. To try and have a very flat structure for our company as well, like for our team so that the team doesn’t feel like, oh, I’m above them or they’re below me, or things like that.

So I think that would be probably the best advice. And then, you know what I mentioned earlier about staying in your lane and staying in your walk. Because it’s so easy to get bogged down in comparison. So in the end, stop comparing, stop looking and just keep doing your own good. Find your own like North Point and follow that. And then the good things will come along. I think that’s what I would say.

Ritu G. Mehrish: No, those are powerful sets of advice. I love them. I wanna ask you, if you were to look back you’re still young, so I’m not saying you’re young your young self, but your younger self, if you were to look back and if there was one piece of advice to your real young, younger self, what would that be?

Find the right support system for your business

Sasibai Kimis: I think in terms of founding your own business one thing I wished I had done better was having like co-founders who were active in the business.

I would say you have to have a tribe, you have to have a support system. Otherwise, you are placing your own well being in danger. And I think, I almost feel like some, in some ways, entrepreneurship or people think becoming an entrepreneur now is becoming almost like a fad.

Oh, everyone can do it and everyone should do it, and I’m not actually sure that everyone should do it. Because there is an immense toll that it takes on you, your own well-being, and your health. Your personal life. So are you, do you want to make that kind of sacrifice and turn into that journey?

Also how big do you want to grow and what do you actually really want outta your business? So for me, when I was younger, I had, I really had no idea.

Then, when I started Earth Heir, but at that time, I didn’t have the skills, the knowledge, all the understanding of the ecosystem to make an impact.

But now after 10 years, we do have that, and I feel like now we are ready to do that, so it’s a slow burn game. The other thing is do you have the patience to go through something like that? Entrepreneurship or actually social entrepreneurship is a slow game. It is not like a, get in and then make 10 x and then get out kind of thing.

So you have to think about all of these things before you get into it. I think I would also probably give myself the advice of being kinder to myself. I think. I was probably a lot harsher and thinking a lot about what other people might think about me.

And I think that might also have to do with age in your thirties. I’m more self-conscious now. In my forties, I care less. So I feel less stressed about achieving milestones or what other people’s expectations might be by taking it at my own pace and my own and not getting pushed into what other people want me to be. Cuz I think, cuz we were approached by investors early on and. Y and it was like I wasn’t ready to be put on their timeline.

I wanted to do things on my own timeline. And I could only do that if I had control of the company. I couldn’t do that if other people came in. So all of these things are things that I’m happy I did. And yeah and I think I would definitely. Have been told to be kinder to myself and less focused on my shortcomings.

and I think the other thing is also to not get sucked into it. Fame or celebrity um, things because, after a while I started realising that my head might be getting bigger than what I, than what I would like because I was getting invited to lots of events to speak and I was getting these awards and all this stuff, and I’m not saying that those are not good things.

They are good things, but don’t forget, like the hu like do, like always have humility. Don’t forget why you’re doing this and who you are and don’t get lost in all of that, yeah, those are some of the lessons.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Great. No, this is, we could go on. This is such a, this is such an interesting conversation

And as we come to close out of our conversation the three things that I took away, there were many, but I probably, if I were to pick three, the first one that we started our conversation with is, Defining your own success criteria.

I think that was so powerful because we get so caught up in how society defines success for us, or how corporate defines success for us. Oh, how we see people around us defining success for us. But the key is defining your own criteria of success. Because then that helps you. The second point that you made is staying in your lane, because once you know what success means to you, you can stay in your lane and not compare and not get bogged down by what others are doing.

The third piece, the third point that really stuck with me is, Again, asking for help. I think there’s a lot of work we as women and women leaders have to do to really reach out to people, ask for help, not try and do everything ourselves because there is a tendency to go a little bit into the martyr zone, oh, like really trying to be very selfless.

Sasibai Kimis: But as you said, it takes a toll on our mental wellbeing, on our, and that then trickles down to our personal and professional life. So yes, ask for help.I just want to give an example of asking for help.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Go ahead. Yes.

People are willing to help – ask for it

Sasibai Kimis: is so in the beginning, like before our logo was created, I was trying to find we had a few different versions of our logo and. It came down to the point that I actually realised I didn’t know how to start thinking about representing a brand.

And I didn’t know how to tell the story of what we were doing. So I reached out to a few friends and I said, Hey, I need help with branding and storytelling.

So then a few, two friends actually reached out and said, Hey, I see I love what you’re doing. I think you’re doing a lot of good. I’m gonna help you design your logo. And then another friend who was a film producer and a filmmaker, she then said, oh, I’ll help you make a video of what you’re doing.

Our first few videos about Earth Heir, she came with me to Cambodia and interviewed our artisans and went to meet all the communities we were working with and so then I was like, oh, I wouldn’t have had this happen if I didn’t tell people I needed this help.

So I think, when you’re an entrepreneur, please ask you, because there may be people in your community or in your networks that really just want to say, Hey, I’d love to do something for you and how I can help.

Ritu G. Mehrish: That’s right. That’s right. No, that’s a powerful story, and I’m sure all of us can relate to that different level, whether you’re an entrepreneur or a leader in the corporate world, it’s the same, right? Just reaching out to people and people are willing to help you. So thank you so much for sharing that.

With that I, again, wanna thank you so much for your time, Sasi. It was such a pleasure talking to you and wishing Earth many more decades of success and all the best for making it bigger and better and creating more impact. So thank you so much.

Sasibai Kimis: Thank you, and if you are in Kle, please come and visit our new space.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Absolutely. We’ll look that up for sure.

Sasibai Kimis: All right, thank you.

Our Guests: Sasibai Kimis

An award-winning social entrepreneur, Sasibai Kimis of Earth Heir is dedicated to helping artisans and marginalised communities to have sustainable livelihoods. For her commendable efforts, Sasi, as she is affectionately known, was recognised as one of Wharton’s 40 Under 40 and was awarded an Eisenhower Fellowship in 2015.