140. Pete Zorn, Biotech Business and Legal Executive
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Pete Zorn, a lawyer and biotech executive, spent nine years in North Carolina, attending law school at the University of Carolina, Chapel Hill. He moved back to the Boston area with his wife and child where he stayed with his law firm, working remotely before taking an in-house position with one of his clients. He took the company public and stayed there for 11 years. He has since worked with three other biotech companies in various business and legal capacities, and is currently the president and Chief Legal Officer of Genevant. The Leading Nucleic Acid Delivery Company in the...
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139. Lawrence Steyn, Investing in an Industrial America
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Lawrence Steyn moved to Los Angeles to work with Walt Disney, where he helped think through financing new theme parks and movies. After leaving Disney, he went into traditional investment banking. He also mentions that he was a character in a theme park training program, where he was a penguin in full costume. His experience in LA and his role as a character in the training program were both memorable and challenging, and being a penguin was the hardest job he had in the 30+ years since graduating. From Investment Banking to the Tech Industry Lawrence moved to New York and...
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138. Sandi DuBowski, Documentary Director/Producer of Sabbath Queen and Trembling Before G-d
The 92 Report
Sandi DuBowski discusses the one-year anniversary of his film Sabbath Queen, which he spent 21 years making. He reflects on the journey of the 21st-century radical rabbi and how it has shaped their life. He discusses the inspiration behind his film, Tomboychik, the concept of which was developed after conversations with his grandmother. The film is a living video memorial to her spirit; it won several awards, including the Golden Gate award at the San Francisco Film Festival and the Whitney Museum program, and launched Sandi into the film world. Documentary Films and Festivals ...
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137. Lili Barouch, Sports Cardiologist and Triathlete
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Lili Barouch, a cardiologist, went to medical school at Johns Hopkins. After moving to Baltimore, she became a cardiologist specializing in heart failure and transplant. She joined the faculty in 2003 and worked on basic science research, research lab, and inpatient and outpatient care for heart failure and transplant patients. Lili stayed in this role for about 10 years before transitioning to outpatient cardiology. She moved to Howard County, Maryland, where her children have grown up. Founding the Sports Cardiology Program Lili started becoming more athletic around 20...
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136. Tanya Selvaratnam, Multimedia Storyteller and Advocate
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Tanya Selvaratnam shares her journey from high school to present day. She moved to New York after graduating and worked at Columbia Law School’s Center for Chinese Legal Studies. She also assisted Anna Deavere Smith on her show “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” about the LA riots. Tanya went back to Harvard for graduate school, studying Chinese language and the history of law. An Adventure in Theatre After her father passed away, she returned to New York, where she was working on the Beijing Women's Conference. Wandering the streets one day, she came across The Performing...
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135. Bo Rutledge, The Transformative Power of Higher Ed
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Bo Rutledge, a professor and dean at the University of Georgia Law School, opens the conversation by talking about his parents, who made sacrifices to support their children's education, and how he felt called to serve and worked for the governor in California where he met many inspiring civil servants. A Graduate Degree and Long-Distance Relationship In Scotland, he obtained a graduate degree and met his wife Birgit, who is Austrian. They had a wonderful year together overseas and then spent three years in a long-distance relationship while Bo attended law school and...
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134. Dan Tabak, Litigation Partner and Treasurer at Harvard Hillel
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Dan Tabak, a lawyer and treasurer of Harvard Hillel, spent three years at Columbia Law School, he then worked as a litigator at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, but took a year off to clerk for a federal judge in Brooklyn. He went back to work at Simpson Thacher before moving on to his current firm, Cohen & Gresser which operates primarily in New York City but has offices in London, Paris, Dubai, and Washington, D.C. He currently lives in Scarsdale, New York with his wife and two kids. On the Board of Harvard Hillel Dan joined the board of Harvard Hillel during the...
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133. Kirsten Dirksen, From TV Producer to Unexpected YouTube Success
The 92 Report
Kirsten Dirksen, An Unexpected Career as a YouTube Home & Lifestyle Content Creator Show Notes: Kirsten Dirksen majored in economics and math, but found creative writing to be her passion. She decided to become a magazine writer and interned at the NBC affiliate in San Francisco, where she worked for free for about nine months. Working at NBC and Moving a Women's Network After her internship, she went to work with the NBC elite, which was the old chronicle enterprise. Kirsten became the music person, interviewing bands and creating unique stories for interviews. She eventually moved to New...
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132. Bonni (Grant) Theriault, Supporting 130K Adult Learners into Employment
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Bonni Theriault initially went to business school and worked as a business analyst at McKinsey for a few years, where she worked with consumer products for companies and marketing. After working at Pepperidge Farm for a couple of years, she decided to build her own company and joined forces with a woman who was the head of advertising at Campbell Soup, and together they launched a brand strategy company where they worked for companies like Cadbury Schweppes, Johnson and Johnson, and Stryker. From Marketing to Coaching to Global Emergency Care After 13 years at the company, Bonni...
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131. Gideon Yaffe, Brain Injury Survivor
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Gideon Yaffe and his then girlfriend-now wife, Sue Chan, drove across the country after graduation to San Francisco, where they had no jobs or prospects. Gideon had applied to graduate school in philosophy but didn't get in anywhere. They got married and his first job was at a pet store, Gideon worked there for a while, then at a computer magazine. Studying Philosophy at Stanford While hanging out in San Francisco, he started reading Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, which he loved and found to be hugely rewarding. This inspired him to apply to grad school again and this...
info_outlineBrent Chinn, an East Asian Studies and Economics major at Harvard talks about his journey since graduation in 1992. Since he was 12, Brent had a desire to work in the Pacific Rim. After school, he worked in San Francisco but was offered a position in Indonesia by the wife of a fifth-year senior when he was a freshman. At the time, Brent had no idea where Indonesia was but saw it as an opportunity to work in the Pacific Rim. He arrived in Indonesia in 1996 and made every rookie mistake, including overconfidence and underestimating how much he didn't know.
An American in Indonesia
Brent talks about his job in Indonesia. The stock market had just opened, Indonesia was an emerging economy and considered one of the five tigers at the time. His job was not just to work as an analyst but to also recruit talent. Brent had a car and a driver, which was part of the expat package, less enticing was his first lunch delivered to his office. He found it challenging to get settled with utilities and getting an apartment. However, he was fascinated by the country and its culture, and he started learning Bahasa Indonesia, the official language. It was a rockin' time. However, two years later, the Asian financial crisis hit, and everything came tumbling down. Brent made a rookie mistake when he advertised a summer barbecue and invited people to his apartment. He didn't realize that Indonesians didn't have the concept of summer or barbecue, because it’s on the equator and don’t have the same seasonal shifts, and he struggled to get the briquets and hot dogs. Despite the initial challenges, Brent has been in Indonesia ever since and has been working in various fields.
Indonesia’s Democracy
Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world, but its constitution is a secular democracy. Its democracy was messy, with demonstrations and volatility, and Americans got evacuated. In 1998, after the financial crisis, President Suharto stepped down, and for the first time, there was a democracy. Indonesia recognized that their country was full of 16,000 islands with thousands of different languages and dialects. They had to get everyone speaking the same language and realize they were better together than apart. They put their differences aside and moved forward, hacking out their differences in a democratic way. Indonesia is considered one of the biggest success stories for democracy. It's also a great growth story. Indonesia has a lot of lessons that they can give to Americans in terms of what happens when you don't have to dominate political parties and how to build consensus to drive a political agenda.
Working in Finance during the Financial Crisis
Brent arrived when Indonesia was a hot market, but Brent's personal experience was challenging, as he had been in the country for only two years when the financial crisis hit, and suddenly, nobody was taking any debt. Brent decided to stick around during the crisis, and the company he worked for became one of the largest issuers of debt. He had to print bearer bonds complete with terms and conditions. He was working with medium-term notes, which were a financial innovation at the time but are now banned. However, when the market changed, the company got into the debt trading business and made more money selling distressed bonds than they did issuing primary debt.
Brent talks about the riots that started during the financial crash and why he decided to stay in the country despite the fact that many Americans were being evacuated. Brent left Indonesia and went to business school at Wharton in 2001 and worked for a start-up in the US in 2004 but later returned to Asia in 2009 where he helped his old company build mobile stock applications.
Building the Startup TimKado
He started his own company in 2017 called TimKado, which makes software tools that fit on top of WhatsApp. The company automates content contact management for different popular chat applications, primarily WhatsApp but also Telegram, and other chat applications. Their major market at the moment is travel agents, but they also serve retailers, ecommerce, and some insurance companies.
WhatsApp is the dominant chat application for 2 billion people, particularly in Indonesia, India, Brazil, and some European countries. The company has its own API, and there are a whole group of third parties that make applications that work with WhatsApp. Chinn's company aims to be the first SaaS-based software platform that can extend beyond Indonesia, but go to other markets like Brazil, Mexico, and Europe. They want to help corporate companies build out their own chat networks and be ready for chat GTP or whatever should come down the pipeline in terms of AI.
Brent's experiences highlight the risks and rewards of working in emerging markets. The market can be volatile, and financial innovation can lead to toxic products. However, there is also potential for high financial rewards. His story also underscores the importance of regulation and the need for caution when investing in emerging markets.
Life in Jakarta
Brent currently lives in Jakarta. He believes that Indonesia has a lot to offer and wants to be an advocate for the country. Despite Jakarta's population of over 30 million people, there are plenty of parks and outdoor spaces to enjoy, and the city has a fantastic food scene with a variety of ethnic foods and organic options at reasonable prices. Jakarta has also experienced significant growth in infrastructure, including malls and public transportation, in the last 10 years. He believes that Jakarta is a safe place with a laid-back atmosphere and good music scene.
Influential Harvard Courses and Professors
Brent reflects on his college experience and how a class on ancient Chinese art has helped him in his current job, where he is trying to use technology in innovative ways to increase productivity. He shares that the biggest lesson he learned from Harvard is to change the paradigm and do something amazing. He invites people to connect with him on LinkedIn to learn more about his work and to explore Indonesia, including Bali, and Komodo Island.
Timestamp:
17:47 Discussion on investment banking and the industries dealt with
18:06 Experience with emerging markets and bearer bonds
20:16 Working with state-owned enterprises and financial innovations
21:39 Explanation of medium-term notes and their downfall
23:38 Personal experience during the financial crisis
24:20 Trading debt after issuing it during the financial crisis
28:17 Working for a startup in the US and returning to Asia in 2009
29:42 Building mobile stock applications and starting his own company
30:41 Information about his current company TimKado
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