Simon Wong: Future of foods and agriculture
This week, our TTI Interview Series covers our TTI member Simon Wong. Simon currently works at Hain Celestial. He is also an avid impact investor with a keen focus on the future of food tech and agriculture startups. Outside of work and the investment realm, Simon is a member of Team USA Triathlon since 2016, a Resident Member of The Explorers’ Club and part of the Next Generation Explorers Network (NGEN).
In this interview, Simon shares how he generates impact through foods, agricultural innovations and his own investments. He sees the need for a mindset shift towards diversity and inclusion, which he actively supports on different levels, as well as a need for transforming for-profit corporations into a “force for good” through the conscious capitalism movement.
Impact on people’s daily lives, and diversity and inclusion
Simon, please tell us about your work and how it intersects with the impact space.
I currently work at a major better-for-you, organic food, and natural product consumer manufacturing company. In my daily role, I’m a jack-of-all-trades and thrive most when collaborating with our cross-functional senior leaders to execute on transformative projects – aligning and measuring operational progress against the organizational goals, managing M&A activities and building up core capabilities at the organization (such as building up the firm’s ESG function)
I take great pride in the fact my day job plays a major role in influencing positive environmental and social impacts. First, our products – foods and personal care – are consumer driven, so they naturally impact people’s daily lives. The better our products, such as healthier choices, better nutrition and wellness value, the higher likelihood of positive impact. Second, we have a keen focus on ESG – such as the product lifecycle, including how we source ingredients, how we produce, how we transport and how we interact with our employees, customers and suppliers, and most importantly, how we treat our community stakeholders.
Outside of my day-time role, I actively manage my personal investment portfolio which I deliberately invest, and partner with funds and founders, who have an impact mindset. I am super fortunate to be part of amazing networks such as Milken Institute's Young Leader Circle, Unreasonable Group's Collective, Top Tier Impact, so I have visibility into under-the-radar deal structures that typically include either direct or syndication investments into impactful and scalable private companies.
Last but not least, I’m an adventurer and explorer at heart. My mountaineering and triathlon journey began as mere hobbies which have grown substantially over the years to presently be a very influential part of who I am today. This includes being a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion for underrepresented groups in the outdoors, which is achieved through my work with Citizen Mountaineering in partnership with my climbing partner and her advocacy in #ClimbforEquality campaign.
Deliberate and intentional impact
What is your own definition of impact?
An impact - an impact action is deliberate and intentional. It must consider the results to various stakeholders, not just shareholders. The action needs to be economically and financially sound in order to be sustainable in the long run but the intention and deliberation to do good must be the primary driver.
Impact and ESG
Through your work, what are some of the misconceptions you’ve noticed regarding what “impact” is all about?
One of the biggest misconceptions of the word “impact” is that it is often used, interchangeably, with another term called "value creation". The "value creation" or "impact" term is often referred to as actions that generate financial bottoms by investment professionals. While in one sense, it can be partially true that services/products that are desirable by customers to generate financial profits might also indirectly create positive social, community and environmental effects; their decision makings still primarily consider shareholders as the prime stakeholder instead of considering broader stakeholders when there are no deliberate and intentional thought processes on improving other stakeholder interests and environmental impact.
The other misconception of "impact" is that it is interchangeably used with "ESG". ESG is typically a set of environmental and social strategies, governance structures, policies, practices, metrics, and transparencies are needed in every organization to reduce harmful risks to various stakeholders; but that does not necessarily mean they are intentionally running the organization to create better social and environmental value. So, while ESG is a limit, or a “do no harm” principle, to other stakeholders, and limits hard-to-account for non-financial risks; impact, on the other hand, is about deliberate actions and intention as the primary drive to run an organization while keeping it financially sound.
The mindset shift to diversity and collaboration
What would you say is one of the most important issues that needs to be solved over the next 10 years, Simon?
The most pressing issue is the mindset shift – we must be more accepting of diverse ideas and have a willingness to collaborate without being extremely divisive. Without those fundamental values of trust, all other serious issues such as climate risks, demographic inequality, excess wastes, water stress and lack of quality food supplies would not progress. To solve these problems that are not necessarily easy to capture by the current accounting methods, we must all be humble, yet firm to be inclusive of the other sides, so we can work together to solve today’s most pressing issues.
Transforming for-profit corporations to a “force for good”
Within your sector, what do you think are challenges standing on the way of providing solutions faster?
Beyond shifting the mindset, we have to know how to transform for-profit corporations to a “force for good”, and incentivize changes to the entire eco-system to make this change.
Management tends to execute marching orders based on a set of goals and objectives that are typically drafted by the board of directors. The board has a fiduciary duty to maximize the financial benefits to its shareholders and investors. The current legal framework with shareholder primacy essentially favors such structure in that business is to operate solely to maximizing economic benefits to the investors while effects to all other stakeholders are secondary, if even considered.
One possible answer is to change the legal framework from shareholder primacy to more stakeholder primacy.
Another possibility, which I think is easier to change, is the cultural demands to investors – starting with all of us. Because we all have passive investment – whether it is your 401(k), your pension plan, your votes for politicians, your buying behaviors. We can all begin to shift our investment to responsible funds and companies and begin to vote for politicians who truly act on delivering positive changes and buy from companies that are deliberately and intentionally doing good to the society.
We can no longer invest just for maximizing personal financial gains without considering any harmful effects to other stakeholders. With this mindset shift, this would force companies and investment funds to invest more into assets that truly act with impact and would turn their prime objectives to beyond just maximizing financial returns.
Future of foods, agriculture innovations and the conscious capitalism movement
Simon, tell us more about the long-term vision you have for your work, and how you measure & quantify your impact.
Both my professional work and personal investment interests have merged in recent years, specifically focused on the future of foods and agricultural innovations, and the conscious capitalism movement.
On the future of foods and agriculture – I am very excited about cell-based grown foods, alternative proteins, regenerative agriculture techniques, circular-economic manufacturing technologies or vertical indoor farming. All of these frontiers would dramatically reduce water usage, GHG emission and unnecessary wastes. Some of these innovations could even reduce risk of zoonotic diseases, improve animal rights, restore natural land-use and simplify supply chains.
Conscious capitalism is another big interest of mine as I continue to see more investment funds such as private equity beginning to embed ESG as an integrated practice to their traditional portfolio operations, so that the value created is not just financial but also measurable in social and environmental contexts. Likewise, in the publicly traded corporations, there are more focusing on ESG, particularly since 2019 and the beginning of the pandemic we’ve seen a further emphasis. Investors and executives are more aware of the non-financially driven ESG risks that can ultimately have financial impacts. I hope my work in both areas continues to contribute to these developments.
