Billion Dollar Moves™ with Sarah Chen-Spellings | Global Venture Capital Legacy, Innovation, and the Future of ASEAN Agri-Food w/ Ho Ren Hua, CEO of Thai Wah PCL
The future of food and climate resilience in Southeast Asia is being shaped as much in cassava fields and starch factories as it is in boardrooms.
In this episode of Billion Dollar Moves, Ho Ren Hua, CEO of Thai Wah Public Company Limited, joins Sarah to unpack how he is reinventing a 77-year-old family starch business into a regional agri-food and bio-materials platform built on “innovation and sustainability from farm to shelf.”
We go inside his operator playbook: leading 3,500 people through crisis with the principle “I can lose money, but I cannot lose a life,” transforming legacy vermicelli and tapioca products into higher-value ingredients and using distribution as a moat across Asia and beyond.
For investors, founders, and family-business leaders thinking in decades, this is a rare look at what long-term, values-led execution really takes.
Timestamps/Key Takeaways
02:10 – Legacy, trees & being “rooted”
06:10 – Stepping into a 77-year-old family business
12:32 – F4 framework: Farm, Factory, Family, Food
15:15 – Making circularity real: factories, water, solar & biogas
19:48 – Managing talent across China & Southeast Asia + AI workforce
23:24 – From noodles & starch to circular-economy platform
26:51 – Innovation & ROSECO: building new revenue engines
28:26 – Rockefeller Foundation, deployment & blended finance
32:19 – Time horizons, synthesis & “go slow to go fast”
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About Ho Ren Hua
Ho Ren Hua is CEO of Thai Wah Public Company Ltd, a leading Southeast Asian starch and consumer foods group founded in 1947, now expanding across multiple markets in Asia.
Previously, he was Executive Director and Country Head, China for Banyan Tree Holdings, helping cement its position as a leading luxury hospitality brand in China, and began his career at Bain & Company in New York, Hong Kong, and China in private equity and strategy.
He has served on boards including UN Women Singapore and Wharton China Alumni Club, and currently sits on the boards or advisory councils of Banyan Tree Holdings, the Asia Pacific Agri-Innovation Summit, and Singapore Management University. He holds a BS in Economics (Hons) from The Wharton School and is a graduate of the CEIBS Advanced Management Programme.
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Billion Dollar Moves Podcast | The Top Global VC Podcast for Founders & Funders | Backed by HubSpot Podcast Network
In venture, every move can make—or break—a billion-dollar outcome. Hosted by Sarah Chen-Spellings, award-winning entrepreneur, investor, and venture insider, Billion Dollar Moves pulls back the curtain on the strategies, stumbles, and breakout moments that define the world’s most iconic companies.
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