The Tea Leaves Podcast

Shweta Rajpal Kohli is Chief Public Policy Officer, Sequoia India and Southeast Asia. She advises the fund’s Indian and Southeast Asian portfolio companies on regulatory risks and engages policymakers on matters related to India’s startup ecosystem. Prior to joining Sequoia, Shweta was the head of public policy for India and South Asia at Uber, and then at Salesforce, following a two-decade career as a leading business journalist and TV news anchor. With 2021 projected to see a record of around USD 20 billion invested in Indian startups, Shweta and Rexon discussed the tremendous opportunities in India’s innovation ecosystem, including in the FinTech, EdTech, and enterprise tech sectors. They also weighed the regulatory challenges surrounding data localization and overseas listing for Indian startups, and Shweta offered advice for CEOs of multinational tech companies as they navigate India’s evolving policy environment.

PichaEats is a Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based social enterprise in the food industry, focused on supporting the city’s large refugee community. PichaEats partners with refugee chefs to cook and package meals based on the chefs’ personal recipes, and sells and delivers those meals to individuals and catered events across the city. On this episode we spoke with Kim Lim, who alongside co-founders Suzanne Ling and Lee Swee Lin transformed PichaEats from a college service project into a self-sustaining business that has delivered more than 350,000 meals and partnered with 35 refugee chefs. Kim shared moving stories about the displaced individuals with whom PichaEats has partnered, and discussed PichaEats’ growth path and strategic vision, the challenges of running a social enterprise through COVID-19, and the status of refugees in Malaysia. She also shared some juicy details about the biryani, lamb-stuffed eggplant, and chicken mandi that have made PichaEats famous.

Anna Fifield was Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post from 2018 to 2020, before which she covered the Korean Peninsula and Japan as the Post’s Tokyo bureau chief from 2014 to 2018. Anna is the author of The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un, and an authority on North Korean society and politics, having visited the country a dozen times to report on the Kim regime. She has also traveled across Asia to interview North Korean defectors, giving her rare insight into the lives of ordinary people in North Korea. Anna now lives in her home country of New Zealand, where she is the editor of the Dominion Post. Anna painted a rare portrait covering the totality of North Korean politics and society, including her analysis of Kim Jong-un’s leadership, North Korea’s nuclear program and the prospects for denuclearization, China’s relationship with the Kim regime, the state of human rights in North Korea and the lives of the North Korean people, and more.

Dr. Evan S. Medeiros is Penner Family Chair in Asian Studies at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a Senior Advisor at The Asia Group. Dr. Medeiros served on the National Security Council for six years under U.S. President Barack Obama, first as Director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia, and then as President Obama’s top advisor for U.S. policy in Asia. Combining expertise as a scholar of Chinese politics with first-hand experience at the height of U.S. China policy, Evan reflected on several critical issues in U.S.-China relations: U.S. President Joe Biden’s China strategy, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s leadership and rising nationalism in China, balancing interdependence and escalating risks in the bilateral relationship, and the outlook for engagement between U.S. and Chinese leaders.

Scott Levy is Managing Director of NBA Asia, where he oversees development and expansion of the National Basketball Association’s strategic initiatives across the Indo-Pacific region – excluding China. With the Tokyo Olympics opening later this month, Scott spoke with Tea Leaves about sports and consumer culture in different Asian markets, the NBA’s response to COVID-19, and the outlook for the Tokyo Olympics. You can access a full video of the conversation at www.youtube.com/channel/UCwSvkY8tzvEq21kNOjYILXQ.

Natasha Khan is a Hong Kong-based reporter at The Wall Street Journal, where she has covered major stories including Hong Kong’s popular protest movement, the emergence of COVID-19 and the city’s response, and major changes to Hong Kong’s political system. On this episode of Tea Leaves, Rexon and Shery spoke with Natasha about her experiences covering the protests, the economic, social, and political changes underway in the city, and how she continues to seek truth amid the crackdown on some media outlets in Hong Kong.

Ashley J. Tellis holds the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs and is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Previously, he served on the National Security Council (NSC) as special assistant to President George W. Bush and senior director for strategic planning and Southwest Asia. On the NSC he was a top negotiator of the pivotal 2005 U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement – a landmark agreement that helped transform the U.S.-India relationship. On this episode, Rexon and Shery spoke with Ashley about India’s struggle to control the deadly second wave of COVID-19, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership and prospects in Indian domestic politics, and India’s “self-reliance” economic policy, protectionism, and actions against large tech companies. On the security front, they discussed opportunities and challenges in U.S.-India relations, the Quad partnership, and India’s relations with China and Russia.

Ambassador Nina Hachigian is Deputy Mayor for International Affairs for the City of Los Angeles and previously served as U.S. Ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) from 2014 to 2017. On this episode, Rexon and Shery spoke with Nina about how cities shape international relations, urban policy and the fight against climate change, and the challenges facing ASEAN amid the Myanmar coup. They also discussed LA’s preparations for the 2028 Summer Olympics and working with Mayor Eric Garcetti on the city’s response to COVID-19.

Admiral Harry Harris served as U.S. Ambassador to South Korea from 2018 to 2021, before which he was a four-star admiral in the U.S. Navy, commanding the U.S. Pacific Fleet and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM). Admiral Harris was also the first American of Japanese descent to lead USINDOPACOM. Ahead of South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s visit to the White House on May 21, Rexon and Shery spoke with Admiral Harris about his expectations for the Moon-Biden summit, U.S. military capabilities and strategic competition with China, and his views on the Quad and other U.S. partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region.

Tea Leaves welcomes our listeners back with two new co-hosts: Rexon Ryu, Managing Partner at The Asia Group, and Shery Ahn, an anchor at Bloomberg Television’s “Daybreak Asia” and “Daybreak Australia.” In this latest iteration of the Tea Leaves Podcast, Rexon and Shery share their personal stories and discuss how their Asian heritage influenced their perspectives and chosen careers in government, journalism, and the private sector. The two also dive into the emerging influence of China throughout the pandemic and how recent events, such as the global semiconductor shortage and China’s post-pandemic economic recovery, are shining the spotlight on key markets and sectors across the Indo-Pacific.