Season 4 - Episode 4 | From Corporate Leadership to Purpose - Driven Entrepreneurship: Abraham Y. Elias’s Journey (Vietnam, Singapore)

In this compelling episode of Thriving in the Age of Disruption, Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra sits down with Abraham Y. Elias, a seasoned corporate leader turned entrepreneur, to explore his transformative journey. After 25 years in the corporate shipping industry, Elias ventured into entrepreneurship, founding multiple family businesses, including Anne Hill International School. This episode delves into his entrepreneurial mindset, resilience during crisis, and vision for value-driven, sustainable business models.

5 Key Insights from this Podcast:

1. Entrepreneurial Mindset and Value Creation

Elias emphasizes the importance of ‘common-sense’ business strategies, where understanding customer pain points drives innovation. His decision to launch a middle-segment school in Vietnam offering affordable, quality education stemmed from personal experiences as a father and observations of Vietnam’s market gaps. He underscores that any business must provide a clear value proposition, balancing cost and quality for long-term success.

2. Crisis-Ready Mindset

Elias reflects on navigating a perfect storm of challenges: financial strain, personal loss, and the infancy of his businesses. He credits resilience, routine, and self-reflection—often achieved through running in ‘green spaces’—for helping him manage these pressures. His belief that “if money can solve a problem, it’s not a problem” highlights the importance of perspective in overcoming adversity.

3. Family Business Dynamics

Drawing from his experience running a family business, Elias highlights the trust and shared vision that family members bring to ventures. He also addresses challenges like maintaining work-life balance and setting boundaries to ensure business discussions don’t overshadow family relationships. Practical solutions, like creating dedicated business communication channels, have helped him and his wife manage their roles effectively.

4. Sustainability as a Core Business Principle

Sustainability is central to Elias’s vision. From his shipping career to running schools, he prioritizes eco-conscious practices, such as repurposing existing infrastructure for school campuses. He believes in the power of individual actions and community education to combat global warming and create a better future for the next generation.

5. Thriving Through Simplicity

For Elias, a simple life means freedom from material stress, time for personal growth, and meaningful connections with people from all walks of life. He shares his philosophy of fulfillment, legacy, and happiness as the cornerstones of thriving.

Host:

🗓️ Upcoming Events:
· Global SOL Forum, Vietnam | 26–28 Sept 2025, Virtual Addresses by Peter Senge (26 Sept 2025) and Alan AtKisson (28 Sept 2025)
· Adam Kahane's Half-Day Workshop, Vietnam | 27 Sept 2025

Thriving in the Age of Disruption with Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra
Ready to thrive in today’s fast-changing world? Visit our website for exclusive insights and resources from Dr. Ramesh!

💡 Watch the full video episodes and engaging reels on YouTube.
🎥 Follow us on Tiktok and Linkedln for updates and bonus content.
📢 Stay inspired with actionable tips and expert advice every week.

🎙️ This podcast is proudly produced by Talent Leadership Crucible.

Transcript

Thriving In The Age Of Disruption – Season 4

Season 4 - Episode 4 | From Corporate Leadership to Purpose-Driven Entrepreneurship: Elias Abraham’s Journey (Vietnam, Singapore)

 
Dr. Ramesh  00:00

Welcome to Thriving in the Age of Disruption podcast series. I'm so excited that we have Mr. Elias Abraham with us today. Elias is currently running Anne Hill international as its founder and general director. He was the managing director of Zim Shipping Line in Vietnam. Elias, welcome to Thriving in the Age of Disruption podcast series. I'm really excited that you could join us here today. We'll start off by having you introduce yourself to our listeners.

Elias  00:27

Thank you, Ramesh, thanks for having me. I'm Elias. I've lived in Vietnam for a very long time. I've just made the entry into full time entrepreneurship. Congratulations. After 25 years of working in the corporate world, mainly shipping and logistics. So right now, I'm just building on the businesses I started over the past years. They were family businesses. We have an education business, we have an E commerce business, we have a manufacturing business, all based out of Vietnam. And I'm very happy to see that the businesses have kind of developed into the next phase of its life cycle, and right now it requires me to give my full time and attention to it.

Dr. Ramesh 01:09

That's really exciting, because in this podcast series, I explore two kinds of mindset which I feel is important in the VUCA world, the world of disruption. The first mindset that I want to explore with you is a entrepreneurial mindset. You are firstly, resourceful, and by that I mean that you're able to identify a problem and correctly define it, because a problem well defined is half solved. The next thing is, how do you manage uncertainty and take risks? And third is about creating value which is not just financial, but it can also be non financial, like social impact, and when you talk about value, it's not just for yourself, but also your stakeholders. So look back at your journey and how this entrepreneurial mindset was valuable, whether it was when you were working or when you became an investor. Now when you transition to becoming entrepreneur,

Elias  02:03

I've lived in many different countries, India, Sri Lanka, the US, and this has really exposed me to people's walks in life. Different business cultures have made me seen what is right, what is wrong about businesses. And I like building things whether it's something small or something big, and be able to shape the outcome of what I build. I've always used this term common sense, business where you go to a restaurant and you see many things wrong, and you say to yourself, it's so common sense, why don't they do it right? Because that's what makes people happy. And there's always been a desire, if I start a business, and I can fix these little noises and build a business that people will say, wow, they got the recipe, right. There's family. My own personal aspirations having children as well as I think giving me a sense of achievement.

Dr. Ramesh 03:01

Okay, lovely. Thank you for sharing that. And I want to underline a few things you talked about how the common sense approach to business, and it was not just in building your own business, but also in how you observe when service levels are lacking. I think that's a valuable way to connect the dots all these lofty concepts and principles and frameworks that we learn in business school. How did you put that business plan together? You don't have direct experience in education yet you went into that space?

Elias  03:35

Yeah, I wouldn't have started a school if I didn't have somebody who knew about schools. A cousin of mine is actually a very veteran educator, and I've always said I want to start a school with her. She brings the soft side of things, the teaching, the love for the children, and I bring the business side of things right at that time as well, it was to keep the wife busy, because I told her to stop her flying career because it was very disruptive for the family and to come and build something, and we wanted to build a school. There's some element of profit. Nobody is doing things for charity. However, I was convinced that we could build a school where it didn't have to be exorbitant. So I wanted to build a school for the middle segment, okay, because I knew one day, I have lots of kids, and I couldn't afford expensive international school, so I wanted to build a middle ground school, okay? And I mean not to say the current schools, they're all over charging No. You can play around with the quality. You can play around with facilities still providing a very holistic product, because parents just want safe, secure environment with good teachers. They don't need the tennis courts and the swimming pools, right, right? So, but still, the children go to good schools in that sense. So I saw that very lacking in Vietnam, because Vietnam traditionally had the big schools. The guys have been around, and they've done a terrific job. Yeah, but unlike countries, like, for example, in Thailand and Singapore, over the recent times, where there were schools built for a middle segment,

Elias  05:11

Yes,

Elias  05:12

and that was really, really lacking here, so it was kind of a first mover advantage, but it was also driven by my desire to put my children to an education system that wasn't expensive, quality is how you define it. My kids were very young at that age, to me, quality is really the love and care they get because they're so young, right? Let's say when older primary school, you had to make sure the right teachers and everything, but we could somehow balance that with the cost, right? So by and large, we're not a we're not a perfect school for everybody. But I think if and especially expatriates who are moving to Vietnam and whose company isn't really paying, expat benefits, but rather than leave the family overseas and come alone to work, at least they could see us as an alternative, where they could still bring their family and still have affordable international education.

Dr. Ramesh 06:09

What structures now was the fact that you were able to identify emerging segments and to come up with quality and affordable international education for expats or even locals who want to put their children there, and that's a very nuanced way of looking at entrepreneurship. I wonder what shaped that thinking when you looked at it, was it just your own pain point as a father, as a family man, who's having three kids and you want it to be affordable?

Elias  06:38

Well, that was one of the driving factors. Because what I found that hiring people here, especially expats, there are two major costs. First is tax, because it's high, yes, and the second big component is education. Housing is still very affordable, I would say, unless you choose to live in a big mansion, right? Okay, but often people don't want to move at least middle management. Talk about middle level managers, and you have a lot of them, supervisors, factory managers, right? I think education is a big determinant of whether they will take the job. Right? I've in the past, tried to hire some people, middle level managers, and after they do the calculations, they say, No, they can't afford because the education alone will be half their salary. They didn't come with lavish perks and everything. So a lot of them came to our school. We did special deals for them, and it was nice. It was nice to see they could bring their families with them. But I must caution, affordable doesn't mean cheap. Yes, of course, it means value for money. And for me, any business, there must be a value proposition. If you cannot offer a value proposition, then you don't do the business, because then you become like everybody else. I mean, school is still a very competitive business, although everybody thinks it's very profitable, very sexy, but it is competitive. So if you don't provide a value, then you're behind, because there are already established schools ahead of you, something that was very conscious in our mind to keep rise to that market segment, and we had to make it good.

Dr. Ramesh 08:19

Tell us a little bit about your school. How many students do you have? What are the expansion plans I heard you recently brought on board an investor.

Elias  08:27

So over the past one year, we've actually started two reasonably sized campuses. Our focus has been Ho Chi Minh, because we need to build a solid foundation, because quality is important to us. We don't want building schools just for the sake to have scale. But what's unique about the schools? We are an asset like model, yes. So typically, schools investments can range anywhere 10, $15 million yes, we build schools that are maybe five times less than magnitude. And how we do it is because we will take existing infrastructure and we will try to rebuild it, spin it out. For example, we just starting a school in District 10. It was an old office building in a very high density area. We rented the whole building. It's four story in terms of the square meter. It's very significant. It's over one and a half hectares in terms of built in areas, and it looks like a school. So it was very easy for us, so we didn't have to build and spend a lot of money, but we fit it out. And we fit it out with very different concepts, indoor football field,

Elias  09:37

Elias : okay, imagine kids running around in a nice environment, not having to worry about the elements,

Elias  09:37

yes,

Dr. Ramesh 09:45

and it rains nearly every day here in Ho Chi Minh City, so it's nice to have indoor football field.

Elias  09:52

And also building a very unique space where it's not classroom based, it's more children moving around classrooms like what you get in. University. So we're trying to move away from the traditional model, right, where this is your class, this is your form teacher, to something which is more integrated. Okay, so we are trying that out. We've also made a very conscious effort to keep fees very affordable for that segment, but still keeping a high quality because of our investment isn't very high, yeah, so you can pass on the savings. We can pass on the value. How can we squeeze the cost and offer it in terms of value?

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  10:35

Obviously, you check off all the boxes in terms of our entrepreneurial mindset, even this strategy around asset light.

Elias  10:42

This asset light middle segment wasn't entirely my idea. Okay. It was a school that was set up in Singapore a long time ago. Really, I took inspiration from it. It was a South African entrepreneur. He had, I think, two or three children. He was just so tired of paying high school fees. But coincidentally, we set up the school around the same time. Oh, wow. So when I read what he was trying to do in Singapore, I was like, hold on a minute. That's what we are also trying to do here in Vietnam. Now, who came first? I'm not going to take credit for it, but I think that there are more people that think that you can always look at traditional businesses and how you can make it's like Air Asia, right? When Tony Fernandes said, now everybody can fly. And at that time, all the big airlines looked down on him. You don't have TV, you don't have blankets, you don't have food. Who's going to fly with you? And look what happened? Yes, all the big airlines started going into the budget space. Again, we're not a budget school, but at least we are very conscious of value.

Dr. Ramesh 11:45

So it's all down to segmentation, like you said,

Dr. Ramesh 11:48

Ramesh : right, identifying that and creating the right value proposition. And so kudos to you. You've done a great job, Elias, I'm so excited to really get into the nuts and bolts of what you're doing with this school. I want to move on to the second mindset, and that's around crisis, ready to be able to deal with setbacks. We have a natural reaction to crisis or setback, where we freeze or we flee or we fight. So I want to explore a little bit about your way of dealing with a crisis, and if you can specifically highlight a crisis and how you dealt with it, maybe share with us a practice that supported you to deal with crisis effectively.

Dr. Ramesh 11:48

Correct!

Elias  12:34

For sure, everybody, at some point in life goes through crisis, and business is never easy. Okay, that's right. I don't think anybody can say they never went through crisis or hardship setting up business, and that's why a lot fail, they give up, they flee, as you say. But I think the key element is how resilient you are. I believe one way to overcome this is to have routine in your life. I like to run, and I think running gives me a lot of peace. And when I run, I think every time after I run, when I come home my wife, okay, what's your idea today? Because I'll share something with her. I say, okay, you know, and I usually run for an hour, okay? And I usually run in green spaces, right where it's really not where you get the motor bikes and all the noise. So I think that has helped me a lot. And I've been running since I've been very young, but over the last 10 years, I've been making it more routine every weekend and one day in a week. Physically it helps, but also it really helps your mind. Most businesses, before you see the success, you would have gone through some turbulent times. For me, it was probably in 2016 that year, we started multiple businesses. We had our trampoline park business build at that time. You know, it was little bit over ambitious on us to start so many businesses same time, but that was okay, until my wife's mom had pancreatic cancer, and that kind of swayed everything, because then the focus was about taking her to Singapore and looking after her. And then the wife was gone, and I had my own job, and we had a little child to look after. So finance was obviously a strange because all the money had to go into pancreatic cancer. You don't really have a long life. It was very emotional time. I was at that time, also changing my jobs, where I had to move back to Singapore, so I had to fly around in the regional role. So it was very, very unsettling. The businesses were all in infancy stages. Okay, and anyone who thinks you can start a business in the first year and make money is totally wrong, if you can make money and after three years you are successful. So cash flow was really, really a strain. I remember nights, going to bed, thinking, the next day, how was I going to pay salaries, what my wife was doing in Singapore and so forth, and running kind of gave me that moment. Where I didn't have to think about the bad things, the good things naturally came to my mind. So

Dr. Ramesh 15:08

You passed that moment.

Elias  15:10

correct? Now, after that, were there crisis, there were but there were times where there were things that you were more equipped to deal with. So it just dealings with partners, dealing with employees, dealing with landlords, dealing with authorities, those things come and go.

Dr. Ramesh 15:25

You highlighted an interesting aspect of crisis is that often we have the inner resources as well as the support structures, a normal, stressful moment, but when you have many things coming together, your mother in law's health issue, infancy of the various businesses, the cash flow crunch, a young family, you know your wife is elsewhere in another country, then that becomes very stressful, because, you know, whatever resources, coping mechanism and the support structure is actually diverted, and so learning to create the new resources is critical. And I guess having that routine that you talked about is actually very critical. So thank you for sharing how you dealt with your crisis.

Elias  16:14

And I would say that those lessons learned or that experience, you will always look back, yes, and this will give you strength. As you say, you overcome the lowest point in your life, correct? So what else can be more difficult? So when you deal with a problem now that's nothing compared

Dr. Ramesh 16:34

to, yeah, what you had to deal with at 

Elias  16:37

What you had to deal with, right? My wife has this very nice statement, which I always remember, if money can solve a problem, it's not a problem. Actually, that's so true. So if you have a health problem, you can't solve it with money, no matter how much money you have, right? If you have run into some kind of problem with the government or the police or something, you can't solve the problem with money. So sometimes we should be thankful that if we have the means to rectify the problem, if it's a business loss, we go borrow from the bank or something, then it's not a problem. Yeah, it's how you manage it. That's right, right? So your perspective becomes important. It's about how you manage the situation. Oh, that's really wonderful.

Dr. Ramesh 17:17

I noticed that you have members of immediate as well as the extended family. In some of your business ventures, I will classify you as a family business. There are like 50 different definitions of family businesses, but so long as there are two people from the same family who own at least more than 50% of the shares in a business, it becomes a family business by virtue of the fact that not only are you owner, but you're also operator or a manager in the business. What have you found to be some of the advantages of having family members work in the business, as well as sometimes the challenges?

Elias  17:52

I think it's a very relevant and interesting question, because this is something that comes to mind all the time, and a lot of people ask me about it. Yes, okay, let me start with the advantages, because I think there are more advantages to disadvantages. Great, okay, of course, the advantages is that your interests are aligned. That's right. Okay, right. So my wife, for example, ran the school with Anne. Anne is just a natural. She's not a business woman, but she's good at what she does, and she has the interest in the business, because we're family, I didn't have to guide her, monitor her, whatever, because I know she will naturally do the right things, right my wife, of course, school business is the trust factor is extremely important, because you're dealing with licenses. You're dealing with very complicated matters that sometimes it's best to have trusted people, trusted people to see to it. Of course, there are many people you can trust, I'm not saying, but it gives you at least that sense that it's in good hands. You know, five years later down the road, you won't deal with a problem where your partner is leaving and then so that helps, and it's worked very well for us. I would say, one of my success factors in the school and the other businesses is this element of having close family members partake in the business, okay, and Nelson being my other partner, he's also been good. He was a silent partner until he chose to come and join me in the business. But he was a safe pair of hands. I could give him the task that was involving a lot of money, and he was naturally doing the right things. Now, the disadvantage, I would say, is, of course, starting with my wife,

Dr. Ramesh 19:48

you sure you want this to be on air?

Elias  19:49

This is a good I give it a positive. Yes, okay, the business should not come to the home. Yes, over dinner, before bedtime. Yes, because I felt that, at least in the first few years, as we were very, very entrenched in the business, our conversations are all about the business, correct? It wasn't about family. Wasn't about our kid in the school or whatever, but it just became a natural instinct to only talk about the business, yes. So I lost that sense of family.

Dr. Ramesh 19:57

Or the romantic moments of husband and wife, right? Because you're consumed by the concerns.

Elias  20:29

Of course, you can't help talking about business when you have business together, but it's a question of to what extent, right? Is it 90% of the time, or is it 10% of the time. So recently, we made a commitment because we had some you know, my wife has stepped out to the business this year because she felt that I was best to come run it, and she would focus on certain, well, the kids, and that's what my primary objective be, the mother at home, just like how I grew up in my family and there was important to me, but also giving her more free time for herself and recreation, and focusing on the very, very important parts of the business, mainly license land, okay? And dealing...

Dr. Ramesh  21:14

the stuff that she can do with a little bit more flexibility,

Elias  21:16

and it's the most important stuff in the school, yes, and there was some entity, different of opinions, but eventually we felt this was the right thing to do. So my wife recently said, Okay, I'm going to start a group chat just for business, separate, and this is the only place we're going to talk about business.

Elias  21:38

Ramesh: How nice,

Elias  21:39

Elias right? All our other group chats, it's going to be family, it's going to be personal, and we try to stay away from that at the dinner tables. And so far, it's worked. Well, I think it's good. That's the disadvantage I see. And of course, I think the other disadvantage is that sometimes it's very hard for people to separate, leaving my wife is like, for example, my cousins, you know, sometimes telling family members....

Dr. Ramesh  22:06

Like feedback on their performance.

Elias  22:08

It's not as easy as saying to the employee, right, or if they're not doing the job right, getting rid of them or whatever. It's very complex, sensitive relationship to balance, but you need high EQ for that.

Dr. Ramesh  22:23

That's true. We work a lot with family businesses, and we say that the effective leaders of family businesses are meta system leaders. They understand sub systems. One is, of course, the business as an entity. There is the family, also the individuals with their hopes, their aspirations, their strengths, their weaknesses, and learning to navigate and balance these three subsystems is a challenge, but when you get good at that, then you are able to tap on the natural resources of a family, because one of the competitive advantage of a family business is actually trust

Elias 23:03
Yes and absolutely!

Dr. Ramesh 23:07
to be able to leverage on that is phenomenal.

Elias 23:06

I agree. Yeah.

Dr. Ramesh 23:07

So let's move to a new topic, and this is about spirituality. Where are you in your spiritual journey?

 
Elias  23:17

It's sometimes hard to classify me, right? My descent, my religion, spirituality, is important because it gives you some purpose in life. Whether you believe in religion or not, it doesn't matter, right? It's a common direction for everybody. So I think that's important even in terms of routine. If you go pray every day, it's a routine. It's good for the soul of the mind, right? I'm not overly spiritual or religious, but I do by certain practices, and I think it's, for example, once a year I would fast because I think it's good for the body to rest. Celebrations are important because it brings the family, gives that family purpose. I'm not overly like spiritual, so to speak, but I think it's important.

Dr. Ramesh 24:06

It's sort of there to guide you, also give you a sense of confidence in...

Elias 24:11

Peace as well. Peace very important.

Dr. Ramesh 24:13

That's true. Do you think it's possible to live a simple life? And how would you define a simple life?

Elias  24:20

I cannot speak for other people, but I like my life to be simple. Because to some people, simple is different. Some people simple means they drive a fancy car, but it's still simple to them, right?

Elias  24:32

Just not flying around in their own private jet. That is not simple. But for me, is that simple life means you do not have stress over material things. I don't need to take a loan to buy an expensive car and then worry about paying the loan, but enjoying the car, that's not simple for me, because simple means I can wake up in the morning, or I can decide to go eat in a nice, fancy restaurant my family. Family without thinking about my budget for the month, I wouldn't say a frugal lifestyle, but a moderate lifestyle. I don't spend on watches and fancy cars and what have you. But very important is, I think, to have time for yourself, okay, to not have financial stress in the mind, to be surrounded by good people that you can always relate to, and that, to me. I don't need to just hang around with the business people or the the very influential people, right? And be able to interact with people of all ages and all walks of life. Nice, play football with...

Dr. Ramesh 25:46

Your buddies?

Elias  25:47

Not just my buddies. My employees, my junior staff, having that to me, that's a simple life. Well, not people looking at me talking. Now, may not agree in life, but you're still living in a condominium you are? But again, it's relative, yes, right? But it also depends on your where you are in the social, right? Like I always say, you cannot compare yourself to somebody living in an underdeveloped country, because it's different. The way they're brought up, their incomes. It's totally different, right? But at least you can measure yourself against the norm, right, right? And making sure are you a happier person because you live a simple life.

Dr. Ramesh 26:32

If you had to describe thriving, what are the three words that you would use to describe thriving?

Elias  26:38

Okay? First I would say fulfillment.

Dr. Ramesh  26:40

Nice, okay!

Elias  26:41

That means what I've set out to do, I feel I've accomplished that, not necessarily financial fulfillment, right? I can tell you a lot of businesses I set up, I still, till today, don't see the returns, but I'm satisfied of what I built. Yeah, right? And so it's like the journey. It's the journey, one day money will come, yeah, okay, but don't put that in front of everything else. So fulfillment is very, very important for me. Legacy. It's very important. Okay, well, it ties a little bit to fulfillment, because people have to know you for what you contributed. For example, I leave a lot of legacy in the industry I'm leaving. I've just left right, right?

Dr. Ramesh 27:24
And that's the shipping industry?

Elias  27:26

shipping, logistics industry, okay, I won't share the details, but I feel I've done things during my career that I can look back and say that I did it, and people recognize me for it. And five years time, people will look back and say, yep, it was me. And this is very, very important. And I would say a good to be happy, yes, because you can have lots of money, but if you are not happy, then it's you cannot be thriving. Yes, because that's missing in your life, that free of mind, that state of mind where you can just go, go for a holiday tomorrow, if you want to with the family, just get away and not having emails and all that. So to me, this is

Dr. Ramesh 28:16

Lovely. Thank you for sharing those three words that describe thriving for you, what factors should one consider when making a decision to shift their career path?

Elias  28:28

Okay? I think there are several factors, of course. One is that your state of income, right? We still need to feed our families. We still need to have a decent lifestyle, pay the bills so we cannot be overly idealistic, that you jump and then everything you know takes care of itself. Secondly, I would say, is that, to what extent you believe in the business you're driving right, the sustainability of it, the value proposition, as I mentioned, like for example, if you strongly believe that you're building something that is going to be good. You strongly believe. You wake up every morning going to work early because you want to go build this thing that you strongly believe in, then you should do it okay? And I think the third factor is the work life balance. It's going to give you right, because a lot of people leave regular jobs to entrepreneur jobs is because they want that flexibility and so forth. So I think you have to look at these three factors, how the three come together. So even though it may not be a job that's going to pay you well, but it's going to give you these other factors, then you probably want to do it.

Dr. Ramesh  29:36

Oh, okay, thank you. And what's your mantra for keeping your team motivated and moving forward to towards achieving their goals.

Elias  29:44

To me, that's 101, of management. If you can build a team that's self motivated, then your job is very easy, yes, because you don't need every day to have roll calls and micro managing them, because one's yourself. And I'm very glad to say I've built teams in different. Companies where people naturally gravitate towards the end goal that I'm trying to build. But I think this is something that needs to be earned. It's there's no formula. They have to feel that you are part of them. You're in this together. When there's trouble, you're there with them, when the success you're celebrating with them and involves a lot of hard work, it involves a hard load getting to that stage, so you have to put the time and energy into it...

Dr. Ramesh 30:26

In building your team?

Elias  30:27

in building your team and building the respect and mentoring them towards this state of common alignment.

Dr. Ramesh 30:34

Wonderful. Yeah, and can you share some tips on how to give constructive feedback and compliments to your partner like your wife in a family business.

Elias  30:43

I think giving credit is very important because it touches people. People like good job, nice work. Of course, don't do it in a condescending or in a cliche manner. You have to genuinely say it. But I think you should also be honest about the negative feedback, because then people will say, you not only say the nice things, but you also say the Frank things. Then they will take the nice things as the truth. That's right, right? Because some people are very diplomatic. They only say the good things. But of course, out of 10 things, you try to say six, seven, good and three bad. That's okay. Don't say all 10 good and so that's my way of but it sure helps, right?

Dr. Ramesh 31:35

What I want to do next is to ask quick questions. You don't have to give me long answers. So the first one is, what's your favorite book?

Elias  31:47

I read books, but not as many as I can recall, but there was one book that I really, really liked, written by Larry King about communication, like, what do you say when you go to a funeral?

Dr. Ramesh 31:59

What's your favorite travel destination.

Elias  32:01

If I had time to travel, say tomorrow, yeah, I will go to Sri Lanka, really, yes, because I spent one of the best years of my life there. No, I have many good friends there. It gives me peace that place. I don't know why. Maybe it's the coconut trees. It's that island feeling. I really love that place. It's not too busy, you know, it's a country where in one day, you can be in the beach, you can be in the highlands, in the cold, you can be in the caves, you can be in the Safari. So it's a place I always go back to. I just like to share this with all of you. It's a well kept secret. Do visit the country when you have time. And what's going on in the country right now does not do justice at all to what the country has to offer.

Dr. Ramesh 32:48

You know, I was born in Sri Lanka. 

Elias  32:50
You told me!


Dr. Ramesh 32:51
Yeah, I left when I was seven for Singapore. Moving back, if you could have dinner with anybody in the world, who would it be?

Elias  33:00

I think I need to pause and think through...

Dr. Ramesh 33:03

Okay, then we'll move on to the next question. What's the best advice you ever received in your life?

Elias  33:09

I would say, always do the good things and you never go wrong.

Dr. Ramesh 33:14

Yeah, and what's the worst advice you ever received?

Elias  33:20

I don't know. I have to think about it.

Dr. Ramesh 33:23

Okay, so let's circle back to the question, Who would you like to have dinner with?

Elias  33:29

I think I need to think about this. Pause for a moment. Pause for a moment. There is somebody I like to probably like to have dinner with. There is somebody I mean, I'm a sportsman, yes, so I would love to have dinner with a famous sportsman. Okay, okay, and my favorite sports is soccer, football, okay, okay. If I were to give a very superficial, very cursory kind of answer, I would say Messi, all right, not just because he's a great footballer, but where he came from, and I think he's still a very down to earth person, if you look at his persona, his family, so he's not one of those pompous football stars. Yes, they are good. You have admiration for them, but it's not somebody you really want to have. I will go with that, because I think sports is a very, very unifying factor in everything we do, in business, in family, you can have family sporting activities to bring yourself close to family. You can have sports in your office to bring people together, and it's also very good for your health. So I'm a big advocate of that. Okay, so that will be my...

Dr. Ramesh 34:49

Just to round off this whole interview, what are your thoughts about sustainability? We do work in that space, and we say it's the ongoing thriving of a living system. Them. So we do it for more from a mindset change. If a company wants to look at sustainability as a strategy, then first people have to get you know how they want to shift their thinking around that. But in your case, I'm curious to find out whether it was in the shipping business earlier or even with the school. How does sustainability show up in terms of activities?

Elias  35:24

I think it's very relevant, and it's everywhere. Okay, a lot in shipping, of course, because our ships go around the world, you have all kinds of factors and more so in industries like that, when I see people burning trash and plastic, it really, really, really affects me. One it's really killing your environment. It's affecting your children. It's bad for an environment, so just little things fresh and things like that. And it has to start with the common man. No matter what you do, every person has to be playing their civic conscious, play their part and do what's right. But it comes through years of education, right? These things you don't need to teach in some countries because they are from the babies. They already thought that you need to recycle and that. But it's less so it is definitely something of importance, because I believe in global warming. Well, not everybody believes, but I think it is. The world is really changing as a result of this. And if we don't do something today, our children, our grandchildren, will really, really, they will suffer the consequences. They will suffer. And we can live for today and think everything's okay in the future, but I don't think that's the right thing. So any businesses I'm involved in right now, I pay a lot of attention to this, because I feel it's a very small part we can place. But if there's many, many people that think like me, it will be good.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  36:53

So it all starts with us, right individual one...

Elias  36:56

But we also have to spread it around. Yeah, we have to tell our children about it. We have to tell our colleagues, our employees, about it, and make sure that everybody take this more attention and do something, even though, no matter how small they should do it. And I hope and I pray that this will be what more and more people will do.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  37:18

Well. We've come to the end of our interview, Elias. And thank you so much for being here, sharing openly about your own journey what's important to you!

Elias  37:27

You're very welcome, and thank you for having me!