…You need to make time for yourself — It can be all consuming when you’re running a business that you’re passionate about, and it can come at a cost to family and you time. I’ve learnt to find better balance and separation between work and home life, and that allows me to fully enjoy both.
As part of my series about “authors who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Daphne Hedley.
Daphne Hedley is the CEO and Co-Founder of Mekhala, a fast-growing Asian whole foods brand that manufactures its own certified organic products, and is distributed in Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Canada and the US, including 470 Whole Foods stores nationwide.
Daphne has 15 years of experience living and working in Australia, Japan, the UK and Switzerland. Prior to INSEAD, she honed her skills in the finance industry, first at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, then at Bloomberg in Tokyo and London, where she initiated and led a team focused on credit derivatives. Her career in finance included stints at JP Morgan and Barclays bank in commodities and credit derivatives. An avid writer, Daphne conceptualized and pitched program ideas and wrote scripts at a startup media company. A children’s novel she wrote was short-listed in the Chicken House (publisher for Harry Potter) and Financial Time’s book competition.
In 2012, Daphne saw a gap in the market for clean Asian foods products and co-founded Mekhala in Chiang Mai and Singapore. Inspired by the Dabbawalas in India, Daphne created a symbol system that allows Mekhala to hire and empower illiterate Burmese Shan women at their factory in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She also supports the School of Hope, a school for Burmese children started and run by her co-founder Jang. Mekhala was the only Asian brand short-listed to present at the prestigious Food Bytes Pitch, sponsored by Rabobank In New York in 2017.
Daphne holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance and Japanese) and Master of Information Systems from the University of New South Wales, and an MBA from INSEAD. She was the only entrepreneur in Singapore Harper’s Bazaar’s 2014 list of 10 most stylish women.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
Thank you for having me! I was born and grew up in Singapore, with a fairly typical upbringing. I was the first child; my parents didn’t have a lot of money when I was little, but they worked hard to provide a comfortable life for me and my 2 sisters. I played the piano, swam for the school, did well academically and enjoyed taking part in school drama performances. I also read a lot, favouring authors like Enid Blyton and later on, Margaret Atwood. I dreamt of acting or being a writer, but Asian parents expect their children to become lawyers, doctors or bankers. So, after high school, I moved to Australia to escape Singapore (no really), and to pursue a degree in commerce, majoring in banking and minoring in Japanese. That said, my parents were also typical “Tiger” parents with high expectations, and I was very rebellious!
When you were younger, was there a book that you read that inspired you to take action or changed your life? Can you share a story about that?
Not one particular book but my parents subscribed to Reader’s Digest and there was a section each month featuring a person’s incredible survival story, I believe it was called “Drama in Real Life”. I remember looking forward to reading this every month, and these people truly inspired me to be tenacious and confront adversity. It was my father who first got me interested in reading Reader’s Digest even though I was quite young. We were very close and sadly, he passed away at the age of 48 when I was living overseas, and I suppose when I think of things we shared when I was little, this is one of those memories I recall fondly. When I was at university, he got me to read “The New GE” by Jack Welch, to help me understand how to build a successful business and that got me on the path of devouring similarly inspiring, leadership books.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistake that occurred to you in the course of your career? What lesson or take away did you learn from that?
When Mekhala first started back in 2012, we mainly sold dry organic foods like tea and rice in Thailand and Singapore. Being complete greenhorns, Jang and I hadn’t the vaguest idea of how rice was meant to be packaged commercially. Jang would send huge boxes of 70–100 bags of rice in each box to Singapore and I would store them at a self-storage facility in Singapore. I could barely move the boxes once they had been moved into the storage spaces, so I had to scale these big boxes to cut them open to access the rice. Also, we didn’t vacuum pack the rice and they were packaged in simple, eco brown bags. One day, I went to the storage unit after having been away for a 2-week vacation, and when I opened the door to the unit, I was horrified to find it crawling with hundreds of weevils! Organic rice isn’t radiated or sprayed, so weevils had joyously sprouted and multiplied. They had eaten out of the bags and into all the other bags and even ate their way out of the cardboard boxes. They are also fiendishly hard to kill. We couldn’t spray them, and they have to be completely squished to die. My sister and I got a bunch of sticky tape, went down on our hands and knees, and used the tape to collect all the weevils. It took hours, and we threw away a heap of rice, but we learnt to properly package and ship rice after that!
Can you describe how you aim to make a significant social impact with your book?
Our company, Mekhala, which I co-founded, is launching our first recipe book which is a compilation of the best customer recipes. Proceeds from the sales of this book go to supporting the Schools of Hope, which is a not-for-profit school founded by Jang, who was a dear friend and my co-founder. The school, located in Chiang Mai, Thailand and 10 minutes from Mekhala’s HQ, provides education to underprivileged Burmese Shan children and youths, who have left Burma because the Shan is a persecuted ethnic minority.
Can you share with us the most interesting story that you shared in your book?
There will be a ton of interesting recipes from customers from all walks of life!
What was the “aha moment” or series of events that made you decide to bring your message to the greater world? Can you share a story about that?
We had an amazing intern who had created a series of fun, delicious and easy to create recipes for our brand, but she eventually left to continue her studies. After that, we seemed to lose “steam” if you will, with respect to refreshing new recipes ideas that customers could get excited about. Also, we had been running this internship programme with the Schools of Hope for about a year and a half at the factory in Thailand, and we finally hired 2 of the interns as full time, operations staff. We wanted to find a way to connect the school more closely with our business, and at that time, someone mentioned that she had noticed quite a few people sharing and tagging recipes they had created using our products. So, our marketing strategist put 2 and 2 together and suggested we collate customer recipes to create this book, and the funds could go towards future projects with the school.
Without sharing specific names, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
As mentioned, we’ve run the internship programme for 1.5 years and had about 12 amazing youths from the school learn about our business and processes at our factory. It was amazing to see how hard working, determined and bright these youths were, and when 2 graduated from high school (age 20 because they started school late), we were fortunate enough to hire them, get the proper work papers to remain and work in Thailand, and support them as they continue part time, tertiary studies.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
1. Educate people about discrimination and the plight of the Shan people. They are a persecuted ethnic minority seeking a better life in Northern Thailand.
2. Allow these people more freedom as is the humane thing to do. Often, they are allowed work visas for certain jobs, and only within a 5km radius of their registered address. So, these people may never live or work or travel beyond this small radius. Our head of production is an amazing young Shan woman who has been with us since she was 19 (she is now 24), supporting her sister and grandmother. She has never travelled because she has no passport or travel documents, and we could not even take her to a trade show in Bangkok.
3. I guess in all honesty, at the end of the day, Burma isn’t really Thailand’s problem, and the political situation in Burma doesn’t seem to be getting any better, with the recent military coup. I’m not really in a position to suggest how things can improve.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
Leadership to me is
1. having a vision for how you can make an impact on people’s lives
2. being able to articulate this vision to others to join you in this “crusade”, because no man is an island. 3. one who seeks out talented people and gives them the opportunity to contribute and to shine.
4. Most importantly, good leadership needs to be honest, with empathy and not about ego.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
1. Food is HARD! I have endless examples in the course of our business — international food laws differ, organic certs require regular audits, food gets moldy etc. It’s a low margin business with a myriad complication. And it’s crucial to get it right as it is high risk as well.
2. It’s ok to ask for help — Sometimes you feel like as CEO, it’s your job to have the answers for the team. But it’s not possible and there’s no shame in asking experts for help.
3. Having the right business partner can make or break you — It can be lonely running a business by yourself. When my co-founder, Jang, passed away, I was very lucky my sister stepped in so we could continue the business and the Mekhala dream that was Jang’s and mine. My sister is my best friend and the best business partner. Without her, I might not have gotten through the lows.
4. There will be lots of ups and downs — Running a business is a roller coaster ride. Which is why I’ve learnt to celebrate small victories, knowing that the next challenge is just around the corner.
5. You need to make time for yourself — It can be all consuming when you’re running a business that you’re passionate about, and it can come at a cost to family and you time. I’ve learnt to find better balance and separation between work and home life, and that allows me to fully enjoy both.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My father, who only finished high school, rose from a lowly trainee mechanic at an American aerospace factory in Singapore to Managing Director. He had many wise words for my 2 sisters and I, and my favourite was “in your pursuit of greatness, never wish ill on your competitors. Simply strive to be better than them.” It’s a motto at our company and I hope I’ve done a good job living by it in my daily life!
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
I would love to have a private meal with Vicky Tsai, founder of Tatcha. I heard her amazing story on “How I Built This”, and I’m a huge fan of her as an entrepreneur, and of Tatcha’s products.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
They can find more recipes and Mekhala stories on our website www.mekhalaliving.com
And our Instagram (@mekhalaliving) and Facebook pages (@mekhala.living)
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Thank you for this opportunity!
About The Interviewer: Growing up in Canada, Edward Sylvan was an unlikely candidate to make a mark on the high-powered film industry based in Hollywood. But as CEO of Sycamore Entertainment Group Inc, (SEGI) Sylvan is among a select group of less than ten Black executives who have founded, own and control a publicly traded company. Now, deeply involved in the movie business, he is providing opportunities for people of color.
In 2020, he was appointed president of the Monaco International Film Festival, and was encouraged to take the festival in a new digital direction.
Raised in Toronto, he attended York University where he studied Economics and Political Science, then went to work in finance on Bay Street, (the city’s equivalent of Wall Street). After years of handling equities trading, film tax credits, options trading and mergers and acquisitions for the film, mining and technology industries, in 2008 he decided to reorient his career fully towards the entertainment business.
With the aim of helping Los Angeles filmmakers of color who were struggling to understand how to raise capital, Sylvan wanted to provide them with ways to finance their creative endeavors.
At Sycamore Entertainment he specializes in print and advertising financing, marketing, acquisition and worldwide distribution of quality feature-length motion pictures, and is concerned with acquiring, producing and promoting films about equality, diversity and other thought provoking subject matter which will also include nonviolent storytelling.
Also in 2020, Sylvan launched SEGI TV, a free OTT streaming network built on the pillars of equality, sustainability and community which is scheduled to reach 100 million U.S household televisions and 200 million mobile devices across Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Samsung Smart TV and others.
As Executive Producer he currently has several projects in production including The Trials of Eroy Brown, a story about the prison system and how it operated in Texas, based on the best-selling book, as well as a documentary called The Making of Roll Bounce, about the 2005 coming of age film which starred rapper Bow Wow and portrays roller skating culture in 1970’s Chicago.
He sits on the Board of Directors of Uplay Canada, (United Public Leadership Academy for Youth), which prepares youth to be citizen leaders and provides opportunities for Canadian high school basketball players to advance to Division 1 schools as well as the NBA.
A former competitive go kart racer with Checkered Flag Racing Ltd, he also enjoys traveling to exotic locales. Sylvan resides in Vancouver and has two adult daughters.
Sylvan has been featured in Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and has been seen on Fox Business News, CBS and NBC. Sycamore Entertainment Group Inc is headquartered in Seattle, with offices in Los Angeles and Vancouver.
Social Impact Authors: How & Why Daphne Hedley of Mekhala Is Helping To Change Our World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.