How You Can Prioritise Purpose and Profit - Dr Tanvir Uddin

In this episode of The Quest for Success Podcast, Dr Tanvir Uddin, founder of 'Wholesum' and a leading impact investor, shares his game-changing approach to combining profit and purpose through impact investing. Tanvir explains how you no longer need to choose between making money and making a difference—his investments in small businesses in emerging markets are driving both financial success and positive social outcomes.

Tanvir dives into his personal journey from Bangladesh to Australia, his values, and the challenges he’s faced in the impact investing space. Learn how mentorship and purpose-driven strategies are shaping the future of his company and transforming small businesses across developing regions.

If you’re passionate about investing, social impact, or business growth in emerging markets, this conversation is packed with actionable insights.

Checkout Tanvir on Linkedin: https://au.linkedin.com/in/drtanvirauddin
Read more about Wholesum: https://investwholesum.com/

#ImpactInvesting #ProfitAndPurpose #TanvirUddin #EmergingMarkets #SmallBusinessGrowth #SocialImpact #Mentorship #QuestForSuccess #BusinessPodcast #InvestmentStrategies #SustainableBusiness

Follow us on all your favourite platforms:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheQuestforSuccessPod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Quest-For-Success-Podcast/61560418629272/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thequestforsuccesspod/
Twitter: https://x.com/quest4success_
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-quest-for-success
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thequestforsuccesspod
Website: www.thequestforsuccesspodcast.com

Please share this around to anyone you think will get value from it : )

Transcript

Dylan Pathirana (00:00.812)
Small medium businesses are critical. We know that from the literature. There's a lot of evidence about how important they are. I also realised that there was a lot of people who weren't as fortunate. That was something that I really wanted to do something about. A lot of my friends and family were asking, know, where do I invest my money? Where can I have more impact with my finances? You're not going to like it, but go for it, learn from it and take the most of it.

Dylan Pathirana (00:40.718)
Welcome back to the Quest for Success podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in once again. Today we're really excited because we have joining us Tamvir Uddin. And I met Tanvir at a startup event actually in the city. And it was all about impact investing. And I was very curious about what that meant. And so I went along and heard from Tanvir and really liked what he was like, liked his philosophy and really wanted to get him on the show. And so

we're joined today by Tanvir Uddin. Tanvir, thanks for joining us. Yeah. Thank you so much, Dylan. Great to see you again. And, yeah, it's a real pleasure to be on the podcast with you. So Tanvir, we like to start this conversation by really setting the scene and to do that, I want to ask you a pretty deep question. And that is what does success mean to you? wow. Well, you're starting off with a tough question already. I think, I think success.

for me is fundamentally about leading a life of purpose and being able to work towards that purposeful goal, whatever it might be. For me personally, success has been about utilizing the opportunity and privileges of migrating to Australia as coming from a country

that lacked opportunities where there was a lot of entrenched poverty, social and economic challenges, so that being Bangladesh, and being able to utilise that opportunity that I had coming to Australia and utilising it for a broader purpose. And for me, that was to try and create other opportunities for people who are coming from disadvantaged communities. And that's been a big part of my life journey and various things that I've gotten involved in.

That's awesome. That's a really nice way to summarize success. So Tanvir, Dylan met you earlier, but I have no idea who's Tanvir. Can you please give us a bit of an introduction to you, please? Sure. So yeah, my name Tanvir. I run an impact focused investment startup called Holsum and Holsum

Dylan Pathirana (03:03.146)
essentially is trying to help people access more ethical and responsible investments. we run a our first product is called the wholesome responsible fund, which is investing into short term debt financing with small medium businesses globally. Prior to wholesome, I've worked for about five, six years in the startup space, always in the sustainable finance sort of vertical.

Initially, I was at Bright where we were trying to help Australians obtain solar panels so that they can have more sustainable energy for their home. And I also was a co -founder of an electric vehicle startup called Viro where we were trying to create a marketplace, a digital marketplace for people to obtain, use, finance their electric car purchase.

And prior to that, I've worked in various different finance roles, ranging from working in agriculture in Indonesia to large project finance for solar farms, wind farms in Saudi Arabia. And then even, then my, guess the start of my career was in, in management consulting with McKinsey. I've been sort of veered towards this direction of finance. I didn't study finance from undergrad, but now I've found a way to

work towards that purpose, through, through, through finance and it's been an exciting journey so far. Thank you so much for sharing that. that, yeah, that's a, that's an amazing story. And clearly you've done so many things in your, in your journey. And we're to touch on a few of those, but what we found is people's upbringing and early years have quite a big impact on their values and how they shape their definition of success.

So I want to take a backward step and I want to understand a bit more about your early years. You said you migrated from Bangladesh. I'd like to hear a little bit more about that. Yeah, for sure. I mean, very, very standard sort of migrant experience. I remember my parents had two large suitcases, a couple of small bags, and that's what we had then was we flew from Taka to Australia and settled in Sydney now almost 30 years ago.

Dylan Pathirana (05:26.758)
and had to build everything up from scratch. So I guess I was born in Bangladesh and I had a slightly different experience to say my younger sister who's born in Australia because I partially remember that life in Bangladesh in the early 90s. And I've had good memory of Bangladesh growing up because my parents used to save up a little bit of money they had.

every couple of years. didn't go on holidays, we didn't eat out, but we saved a bit of money to go back to Bangladesh every few years. And one of the reasons my parents wanted to invest in that was because they, they, we didn't have any family here. So the family ties were really important, but I remember speaking to them when I was a lot older. And one of the things that they wanted to inculcate in us was the connection to our roots.

and to have an appreciation of where we've come from and where and what people's experiences are back in Bangladesh. So that really shaped my perspectives in many ways. I saw that there was a lot of privilege that came with migration and Australia was and still is a very blessed place to be where there are so many great amenities, resources.

not least of all education and work opportunities. So I first of all, became aware of that privilege. And second of all, I also realized that there was a lot of people who weren't as fortunate. And that was something that I really wanted to do something about. So when I was a lot older and I finished high school, regardless of my parents, I would go to Bangladesh quite a bit. And I remember one my first experiences was actually to go and volunteer with a

a civil society NGO called the hunger project and got to do some work in the head office, but also go into the field. And that really awakened me to there was so much potential in that country. And from that experience and my further academic experiences, I really wanted to utilize whatever resource I had to try and make a difference there and in many other parts of the world. And I've been fortunate.

Dylan Pathirana (07:44.536)
So various work experiences to live and travel in East Africa and in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia and the Middle East. And I guess the third element of my upbringing would be that my parents really tried to instill us that success instilling us that the idea of success wasn't measured by material gain or status and position. It was about

being grateful for what we had and trying to share that with others. My grandparents were people who really gave back to their communities back in Bangladesh. my parents, my mom especially, her family spent some time in Pakistan as well. And so those values then passed on to my parents to us that it's not about how much money you make or what your position is, but what you can do for others.

and so those stories I grew up with, and I guess I wanted to kind of follow in their footsteps as much as I could. so we, we had a very humble middle -class upbringing and that's what I would love to be able to share with, with, with my family, my children in the future. I just had a baby boy, my first one, a couple of Congratulations. and so I think about that whilst he won't have the same experiences growing up in Bangladesh because he's born here and he's born in this digital age.

with far more resources. But my wife and I talk a lot about that, we'd love to give him that experience of understanding where his privilege is and understanding what his role could be in society and that it isn't measured by money and position. That's a really nice story Tanviya. mean, myself, a migrant from Sri Lanka, so I can kind of relate it to your story, but you came here

such a young age, right? What was the age then when you came to Australia? I was just, I turned six, I think in the first month I arrived here. So yeah, straight into sort of kindergarten, very early on. How did you find that? Like integrating into such a young age? Very scary, very scary. I remember my mom tells me the story that I used to cry in my first couple of days at school because I'd come home and say,

Dylan Pathirana (10:01.836)
I don't understand what they're saying. I can't speak the language. I look different. It's so foreign to me and I didn't know anyone. So it was very unnerving. And I remember being so happy when I finished my HSC and I remember back to my, that memory. I think about that going from not being able to speak the language and interact with people to be able to finish schooling in that language.

That was really exciting and something that myself and my parents were really proud of. So yeah, it is very confronting. And back then there weren't as many people that looked like us. mean, nowadays Australia is far more diverse from a percentage and from many different communities that are represented in Australia than it was in the early nineties. So definitely it was very challenging, but I think through that you learn a lot and you start to carve out your own pathway.

All right. So you're pretty much Sydney based? Came from Bangladesh, Sydney and grew up in Sydney. We lived for a year in sort of the lower North Shore near Lane Cove, but then moved to Bankstown where my mum took a job as a primary school teacher at Malik Fahd Islamic School. And yeah, we grew up in the rough neighbourhoods of Bankstown. mean, the news of Bankstown used to always come on the news.

newspapers and after Bankstown we moved to Punchbowl which is near Telopiah Street and those who might know Telopiah Street, one of the drug capitals of Australia in the late 90s. So definitely remember growing up in that sort of environment. But I've spent some time living abroad as well. So I lived in Indonesia, lived in Saudi Arabia, I also spent some time in the US.

Definitely, you know, I've been around, but Sydney's home and I love coming back here. It's a wonderful city to be in. think I said, I tell people who are excited about cities like New York and London, other places that Sydney has it all. We've got the culture, we've got the food, we've got the beaches and the great weather. Where else would you want to go? Exactly. No better place. And I just, have a question because I know you went on to do a lot of further studies. You have your doctorate as well.

Dylan Pathirana (12:25.976)
Did that come from a place of you felt a responsibility to achieve something coming from a different country? I'm curious. Yeah, no, that's a good question. I do get asked that from time to time. I jokingly say to my parents that I know secretly you wanted me to be a doctor because I did really well with my schooling and academically was fairly gifted. So they thought naturally that's what you'd go to next is all the other South Asian parents push the kids to. And so kind of like,

This is the doctorate now. didn't become a doctor, but here's the PhD. Now, to be honest, I mean, this is one of the things that I loved about my parents' approach. They never put any pressure on us that they had expectations or you got to be these so you can achieve something. My parents were always very supportive of me and my siblings to make the most of the opportunity. You need books, you need tutoring. We'll cut budgets in other areas to make sure you guys get the best support you can possibly do. So, so naturally, and my mum was a school teacher, so

we were in a very academically supportive environment in that way. So it wasn't so much from that pressure. But what I realised was that I was a little bit nerdy and I enjoyed research. So having done a couple of research projects in my undergrad, a PhD seemed like a natural extension of that. The other thing was I really wanted to keep my work opportunities as open as possible.

Academia would be one pathway potentially, as well as to work with international organizations. And again, coming back to the idea of having impact, wanted to, I had aspirations to work at the United Nations or the World Bank and I knew that a doctorate degree would go a long way. So those were kind of the loose reasons to pursue it. And, you know, straight out of undergrad, I just got my first job. I had some more free time, so thought, why not do something like this? So again, a little bit.

a bit a geeky kind of way to use time. The interesting thing was that I think with something like a PhD or further study, what it does give one is the ability to kind of take a step away from your day to day, your job or wherever friend circles you're in or the society you're in, and just spend some time thinking about interesting ideas and obviously working with academics and reading upon the literature.

Dylan Pathirana (14:49.63)
And that had in many ways led me down the path of setting up Holcim because my PhD was in financial regulation in emerging markets. I would never have made the connection between studying something like that and actually developing a startup and an investment product. But it was a byproduct of that experience. And I only really got that because

The PhD forced me to read and learn and meet people. also I did field work in Bangladesh and Indonesia. So I always say to people that, you sometimes obviously we, you know, we think of education as instrumental that a will lead to B. but there, there is a beauty in just being able to be immersed in a topic or an area and just explore and learn. Yeah. Having that opportunity to really think deeply. And I think that's something that is becoming less and less common. Everyone is.

drawn to their social media and their phone screens. Yeah. but I just, on that, that point, you, you said that you'd done a bit of work, overseas as well. And did you go looking for that or was that opportunities that opened up through university and things like that? How did you find those, those opportunities? Yeah. I mean, a bit, a bit of both. I, I always was fascinated by the world. geography was one of my favorite subjects. I remember,

I had a book in primary school that had flags of the world and they had all these world maps. And it's like, I want to go and travel and see all these countries. So I always, it was fascinated by the world and definitely had the travel bug really early on. So I was always looking at as soon as an opportunity can come up to travel and actually go and work and study in other places, I'd love to take it up. And university did really open the door for that.

I went to universities as well, which is a very international university, both in terms of students, also relationships, partnerships with other universities and also programs where they actually provide subsidies or scholarships for students to participate. I was fortunate, for example, to win a scholarship to go and study at Harvard University for a semester. And there were many other sort of programs where my professors and teachers supported me to

Dylan Pathirana (17:11.52)
apply for or to go to a conference and present papers and things like that. I think having that eye towards that international experience was coupled with the opportunities that I was very fortunate to participate in. And I think it's become even more easy now to access those. So there are far more linkages and far more programs. And I think it's a great way to open our eyes to what's happening around the world, because Australia can feel a little bit isolated.

being in our little corner here. but, yeah, it's like, mean, again, it's just, it's, it's, it's the, it's the, the, the benefits of some of our great universities and what they have on offer. And is there anything that you think you specifically learned from, from those trips overseas? Cause I know that like being in one particular place, you can kind of, it becomes a bubble. Yeah. But I'm sure when you.

You go out and experience a lot of different places. There's some takeaways from that. Absolutely. Pretty much my career pathway, the jobs that I've been able to do, of majority of them have come from either seeing opportunities abroad or having met people who did interesting things. And that opened my eyes to what's possible. So one of my key decisions to go into management consulting was driven by a 10 -day social

enterprise conference at Harvard during my semester there in 2012. And over there, learned a lot about what social enterprises were. learned about impact investing and actually saw that the people who were speaking and I said, and I was thinking, I want to be like them. When I looked at their past or heard about their buyers, a lot of them were management consultants and ex investment bankers. And I said, okay, well, that's a pathway for me to get to where they are and what they're doing. So that was one.

A key thing. The other thing was I met the managing partner for McKinsey, who was a managed partner at McKinsey at the time, whilst volunteering in Bangladesh with the hunger project, Ian, a bunch of other Australian management consultants, majority of them were visiting Australia as part of a delegation. again, so I saw people who were management consultants and B were doing some really cool stuff with their time and capabilities and skills, whether that be through board advisory, even down to direct philanthropic donations.

Dylan Pathirana (19:35.406)
So those experiences I wouldn't have had sitting in Sydney. I wouldn't have met these people in Sydney. They just wouldn't have been the same. But also now, if I look at my startup and my business now, I was recently in the US on a family trip, but I decided to take some time to go and meet some local people through some professional networks. And that opened my eyes to how the market opportunities there. And I met people who were doing some interesting work in impact investing.

And learning about where they are operating in, for example, markets like Africa, which is really feels very foreign or very distant from Australia because we're closer to Southeast Asia and the Pacific, for example. So I think those sort of opportunities really come from being connected and traveling. So I think the key insight would be to to open our perspectives, learn and meet people and see how other people are doing, you know, how they approaching similar problems or market opportunities.

like we are trying to do here. I think definitely Australia can become like a bubble because yeah, we are so far away and I think that it's important to make those connections as much as possible. Yeah, that's very interesting because education here, I mean this is my experience and studying in US, the experience that you have, it's totally different in many ways and then the conversations also quite different, the people that you're meeting.

Is that the similar kind of experience that you had? Tanvir? Yeah, absolutely. I have found that the more sort of internationally connected a city is or a country is, the more opportunity for those synergies to come about. And I mean, obviously the United States is a very unique example where there's just there's been so much diverse commercial and social exchanges for hundreds of years, really. And of course, Europe as well.

So I think that there is a different experience there. And I think that in Australia, those shifts are also happening. when I, I mean, I mentioned before in early 90s, there were very few people who were migrants, particularly from South Asian backgrounds, but now it's shifted a lot more. There is far more diversity and more representation from many countries around the world. So I think that that's shifting. And I think that that trend will continue to be the case.

Dylan Pathirana (22:04.142)
But I think that the challenge for us is, because we are so far away and plane fares are very expensive, we require, I guess, on an individual level to invest in those travel opportunities, but also for our institutions like schools, universities and corporations to see the value in those international linkages and to invest in things, whether it be language based programs, it be secondments, whether it be exchanges.

We've got to realize that being international is a value add and it's an investment that's worth making in our students, in our young employees and also at the senior level as well. Because yeah, it's a global market. We're not just in Australia anymore. a lot of our, I mean, now we're producing so many amazing startups who are serving the global economy that it's worth pursuing. So I think that's important. And even if not looking so farther, further afield,

I think we've got some amazing neighborhoods. mean, Indonesia is something, is a country that I've spent a lot of time in, I've studied in, and I think that it's a shame that a lot of, know, particularly for us in the startup world, we don't engage with Indonesia as much as we should. It's such a large market, almost three, you more than 250 million people. It's just one example of where the possibilities are. So Tanvir, thanks for sharing that experience.

My next question, I guess we want to know working for magic management consultancy business. And, then you decided to kind of trans transition into your own business. What, made that decision? Well, the, the short answer would be that I probably struggle.

to work in very, very rigid, very bureaucratic or hierarchical organizations. So whilst I mean, I had some great experiences working at McKinsey, I also worked at Coles for a while and the Islamic Development was a very large organization. I enjoyed those experiences, learned a lot, but I realized that I thrive the best in environments that are very agile and sort of, you know, in a greater level of intensity or

Dylan Pathirana (24:24.094)
or where the purpose drives action to a higher level than they would be in large organizations. So I've then I sort of pivoted towards the world of startups where we were in small teams working very interesting problems and rolling out solutions at a very fast pace. So hence the experience at Bright. And obviously then that led me to co -founding Viro where again in the space of sustainable finance. So I think the desire to

to work on interesting problems and to be surrounded by very talented people who are interested in that was a very big motivator. And the other thing was I really, I guess I really liked the independence of trying to work on my own thing. It means that I can really apply my full self, my focus, my passions, and direct it into something that I really care about. And that wouldn't be the same as working in a larger organization.

So that was a key thing. And I guess the third thing would be now that we're setting up Wholesome, I realized that not many people were trying to solve this problem. And I felt that I had a unique perspective when I had a unique set of linkages and relationships that would help me solve that. And that is, there's a huge need for financing small medium businesses globally. There aren't...

many financial institutions in Australia that really link into small medium businesses at a global level. So that was one thing. And the other thing was that when I remember when I returned back to Australia from my stints in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, a lot of my friends and family were asking me, know, where do I invest my money? Where can I have more impact with my finances? And I thought, okay, well, I spent some time there, so maybe I can figure it out. I didn't have a finance, an extensive finance career, but I thought

I learned so much in those places and I saw what was happening that maybe I can create a financing product that will link the need for financing for small businesses with people who wanted to invest and generate a positive, generate a commercial return and do a positive thing with their money as well. So I just felt like, okay, no one else is doing it. Maybe I can have a go at it. So that's really where it started from. And so I took the plunge into starting Holsum.

Dylan Pathirana (26:49.036)
So was Wholesome your first full -time entrepreneurial venture or were you working on these other two before? The first would be, well, I, many years ago, about a decade ago, I tried to create a crowdfunding platform for microfinance. So that was my first attempt. But I guess formally prior to Wholesome, was Viro. So I was one of the co -founders of Viro, which was born out of Antler.

And I was there for just under two years. We went through a number of capital raises and we expanded the business in a number of ways. So that was my first experience. And I think I am kind of grateful that I had those experiences because it taught me a lot about how to start a business, how to manage teams and how to work with partners. But also, I guess, taught me a lot about myself and what my strengths and weaknesses. think definitely

you know, after, you know, entrepreneurship is almost like a skillset that you need to learn. And when you're in there in the thick of it, you have to learn very quickly. And for me now, I I don't have a co -founder, so that I'm having to work across many different functions as well. So, yeah, so I think those experiences definitely led me to this part. So if I hadn't done Bright and Viral, I don't think I would have had a great, great, I would have had a shot at it, shot at Wholesome in the same way that I am now. So I think it kind of built on each other.

Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to jump on quickly and say a massive thank you for all of the support so far. But I also wanted to ask a favor of you guys. We want this podcast to reach as many people as possible so that we can share all of the incredible learnings that we've had so far. But in order for us to do that, we need to grow our following to beat the algorithms. But the good news is, however, there is one simple thing that you can do to help us

reach that goal. So I ask you, if you could please follow or subscribe to us on whatever channel you're listening to this on, it'll help us grow the channel, which means we can get on bigger and better guests for you guys. And with that, back to the episode. Yeah. So you've mentioned a few times throughout the conversation, impact investing. And for those who don't know what that is, can you give us a quick definition? Yeah, sure. So impact investing is.

Dylan Pathirana (29:16.126)
simply allocating capital or funds that one might have, not just for the purpose of generating a commercial return, but with a very clear intent about trying to achieve a positive social or environmental outcome. So, for example, a person might invest in a company

and simply be blind about whether the company is doing anything positive or negative. Because they might evaluate that company based on for the risk level, is it going to generate the commercial return that one intends to? Now, the difference with impact investing is that one would evaluate that company not just because of the commercial elements and features, but

would look at very closely that is this company having any negative impacts on the world and perhaps they're excluding it out. So that's called negative filtering. But then companies might be positively filtered based on the fact that they are, for example, addressing climate change or that they are trying to empower women or they're trying to help increase the access to water and other amenities that have a positive social environmental impact.

So that's the gist of it. There are many different forms of impact investing and everything from investing into companies that meet certain criteria to projects. The area of impact investing that we focus on is primarily applying capital to underserved communities and business segments, and that being particularly small medium businesses, because our thesis is that small medium businesses

are catalytic in the communities that they operate in. They will hire the workers that are typically vulnerable. They'll create jobs. They'll help reduce poverty. And they'll also innovate in a way that large corporations may not in terms of addressing things such as climate change or adopting more sustainable practices. And so that's the space that we operate in. And that's what we understand best. But the industry has definitely grown. There's obviously a lot of

Dylan Pathirana (31:36.352)
I guess, heat on impact investing and ESG investing, which is a broader concept that's just beyond looking at impact, but looking at sort of ethical criteria and filters. There's a lot of heat on it because of perhaps misrepresentations or mischaracterizations of what they do and how sincerely they apply that criteria. But it's a growing field. And because I think people are realizing that, you know, we can't just back companies in projects that are

For want of another word, screwing the planet, but are actually trying to work on positive change. Tanvir, is it possible for you to share a sample like client that you're working with for our understanding? Yeah, no, absolutely. So we invested into a bond and a bond is essentially a

a time -bound investment instrument where the company is issuing the bond will take the proceeds of that investment from investors like us and others and utilize it for a certain purpose. And then they will pay back a profit as well as the original investment capital as well. So in its simplicity. So we invested in a company called Whiteline Foods who issued a bond

because they needed capital and funds to produce Brazil nuts, which is one of their core products and export them globally. So the Brazil nut season is usually you harvest it between January and June and then as you harvest and produce, you'll sell them throughout the rest of the year. So they need capital upfront to go and do the production and then they'll sell it and then share the profit back to investors like us.

The reason we invest in Whiteline Foods was because the company is sourcing a product, in this case, Brazil nuts, that is only grown in the Amazon jungle. So Brazil nuts are these nut trees and the trees grow very tall into the canopy. They can only be raised in the Amazon. So if we don't sustainably harvest Brazil nuts,

Dylan Pathirana (34:01.87)
And if we don't conserve the Amazon where they grow, we will no longer have Brazil nuts. This company is investing in conservation. They undertake sustainable harvesting practices. They employ a lot of indigenous and community members, members of the local indigenous communities. And they have a target to employ women, 50 % of their workforce to be women across the value chain. They pay their workers above minimum wages.

And they actually donate up to 25 % of one of their retail products called Truly Nuts into these sustainable practices in their value chain. So we thought that this company aligns with our mission and goals is directly trying to have positive social environmental impact. And at the same time, had a very well structured investment solution.

And one of the things from a risk perspective was that they were exporting from Peru into markets globally like North American Europe. So they were stable economies. And the funds that we and others invested into would only be used when they had a buyer that was willing to pay at a certain price that allows them to have the profit on the production so that they're not squeezing the farmers and the suppliers.

based on that risk mitigation. So that for us ticked a lot of boxes for our investment. So we're very fortunate to able to participate in that. So we seek out these sorts of deals where commercially it makes sense for sure because we need to protect our investor capital, but are doing something in the community or trying to unlock a market segment that otherwise is very challenging.

And as small medium businesses, always lack challenge and they always lack access to capital just because they're not well understood and they seem to be more risky. So we're developing strategies to invest in them in a sustainable manner where the risk is tolerable and that we have ways to mitigate that risk. you for sharing. That's amazing. Yeah. Amazing story. Tanvi, how do you, know, cause a lot of these investments are overseas. How do you...

Dylan Pathirana (36:18.336)
source your deal flow for all of these? So we work through two approaches. One is we partner with fintech platforms that are in the business of originating small and medium business investment deals. So we have one partner in the Middle East, one in Southeast Asia, and we'll add more partners on as we scale as well.

And the benefits of working with these FinTech platforms is that they're responsible for originating the deals. They also help spread the investor base out. So we're not taking 100 % of exposure to any one business. And it's quite easy for us from an administrative perspective to invest in many of their deals and have little bit of exposure to each.

At the same time, we can choose a level of risk that we want to take. So they usually will grade the businesses from A down to E and F based on how strong they are, their history. They'll also do a lot of the first level of diligence on the businesses. we work with these partners. That's one of our major streams. The other stream is we work with brokers who bring deals when they reach a certain level of maturity.

The broker who facilitated the Whiteline Foods deal, we found out about them from Whiteline Foods and now they have other SME investment deals as well that we're looking at. And so they're a great partner for that. So we work with brokers who bring those deals and also we're across a lot of the other impact investment funds and players in the market. there's a lot of them that work with

financial institutions or companies in many countries around the world. And so we will evaluate them accordingly and make those investments for them. So we will apply both of those strategies as we grow. One of the ambitions we have is that if we can become a sizeable fund, mean, close to anywhere from 50 to 100 million, we'll be able to then start to develop our own financing product that we can then offer.

Dylan Pathirana (38:34.222)
For example, one of the things that we've been noticing is a lot of migrant communities in Australia and also First Nations communities lack access to capital, particularly their businesses to grow. So we've been exploring how we might be able to offer a financing product that we can directly fund locally and use that as a way of supporting those businesses because they typically aren't able to get bank funding. And a lot of the alternative investment funds

don't have access to that same level of deal flow because they are used to investing in, for example, when we were at Bright, they would invest into Bright's bond issuance. But if it's a small business out in Western Sydney, they won't know about Bright. They won't know about the funders that Bright would have because Bright obviously was working with a large bank that was helping them find investors. So I think there's a lot of pockets of opportunities even within Australia that we can explore as well. Yeah, awesome. And you touched on

like this white line, Nuts, they were, you picked them because they were doing a lot of positive things. And, you you said 50 % of their workforce were female. is there a challenge for you not being actually in that location in terms of compliance? Like, how do you make sure all of these wonderful things that are actually being put down on paper are happening in practice?

Yeah, absolutely. Look, that's a really good question. there's a number of things. One is of course that we look at what the companies themselves have already measured and if they have any external measurement of certifications or if they've worked with other parties and that's obviously a benefit. The other thing of course is that what we want to do is develop a framework for us to go and evaluate the deals pre and post investment.

So we're trying to develop our own methodology to do that. As a small fund, we're a little bit limited in that and I'll be the first to admit that that part of our compliance and our measurement isn't as robust as we'd like to be. But also something that is not really feasible at a small fund level, but once we reach 10, 20, 30 million, we're able to actually finance that research on our own. So that's one thing. The second thing is that

Dylan Pathirana (41:00.076)
What we are doing is as we make investments, we collect data on the business, the industry, if we have information about their founders. So we try and observe and collect the data about where the businesses are right now. In terms of the long -term impact, primarily, as I mentioned, we're investing based on that theory of change that small meeting businesses are critical. We know that from the literature, there's a lot of evidence about how important they are.

So we have a very strong theoretical foundation about that investing in them is good. What we now need to do is go back and study and evaluate them moving forward. So that's something that we want to build out and do. And also look at other partners that are interested in compliance or they work in the field of compliance and partner with them. So this is an evolving piece of work for us and something that we need to invest more time on.

But yeah, as of yet, not as well developed. Tanvir, it's very interesting. I learned quite a lot about this impactful investing, which is amazing. But do you think, thinking back, you know, all this impactful investing came from your initial background, your parents?

taking you to Bangladesh, showing you that life is not easy there. People need help. Do you think that upbringing help you to kind of create that mindset? I need to help these people. Yeah, 100%. There's no doubt about it. I remember seeing how entrepreneurial people are who have very little, whether it be like a street vendor selling some roasted nuts at the next to the rail.

railway lines where I used to cross to go from my grandmother's house to another part of the city and seeing the small vendors on the streets and someone hustling at the intersection of the road trying to sell newspapers or even like world maps and you know, whatever they can sell. people who don't have a lot can sometimes teach us a lot about business. And so I can see that there's people

Dylan Pathirana (43:22.178)
people have a desire to make a difference. And if you look at microfinance, which is what I did my PhD on and, and Muhammad Junus talked a lot about explaining these saying that these microfinance entrepreneurs, they're like a bonsai that's been restricted, but they have the willingness and ability to rise above their situation and to chart a whole new future for themselves and their family. So

So seeing the challenges that they face, seeing that business can make a big difference and seeing that how a little bit of capital could really unlock that. It's those three observations that come together for me and why I'm so passionate about SME financing. And obviously working in Indonesia within a social enterprise where we work providing financing, then spending time in the Middle East, working on large investment transactions, that all kind of, I guess, added to the learnings and experiences.

And then obviously coming across great businesses like Whiteline Foods where you can see them having incredible impact. So I think it's the culmination of all those experiences. whereas earlier I just wanted to try and do as much good as I could, I feel like now I can articulate a way to actually achieve the good and develop a mechanism through Wholesome where not only can I apply my energy and time to, but I can take a lot of other people on that journey. And that's what's really exciting where I can...

When investors come into the fund, there's an education piece about what we're trying to do, but then they can track and follow our progress along and they can contribute to that movement in their own way. So that for me is where I'm able to share that impact beyond just myself to a larger community. And so I just, I want to know across your entire journey, has there been anyone who's been a key mentor?

to you. there's so many people that I could call on. I think one mentor that has had a huge level of influence on me is a guy called Terry Reed. I had the pleasure of working with him through the Asian Development Bank. One of my professors knew him and they'd done some work together on financial regulation in emerging markets.

Dylan Pathirana (45:45.992)
and, and, I remember when I first met Terry and I said, look, I'd love to work. And my professor just made a connection. He, he saw that there wasn't really an opportunity for me to be employed by this large organization. This is me in my second year of uni, by the way. I rocked up to the Asian development bank office in Sydney, trying to get a job. And, you know, he was very nice and courteous and probably saw there was a, you know, I might not have had the right qualifications, but, he wasn't able to find a role for me.

in Asian and Burma, but he hired me as a personal research assistant because he wanted to invest in my learning and development. And I got to work on some really interesting projects that he was involved in. He's been a great mentor because he's always been very pragmatic. He has warned me about things. He's also helped me apply for things.

Like for example, he told me when I was going to work at the Islamic Development Bank, which is again, like another multilateral financing bank, like the Asian Development Bank, he warned me that there's going to be a lot of bureaucracy. You're not going to like it, but go for it, learn from it and take the most of it, but don't stay there for too long. And that's kind of what happened. and he's, so he's, he's helped me obviously with very tangible career opportunities, but he's also been someone who's encouraged me to continue.

learning and development outside just a core professional context. Like he's the kind of guy who for my birthday gave me a copy of Machiavelli's book, The Prince to Read, because he's like, you've got to, if you don't understand Machiavelli's thinking, you're not going to understand how many people work, whether it be the politics of organizations or whether it'll be the short term ism of a lot of organizations and businesses.

and how they'll operate. And I reflect back on that quite a lot as well, because again, being someone who loves learning and reading, you can get certain knowledge from books and literature, but there's a lot more learning that you get from meeting people and meeting a very diverse set of people with different temperaments and different cultures and values. so I reflect on him as a mentor who's broadened my learning beyond just work experience or

Dylan Pathirana (48:03.692)
Not academia. Yeah. I think that's so important as well to be holistic as well, not just about career, but also clearly philosophy as well. Of course. Yeah. He also got me to read the Republic. for, for people listening who like hearing about wholesome and impact investing for the first time, what do you have a threshold for your

new investors, new members, can people, everyday people get involved with your fund? So there's two things. One is we are currently licensed as a wholesale fund. So investors who want to participate in the fund need to be certified by an accountant to meet a certain income or wealth threshold. And the minimum to join our fund is $25 ,000.

There is a, I guess, a restricted pool of people who can invest, if people meet that criteria, more than happy to help them. But anyone who doesn't meet that criteria, I'd encourage them to still join our mailing list as we obviously share a lot of insights and knowledge. And we do have the ambition for opening up to a retail audience as well in the future. So if someone can meet the whole set of criteria, we'd love to welcome them on board and help them with their investment goals.

But if they don't meet the criteria, we'd still like to be involved in our community and hopefully we'll be able to roll out a retail product in the not too distant future. That's awesome. looking back is, I suppose looking forward, what is next for Tanvir? Yeah. So we, it's at the moment, very focused on growing the fund. We're about 1 .7 million funds under management at the moment. Our goal is to get it to $20 million.

to break even for the business and to have enough scale to be able to invest in many amazing businesses that have impact. So that's our goal over the next one to two years. Beyond that, we want to develop our own tech front end so we can actually engage with customers more meaningfully. We're currently using a white label registry platform on the backend. And that would be also along the time when we want to move into a retail fund so we can open up to everyday

Dylan Pathirana (50:24.014)
investors, regardless of their financial situation, and lower the minimum requirement to enter the fund. So that's sort of our goal over the next two to three years. And we just want to grow this fund as big as possible. I mean, the estimation that the World Bank has provided for how big the funding need for small medium businesses globally is $5 .2 trillion. So it's a huge market opportunity.

There aren't too many funds like us here in Australia and in our adjacent markets like Singapore and New Zealand. So we want to continue to able to innovate in this space and offer more solutions for Australians. So beyond their stock market investing, beyond their crypto and property investing, we want to be a part of a complementary part of their portfolio that helps them access impact investment opportunities, access SMEs and access a more global market as well. And I think that comes back to the whole

theme of our conversation today about international because if we only look at what's happening around the Australian market, we'll be very limited in our investment options. And every time there's a market downturn, everyone's going to withdraw their money and put it into their term deposits or into their bank accounts. think what I'm really passionate about with Wholesome is to let people know that, you can invest into Indonesia, in South Asia, in Africa, in Latin America.

And you can participate in their economic success stories and you can find a connection with other communities. And that is a great way to diversify away from just thinking about the Australian property market or just on the ASX. And I think that that's an important message as well of what we're trying to share with wholesome. Yep. That's incredible. And looking back on your journey, do you feel successful? I feel like there's a long way to go. I think that I'm really grateful for

the support and guidance of a lot of our angel investors, some of my personal mentors, and obviously my family have been immensely supportive of all over the last sort of couple of decades of this path. So I think that, you know, I'm grateful for where we are today and the opportunities we've had, but we're really scratching the surface. So we've got a long way to go. I don't think there's any sense of success just yet.

Dylan Pathirana (52:42.014)
very obvious, but, just immense gratitude for the opportunities that I've had and, and, and, and, I guess broadly in the wholesome community we've had. but we've got a long way to go. So we just getting started. Yeah, that's it. You're just getting started. It's all part of the journey. So I, throughout our conversation, I've just been jotting down a few things, which for me make you successful in your own, right? I think the first one is you're very self -reflective and that's something we've found with a lot of the people that we've interviewed is.

the people who are very deep thinkers and go inside themselves as well and really reflect on their journey. I think it almost links into you, your gratitude, as you said, as well, you, you appreciate all the opportunities that you've been given and you don't take them for granted. And I think that's something that's really special. And that ties nicely into the next one, which is you have a very much a give back mentality.

And pretty much every conversation that we've had with people, it's the exact same thing. It's a lot of successful people are not focused purely on their own success, but you actually said it. You bring, you want to bring people along the journey, like along with you on the journey. And I think that is a really, really, really powerful thing to live by. And then the other one is you're a consistent learner.

every opportunity that you can, whether it was throughout your university time, trying to take every opportunity to go and learn new things. But even now, know, even just hearing you talk about this company in making Brazil nuts, you know so much about it. And I'm sure that's not just a one -off occasion. So you're clearly very knowledgeable when you take the time to learn. And the last one I've got is you're very action -orientated. When you...

see an opportunity, you don't kind of just sit back. You, you take action when you wanted to start your own thing. You took action when and did it when you want to start your own fun, took action. And I think having that ability to not just talk the talk, but also walk the walk is something really powerful. so yeah, I'm, I'm really grateful that we got to sit down and have this conversation today. thank you so much. I think,

Dylan Pathirana (55:04.398)
You've given a lot of credit there. I don't know how much I can take from that, but I think that all the learnings that you shared about your observation for me, I can point to people that I've learned some of those elements from. So think we're always on the shoulders of giants and learning and passing it on. And I think what you're doing with your show is obviously trying to aggregate all those learnings from some of the amazing people that you've interviewed and share them with the wider community.

which is incredible and I think that's really important. That's it. We're all just on the quest, the quest for success. And on that note, Tanvi, thank you so much for joining us. And if people want to find out more about Wholesome, where can they go? Yeah, I think the best thing is to follow our LinkedIn page and just like search up Wholesome, W -H -O -L -E -S -O -S -U it's a plain under word, Wholesome, and our website's investwholesome .com.

You can join our mailing list from the website or follow us on LinkedIn. And obviously you can just contact me through any of those channels as well. So happy to chat and see if there's a way we can learn from other people or share some of our own experiences. Perfect. Awesome. And on that note, if you want to follow our podcast, please do on Spotify, Apple podcasts and YouTube, and also check out our website, the quest for success podcast .com, where you can see all of our episodes and also complete our success survey where we can hear from you guys.

On that note, we'll see you guys in the next episode. Thanks for listening. Thank you.