Unpolished Wisdom

What does it take to back a founder before there's a product, a track record, or a single number to prove you're right? Angel investor Erika Aquino joins Unpolished Wisdom to unpack the messy middle of angel investing, and how to balance purpose and profit when every bet is on a future that doesn't exist yet. Erika is an angel investor and strategic advisor to early-stage founders in sustainabilit...

Anna Ong, storyteller, applied improv coach, and founder of What's Your Story Slam, joins Unpolished Wisdom to unpack how vulnerable you should really be, and why the best stories share your scars, not your wounds. After 15 years on a banking trading floor, Anna walked away to live a year as if it were her last, found her voice through improv in New York, and built Singapore's largest live...

Iman Ibrahim, divorce strategist, accredited mediator, and founder of Over It Club, joins Unpolished Wisdom to unpack what it actually takes to end a marriage without losing yourself in it. After 19 years inside the legal machinery of divorce as a family lawyer in Singapore and England, Iman walked away from the courtroom to help people navigate the end of a marriage with clarity instead of chaos....

Angela Cusack, Master Certified Coach and author of Discover the Matrix, joins Unpolished Wisdom to unpack self-leadership, alignment, and how to lead others through real uncertainty. After 25 years in a successful corporate career, Angela walked away with no plan — driven by one question she couldn't outrun: "Who do I claim to be, in contrast to who everybody else wants me to be?" S...

Marcus Marsden is Managing Partner of The Works Partnership and author of Start With Who. He'd built a career helping leaders ask the hard questions — until life asked them of him. In 2019, Marcus unexpectedly found himself leading a company he'd never planned to run. Four months later, COVID shut the world down. In this conversation, Marcus opens up about the difference between change and...

Dr. Loo Hui Voon is the doctor people find when they've already seen everyone else. An integrative and functional medicine physician, she's built a practice around seeing the whole person — the body, the gut, the trauma, the invisible threads connecting it all. But for a long time, nobody was applying that same lens to her. In this quietly powerful conversation, Dr. Loo and Dr. Kat explore...

In this episode of Unpolished Wisdom, Dr. Katrina Gisbert Tay speaks to Siva Shanker Jayaraj. Siva grew up in a kampong in Malacca with no address and no plan — just an unshakeable belief that having nothing to lose was its own kind of freedom. That belief carried him to Nike, where he spent 11 years building some of the boldest brand experiences in Southeast Asia. Then one night, watching The Gre...

Dr. Suhina Singh grew up in apartheid South Africa where danger wasn't an exception — it was the baseline. Hypervigilance became her identity. Competence became survival. And for decades, her body absorbed everything her mind refused to feel. Then the pandemic hit. Chronic inflammation, unexplainable pain, and a nervous system finally at its limit forced her into what she calls her first emoti...

What happens when life doesn’t follow the timeline you thought you had to keep? In this conversation, Bianca Yuzon Henares, multidisciplinary artist, dream pop musician, and mother - shares her journey of creative reinvention, identity, and learning to begin again in unfamiliar spaces. From moving countries to stepping into motherhood she never planned for, Bianca opens up about the belief that on...

Jessica Nomi Spain, board certified nutritionist, health coach, and mother of four, spent decades living without knowing her origins after being adopted at age four following her Korean mother's death. She opens up about the narratives she created to survive—that she was chosen, that everything was fine—and how a DNA test changed everything when she discovered the family who had never stopped...

Terrie Lupberger, ICF Master Certified Coach and author of "Uncommon Wisdom at Work," spent seven years writing a book that kept teaching her what she wasn't ready to learn in year one. She opens up about the collective myths we live by—that more is better, that separation protects us, that our worth equals what we produce—and how these invisible stories create endless suffering at w...

Dani Van de Velde, meditation teacher, intuitive healer, and author of Spirited, reveals that sometimes the whisper you keep ignoring isn't doubt—it's your soul asking for attention. She opens up about walking away from a successful finance career spanning continents when the dissonance became unbearable, navigating spiritual awakening when the people around you don't understand, and d...

Lyn Lee, the first Asian woman to have served as Global Chief DEI Officer at Shell and bestselling author of Tiny Rice Grains, reveals that even with all her achievements, she still struggles with feeling truly seen. She opens up about discovering that the narratives we inherit about success, belonging, and who we should be don't have to be the ones we keep, navigating imposter syndrome while lead...

Corinna Vistan and Ian Takahashi are award-winning filmmakers who have worked on movies and tv shows such as The Suicide Squad, The White Lotus and the Marvel Studios films. Corinna made a decision that seemed crazy to everyone around them—choosing to leave Hollywood success at its peak, leaving her job at Marvel right after Avengers: Endgame, to move their family to Manila. Ian continues to work...

Matt Collier, founder and CEO of DignifyX, discovered that the darkness we encounter often reflects something we need to see in ourselves. He opens up about leaving a toxic work environment without a backup plan, confronting the narratives he'd been telling himself, and learning that the people who triggered him most were mirroring parts of himself he needed to heal. The conversation explores...

Cornelia Dahinten, a Singapore-based family therapist and conscious parenting coach, reveals that the secret to conscious parenting isn't perfection—it's presence. She opens up about raising three children before she had the therapeutic tools she has now, making imperfect choices, and discovering what her kids actually needed from her in the messy middle of motherhood. The conversation exp...