In this episode of Sound Funding, host Ryan Grant Little speaks with Sonalie Figueiras about how investing in the food system can help solve the climate crisis. Figueiras is the founder and editor-in-chief of Green Queen, a highly respected platform for the food tech industry. They discuss the importance of investing in food tech, the lack of messaging to the general public, and the need for more education and communication surrounding alternative proteins. Figueiras also shares her experience as an angel investor and the need for more diversity in the investing space.
In this episode of Sound Funding, host Ryan Grant Little speaks with Sonalie Figueiras about how investing in the food system can help solve the climate crisis. Figueiras is the founder and editor-in-chief of Green Queen, a highly respected platform for the food tech industry. They discuss the importance of investing in food tech, the lack of messaging to the general public, and the need for more education and communication surrounding alternative proteins. Figueiras also shares her experience as an angel investor and the need for more diversity in the investing space.
Ryan Grant Little 00:05
You're listening to sound funding conversations with Europe's leading investors for Impact. This is our first episode after what turned out to be a winter hibernation. And I'm thrilled to be back with a great lineup of conversations in the pipeline especially as we'll have lots of episodes on a topic that's close to my heart, that is, how investing in the food system can help solve the climate crisis. I can't think of a better person to kick things off. It's Sonalie Figueiras, founder and editor-in-chief of Green Queen. Based in Hong Kong, Green Queen is one of the food tech industry's most highly respected platforms. And so now it's often the first person to break big sector news. We talked about why investment in food tech is crucial, how we as an industry are doing a terrible job messaging to the general public, and a surprising tip about Hong Kong. I'm your host, Ryan Grant Little. I'm very happy to be back with you. Sonalie, welcome to the podcast.
Sonalie Figueiras 01:03
Hi, Ryan. So great to be here. Thanks for having me.
RGL 01:07
Great to see your face again and looking forward to seeing you in May, in Lausanne at the food hack conference.
SF 01:14
I cannot wait. You have no idea.
RGL 01:18
So I've organized, I've got some questions for you. And I've organized them from hardest to easiest, because the first question is actually about you. And, so, you describe yourself as half French and half Indian. You went to university in the US and you lived in Hong Kong. So the hardest question is where are you from?
SF 01:40
That is the hardest question. I definitely always answer that I'm half French and half Indian because I'm very in touch with both of my ethnicities and nationalities. But I'd have to say that my hometown is Hong Kong. It's where I was born and grew up. And I still live here now. So, yeah. But, you know, everyone thinks I'm Californian. So, it is a hard question. It is a hard question. Yeah, I'm from Hong Kong. And I'm half French and half Indian. That's how I am to answer that.
RGL 02:13
Okay, and you're very international. I follow your LinkedIn feed very closely. And you're always, of course, going to the key conferences in the food tech space and covering news from around the world through your news platform and impact media platform called Green Queen. So, are you the Green Queen? Where does the name come from?
SF 02:34
So the name actually came to me in a dream when I first started what was at the time a blog but quickly became a news site when I realized they didn't really want to be the influencer model. But people really started calling me Green Queen organically in Hong Kong. And it was really cool, like people started doing, there's a juice named after me, there was their restaurant dishes. So it just sort of took off. And I think obviously, because I am a green, female person, and it is my company, I think that, so it just kind of took over. But now that's sort of how I know, you know, kind of, I guess, affectionately across the region and beyond. But really, yeah, it was originally just supposed to be the name of the platform. I hadn't seen myself, I was actually very shy about putting myself in front. I didn't put my name on Green Queen for a year. And then I started to be asked to speak a lot. And I love to talk about the topics less so about myself but more about the topics and the news and getting the message out. And I'm definitely an activist at heart. And you know, I'm happy to be kind of an analyst panelist type of person. And so the name took on a power of its own. You know, it kind of got applied to me specifically as well, and so then I had to kind of put my name on there and say who I was. But really, it's meant to be for the platform and the movement less so about me.
RGL 04:08
And the platform, you started at around a little more than 10 years ago. What was the impetus to start it?
SF 04:14
Originally, it had to do with health. I have a lot of health conditions. But it started when I was a late teen or in my early 20s. And I had trouble getting diagnosed. I suffered from something that I termed medical misogyny where I was ignored by doctors. And a lot of the things that I suffer from are not life threatening. So they were kind of brushed aside and ignored. My symptoms were ignored. But it was very painful. And so because it was very painful, I tried to do my own research and I ended up figuring out that if I changed the way that I ate, I would feel better. And that's what started kind of a rabbit hole journey of doing research around food and food systems and how the food that I was eating has grown. And that linked up to sort of pollution and water and soil health and agriculture. And that kind of opened up the whole conversation of climate and food. And it just became something that took over my life as a research and interest. And I changed my whole life to better serve my health needs. And I started discovering products and people in organizations that were working to serve people like me. And I wanted to tell their story, you know, chefs that were doing amazing things with plants and startups that were coming up with new ways to consume that were kinder to the planet and less toxic and more ethical. And that's really how it all started. And Green Queen just really had an audience from the first day even though that really wasn't my plan.
RGL 05:57
Medical misogyny is a term that I've become familiar with recently, as well. I've got a very sick female family member and I've been a support person for her. And I've really experienced that firsthand. And, yeah, it's something that I wouldn't have known about, I think, six months ago, or a year ago if I hadn't seen it. So, as you started this platform, it became first about, the kind of, you'd like better health. You have a great quote that says “You can't be healthy without going green. And by saving the planet, you're saving yourself.” So this became, I know you through alternative proteins and the food tech space, but it's also about cosmetics and lifestyle. And you have another platform about plastic waste. Can you talk a little bit more about, kind of these, the non-food tech stuff before we dive into that a little bit more.
SF 06:44
Yeah, sure. I think one of the hardest things about life for me is that you kind of have to pigeonhole yourself because that's how people want to understand things. But I'm just a very holistic person. So, Green Queen has always been about food and climate and health and wellness and environment. And for me, they're all related. But the reason Green Queen ended up being so different is because you would have all these media that were about, let's say, the planet. How do we make better decisions with a planet? And then you would have all these other media sites that were all about health and wellness. And for me, as you picked out that quote, they're completely interrelated. If the planet is dying, then we are, by definition, going to be dying too, and vice versa. And so, you know, it's no surprise that the conclusions of health journeys end up with reuniting with nature and going to congregating with what is more natural, more real, more authentic. Right? And so, for me, if you're protecting our future and the future of nature and the future of our planet and things like biodiversity and wildlife and how we grow our food, you're also protecting the future of humans. And packaging is something that… So, Green Queen started as something on the side. I originally had another startup that is called Ekowarehouse that is all about connecting certified organic producers, farmers, suppliers, manufacturers with buyers looking for certified organic products and ingredients. I started Green Queen kind of on the side as I was changing my life but really my business was the other one. And it's still going today. And that's really where I cut my teeth in terms of understanding how food supply works and how we buy food and how we consume food and how it's grown, etc. And I felt very strongly that the food system had some seriously fundamental issues and that we were going to need to solve for those. And so when I started organic it was less than 1% of the market. And now it's 5 to 10% depending on where you go. In some places it’s even more. And everybody knows what organic means. Nobody knew when I started. So we have made some strides. And now it's gotten to the point where organic is not even considered good enough. It's regenerative. It’s what we need to aim for now. Although there isn't a strong enough global definition around what that means, but, it’s still great. Like we've raised the bar. We raised the bar with organic now. We're raising the bar with regenerative. And we should continue to raise the bar. Packaging is a natural area around that. So originally, when I started Ekowarehouse, it was actually meant to be the green and eco label version of Alibaba. So it was supposed to connect all certified eco label suppliers from all things, from fair trade, Rainforest Alliance, certified compostable. So we had packaging on there for 10 years ago but nobody wanted it. What really took off was the organic food and so we just leaned into that. But a few years later, I met my now co-founder Luc of Source Green and we bonded over our zero waste kind of lifestyle and thinking. And the plastic was just not being addressed and so we decided to join forces and start a really dedicated platform to really help businesses quit plastic in packaging. And so that's what we're working on. We have software, we have a sourcing platform, we have databases of better suppliers, we create solutions directly with manufacturers for brands, we do education, we have a popular newsletter, and we've created this software that helps brands look at the true cost of plastic. So that's where we really innovated and there's some IP which is that we are the first to really help people calculate the true cost of plastic from extraction to end of life that goes beyond just carbon emissions. Because unfortunately, when it comes to plastic, carbon emissions are woefully inadequate. If you have your, what we call, carbon blinders on and you're only looking at carbon, then you're going to think that plastic is actually a better solution than glass, which is ridiculous because you're not taking into account weight costs and you're not taking into account biodiversity cost, microplastic cost, you're not taking into account the cost of extracting from that plastic. Because what the plastic industry has been really good at doing is brainwashing people to forget that plastic is oil; it's just solid oil. So the same people that would buy an electric car are not thinking about the plastic that they're using constantly. And businesses are hiding behind simple carbon audits when it comes to plastic. And we just haven't applied the same level of intense disclosure and transparency around plastic in the supply chain.
RGL 11:52
I'll need to talk to you more about that offline because I'm working on plastics, recycling projects, and funding them in developing countries around the world right now. So I'll bookmark that. And interesting to note that this is part of your empire as well. But in addition to running the media company, you're also an angel investor in the food tech space. Most of the listeners to this podcast are Impact investors and usually with funds. And I spend a lot of my time talking to them about food tech investing being clean tech or climate tech investing. And this was, you know, helped quite a bit. A few months ago, when BCG in The Guardian came out with this report that money spent in the food tech space vastly outperforms building or emobility or anything else in terms of the impact on the climate. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your investing activities. You're the first angel investor on the program. To talk a little bit about how you got involved in that, what your focus is, what's interesting to you out there right now.
SF 12:59
Sure, thank you. I am actually very quiet about my angel investments because I do run a media company. So I want to be very careful to maintain editorial integrity around how we report on companies. And it really does not have any bearing on how we make editorial decisions. I am an advisor and this is publicly known to a few funds. And that is something that I'm very able and passionate to talk about. I think I've happened to be connected to three of the best funds in the world, which it's so wonderful. But I think that I really really enjoy the due diligence process. I actually worked in private equity. A long time ago, I did work in real estate private equity where I had to do a lot of due diligence around buildings and real estate companies. I worked in banking where I had to do the same thing. I had to do portfolio management, as well. And then I worked in management consulting and my job was actually all about risk analysis. So working with like the equivalent of fortune 500 companies in Europe, specifically in France, so the top companies in France, and working with their C-suite to analyze all their risks with regards to their company insurance. And so my training is in due diligence and risk analysis. And so I naturally enjoy applying that to an angel investing kind of format. I tend to probably be too rigorous as an angel investor and plus I'm now also a journalist so I'm looking at it in a different way. But I also think that as exciting as the space is, I think we have to be really careful about continuing to do better due diligence. I think that we, as a space, have not always done enough due diligence on deals even in the early stage and what that's resulted in is hype and excess and misevaluation. And in the end that only costs the space, right? Because all of that hype eventually comes down, right? And money used to be cheap now; money's not cheap. So all of that stuff is, anybody who was overvalued is now facing a whole reevaluation. Right?
RGL 15:19
Totally.
SF 15:21
And I think that had we been a little bit more careful on DD with some of the stuff there would have been less pain than there is now.
RGL 15:31
I think also, I mean, looking at Frothy 2021 and I'm definitely guilty of this as well but getting excited about some products that are ready to go to market, especially in the plant based space that aren't ready yet or it might never be ready and rather than waiting people over to the cause that was someone's first experience of a chicken nugget or something like that, then maybe they're not super excited about that plant based space. And so, yeah, I think this is probably a good correction that we're seeing right now to some extent, although a lot of very good companies are also just not getting funded right now.
SF 16:07
Right. But that's the same thing. And yes, there are corrections happening but are we learning the lessons? Are we taking from that, that we should slow down and do better DD? Are we understanding that in this space? There was a huge lack of focus on downstream stuff like consumer engagement and awareness building and branding of these products and testing of these products and how to launch them in the market. Did we allow a little bit of a herd-like mentality to take over on the investment front and on the product branding and launch front?
RGL 16:42
We've learned it and then we've learned this lesson for now as a sector and then we'll probably forget it in 5 or 10 years. We're seeing that, although if there were any lessons learned about the banking industry in 2008 definitely were forgotten over time. And we're seeing that come to roost again.
SF 16:58
We can go back to the Dutch tulip boom and bust, right? I mean, there's something about boom and bust and hype that humans seem to have trouble with. We're not good at long term-ism. We're very short term, immediate, tangible beings. And it's very difficult for us to bring in more patience and longer term thinking. I will say though, and I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to, I’m not sorry, but you know, I know some folks won't appreciate this, but I'm going to bring in the gender card which is that women tend to do a lot better on all these fronts. They tend to be less likely to get into hype cycle, they tend to invest better on the longer term, they tend to come in with more empathy and more caution, they tend to honestly do better DD. These are numbers that you can look into. It’s not my opinion. And yet 2% of the money goes to women founders. There's still a huge lack of women VCs and investors across the whole chain across every deal level. I think that we could use a little bit more rigor from women and from more minority investors, whether it's LGBTQ investors, whether it's more ethnically diverse investors, I think that we need more points of view, more backgrounds, more variety of experiences to come in and make more holistic, careful decisions.
RGL 18:34
I totally agree. And I'm happy to see in a micro way that the food hacks indicate which you and I are both active in represents that a little bit. But in the broader sense, the old boys club is still alive and well, unfortunately.
SF 18:46
Sure, yeah, absolutely.
RGL 18:48
So you touched on this a moment ago. Just speaking of frustrations, you actually wrote on LinkedIn a few days ago, and I interacted with you about this, that a bit about how the alt proteins industry is losing the hearts and minds more downstream, as you say. And you started the posts really strongly here in all caps, “ATTENTION ALT PROTEIN INDUSTRY: We’re doing an absolutely abysmal job of communicating about what we do and why we exist and why it's crucial to the future security of the food system amidst an ever worsening climate crisis.” So do you want to explore that a little bit? What makes you say this?
SF 19:25
Sure. I mean, this is something we could talk about for an hour but essentially, I spend a lot of time talking to people that are not in the industry, so not in my echo chamber. And when I am on the ground, talking to those people, I really, really have to say that I do not feel that the messaging that we want to get through is getting through. I think that people still have no idea that investing in food is absolutely crucial if we're going to solve the climate crisis. Most people do not know a simple fact, which is, that over 33% of all greenhouse gas emissions come from food production. This is a simple fact. And yet most people I talked to have never heard it. Most people have a misunderstanding of alternative proteins and what they serve. It seems to me that, for some reason, everyone thinks we're trying to come after grass fed beef steaks which make up less than 5% of the market. Actually, what we're trying to solve for is the 2+ billion burgers that are served at McDonald's every year. Now multiply that by all the fast food chains and across all the world and all the processed meat, we are here to solve for livestock, animal agriculture. There is no future that exists that is sustainable and healthy for humans where we don't sort out that industry. It's really that simple. And I'm pretty sure that everybody in that industry knows that too. However, it feels to people that we are attacking their tradition, their identity, their farmers, their culture, their enjoyment. And that comes down to a lack of investment and a lack of focus on downstream issues like branding and communications and education. And VCs don't want to invest in that. So where do we get the money to better educate the world that needs to know that we can't solve the climate crisis without solving for food? I don't know. I'm working on it. But we have not done a good job.
RGL 21:48
Yeah, interesting. And that post definitely got a lot of traction from people. And some of the examples you use of what people say are definitely the things that I hear also from people who are not in the industry. And it's always funny to me that the same people who will eat raw fish that they don't know where it came from or how long it's been out, think that the idea of meat that's grown in a lab and completely controlled environments. A completely controlled environment is somehow scarier for them. But this is definitely something we're gonna have to do. You talked about investing. Let's switch to that topic. As I mentioned, our listeners are mostly investors. And they're a group that I'm often trying to have to drink the Kool Aid on food tech investing. Can you lay out a little bit and you're very close to this, what do you see as the opportunity in light of or notwithstanding the market situation that we're in right now and recognizing that we're talking about really somehow revolutionizing the food industry? Or maybe you don't see it that way, I don't know. But what's the investment opportunity right now for funds? What are you saying to the three funds that you advise right now?
SF 22:57
I mean, I don't need to tell the three funds I advise any of this. They're much more sophisticated. And they know all this already. We were having discussions of how we get LPs to see that connection now that mainstream US media has put a real shadow on all protein and food tech investing. And I'd like to answer the question after I say one thing which is that we really must broaden the geography of the conversation. The conversation is far too US centric and the mainstream media that is quoted and that is so influential, it's far too US centric. I live in Asia where 60% of the world's population lives. We need to solve for the future protein demand of Asia where we only have 20% of the world's agricultural land. So what's the plan folks? What's the plan? Why is food an investable category? Well, it is one of the most profitable industries in the world. It is the only thing that we all do except three [???]. It’s the only universal category — not sports, not fashion, not beauty, not transport. Only food is universal. It is a category that touches on everything. It touches on transport, it touches on oil, it touches on energy, it touches on plastics and packaging. It is literally essential to survival. And it is greatly at risk from the climate crisis that we are living through. And I think there is an urgent need to get more information around this out there. And I actually have had four calls today just to talk about that. And the post that I wrote, it did surprise me how viral it went. I did not expect it to be so viral. What made me feel better is that the responses I got were so international. I got comments from people in Africa and Latin America, in Asia, in the Pacific, in Europe, in the US. Everybody was concerned by the post so that makes me happy. And I got so many inbounds into my DMs around “How can I help? How can we tell this story better?” So there are people out there that know that the food and climate story is absolutely key. Unfortunately, a lot of the people that have power — politicians, policymakers, journalists, and editors and mainstream media, teachers, Chief Sustainability Officer, then sustainably managers — how do these folks don't seem to have the same level of screening and context and information around food and climate? So this really needs to be addressed. And it's something that I've decided to address in 2023. So I'm working on projects to do this. I think that goes a long way to helping explain why this is a crucial area of opportunity for investors and for LPs because what I've learned a lot of about being an advisor to funds is that it's not just the VC. Like for a founder, the VC is the last point of call, right?
RGL 26:09
Right.
SF 26:10
That's their boss, essentially. But the VC boss is the LP.
RGL 26:14
Right.
SF 26:15
It's the LPs that are farthest away from the problem. And so those are the people we really need to get to. And they're consuming mainstream media. And they are getting influenced by all this like negativity and misinformation and disinformation. How can something that people do three times a day everywhere in the world, something that affects so many jobs, something that is so universal, not be an area of opportunity? I mean, who doesn't want their kids and their families to eat food that is grown in better soil that is less toxic, that is more nutritious, that is secure, sustainable, and ethical? It’s just, who isn't interested in that? I mean, raise your hand. I've never met someone who isn't. I've just met people that have a misunderstanding around what those solutions entail. And one thing we need to do better is listen to people and meet people where they are and have more conversations. And like with any industry, the echo chamber is strong. It's too strong. And I'm grateful all the time for my speaking circuit life which allows me to go and talk to people who have nothing to do with the industry and regularly take the pulse of regular folks and hear what they have to say and what their concerns are and what their questions are. And that's what that post was about. And it really touched a nerve because everybody who answered that post or commented or liked it or sent me a DM has had those same experiences with regular folks. And you know, this is all related. Your question is related to how we communicate about the industry. Your question is related to how we listen to people. And obviously, as a world, we've just become so bad at listening. We've lost empathy. We've lost understanding. We've lost contextualization and nuance.
RGL 28:19
And at the same time, we're seeing some parts of the food industry doing a very effective job of employing the same tactics that tobacco use, for example, or oil are using now to spread, kind of, messages that are easy to pick up and that have mistruths that are kind of sometimes hard to identify. But when I look at the efforts to not legally label oat milk as milk, I think if confusion is really your concern, where have you been on the issue of peanut butter these last 30 years? You know, so obviously a very cynical approach to this but they're doing a good job and they're putting it out there. We definitely have to do something to counterbalance this. Maybe if we shift gears a little bit, you also, you're a bit of a futurist, I'd say. And you're also one of the people who gets access first to some of the stuff that's coming down the pike. What are you excited about? What are some green shoots with some good news coming down? Recognizing that I know there's a lot of bad news, but what are you excited about in the space?
SF 29:28
Yeah, so what I'm excited about is what I've noticed is that there's a bit of a back to basics going on and there's a lot more attention now on like actual agricultural growing, not so much things like urban farms and stuff which seem like they're also going through their own reckoning. But soil health fertilizers, crop resiliency, that which I find fascinating, like how do we choose better crops to buttress against a world where some of our favorite and most necessary crops are going to be under pressure. They're stressed and there may be a lack of them. So climate friendly crops, climate resilient crops, lots of stuff around there, that still hasn't taken off as much as it should. What I thought was going to take off earlier but it's only really taking off now, and it's great to see, is upcycling and valorizing waste side streams. That's happening a lot more so using kind of ag byproducts to make new foods or to make materials or to make packaging. I'm super excited about ag waste paper because it's not just about a plastic free world, it should also be about tree free packaging. We can't just keep cutting down trees to make boxes. So we should certainly not go from plastic to paper. It should go ‘Let's leapfrog over that and go to ag waste paper’. So that's really exciting to me. Another area is a more diverse food system. I've also noticed this is a much bigger trend. So really kind of reaching different flavor profiles and different culinary traditions. Our food system has been far too whitewashed for too long. Of course, there are risks with that, but you know, the solutions that come kind of commoditized and commercialized. So how do we kind of balance that out? One solution could be I see a resurgent or a surgeon, not even a resurgence, of indigenous respect. So respecting indigenous traditions all around the world. And different indigenous groups around the world have their own traditions and wisdom of which we should be mindful and respectful and learning from. And I see a lot more of that. I see chefs talking more about it. I see more content around it. I mean, I see more restaurants opening with indigenous menus and really giving back that power to stewards of the land. There's so much wisdom and learning to be unlocked from those folks and communities and tribes and groups. And we need to do that better because as collectively as humanity, we have absolutely just raped and pillage there, everything. And we've lost so much from doing that not only have we caused, untold cruelty and horror but we have lost so much knowledge and wisdom. And I hope that as we go into what I like to call the age of artificiality, with the advent of AI and chat to be keen on all of these kinds of directions of potentially using algorithms and robot like software to run our life, I hope that we will marry that technology with indigenous learning so that we can get the best of both aspects of humanity which is our ability to kind of just really innovate on a technological trial in a way that few other species can do. But also hold dear and respect nature based wisdom. And that's going to be the real kind of tension and kind of fight of the next 30 years. I don't know that we're going to solve the climate crisis only with technology. I don't think we are. But I also don't think we're only going to solve it with nature based solutions because of how many people there are in this track on resources. So I think we need both. And why are we divided? I don't know. I mean, I do know, but you know what I mean?
RGL 33:57
I had dinner with a venture capitalist the other day and he said something provocative and, I think, wonderful that he wishes that everyone would stop drinking whiskey and start taking mushrooms once a year. And maybe that would bring us closer to Earth. I think…
SF 34:12
More Aqua Vodka? Aqua vodka. Now I hear you. I hear you.
RGL 34:18
Something to that. And we'll have to get Michael Pollan on the show and see what he says.
SF 34:24
A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
RGL 34:28
Sonalie, what's your number one tip for a visitor to Hong Kong?
SF 34:34
Oooh… The trail. I think most people think of Hong Kong as some kind of urban jungle full of tall buildings and tech forward architecture but actually it's a collection of gorgeous jungle heavy forests and islands and beaches and I am on trails every morning. I go to the beach every weekend. I would say the nature is incredible. People don't realize. So, go. We’re considered one of the 10 best trail running locations in the world. There is nowhere else in the world where you can get to a mountaintop from a city center so fast and so conveniently and so cheaply than in Hong Kong. I think we are the record for that. So it's pretty amazing and yet not talked about at all in the media.
RGL 35:24
No, that is news to me as well. I have to say.
SF 35:26
Yeah.
RGL 35:28
Where can people find you online?
SF 35:29
www.greenqueen.com.hk that's the medium site. I'm on LinkedIn. That's my only social media. I'm the worst media owner in the world. I only have one social media channel. And you can email me or email Green Queen, get in touch at greenqueen.com.hk. We do have a company Instagram if you want, follow @greenqueenhk. It's not me that does everything on there.
RGL 35:57
Amazing. A Luddite like me just also on LinkedIn.
SF 36:00
LinkedIn is probably the only social media I can handle. I don't know.
RGL 36:06
It's more than enough. It's more than enough.
SF 36:08
Once they banned Tiktok then maybe I'll get on it.
RGL 36:15
Amazing Sonalie. Thank you so much for joining us. It's been a really interesting conversation.
SF 36:19
Thank you so much. Love all your work.
RGL 36:20
[Talk to or see] you soon. Thanks for listening. You can follow me Ryan Grant Little on LinkedIn to make sure you never miss an episode. You can find out more information about EVPA at www.evpa.ngo where you can also find our sister podcast Impact People hosted by EVPA's chief storyteller Ben DeVries. Thanks a lot.