#41 GKC | 👋 Theodore Pang, Impact Investor @ CREADEV

💁‍♀️💁‍♂️ GOOD People

Theodore is an impact investor at CREADEV, an investment firm owned by a French family, focusing on early-growth agriculture and food verticals in Southeast Asia.

He has 10 years of investment experience, starting his career with Sime Darby, a Malaysian conglomerate. Then, he joined SEEDS Capital, a SG government VC in early-stage tech investments.

Investing with impact is very close to heart and something he’s committed to deepen in the next 10 years and more.

👋🏼  How would you explain your job to your grandma?

I put money into businesses which help other people, and make money when these good businesses make money.

🧐  What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

While investing is seen as a hard skills job, a lot of my recent breakthrough has been in the soft skills.

Specifically, this is in interpersonal dealings, where embracing a sense of partnership and finding win-win outcomes has served me in driving negotiations amid opposing views and tense discussions.

🔍  What's an impact startup / investing trend you're watching?

Investing in companies with deep AI capabilities that use sticky products (sometimes free) to drive adoption and leveraging that to collect valuable insights which they monetize (e.g. for lending to underbanked groups or identifying likely customer channels).

💡 What's one book / podcast / movie that inspired you the most?

Difficult question but definitely a memorable one was Impact SEA, a podcast spearheaded by Christopher Quek (the founding partner of TRIVE VC impact fund). There were many captivating case studies of impact investments in Southeast Asia and I was fortunate to contribute by supporting Chris to interview a few of these impact funds for the podcast.

I'm now also reading Mother Teresa's biography. What's struck me is how her compelling desire, solid belief, and willingness to take action to serve the, in her words, "poorest of the poor" have served her mission so well, even when she did not always have the luxury to be equipped with the perfect mechanisms or solutions to begin with.

🎯  What’s one habit / new skill you are working on recently?

Practicing declarations of what I commit to achieve and create.

I'm practicing this as part of a program called SG Works to create different results in my life, and one of the things I'm starting to experience is the power of declaration.

This means declaring an outcome even if I don't have the perfect solution in mind to begin with. Once the declaration is out there, the sheer act of having made the declaration compels me to go all out to make it happen.

🏆 What would you offer to our Impact Founders Community in SEA?

I'd be happy to be a listening ear for impact driven businesses and brainstorm new possibilities with them.

I can also share my personal development journey if it serves the community to unlock a different result with the important outcomes they are committed to create.

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Feel free to connect with Theodore on LinkedIn. (Pro Tip: you can refer Good Karma Club for a warm intro!)

❤️ Great Content You’ll Like …

FREE Databases
Fellowships | Accelerators | Competitions | Fundraising Cases

Deep Dives
Climate | Education | Financial Inclusion | Healthcare | Agriculture | Gender Equality

Impact Frameworks
Impact Investing 101 | IRIS+ | SROI | B Corp | UN SDGs | OPIM

👍 How I Can Help

Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can be helpful:

GKC Invest
Join our invite-only impact investing club on private credit deals in SEA.

GKC Fractional CFO
Support on monthly financial reporting, capital strategy and fundraising advisory.

GKC Impact Program
Curate impact-focused programs for corporates (i.e. accelerators, deal flows).

Let’s chat on LinkedIn / email!