Nigel Stanislaus is a highly celebrated makeup artist who’s been a part of international television shows like Project Runway, X-Factor, Make Me A Supermodel and also a judge on Australia’s Next Top Model and Asia’s Next Top Model. 

His editorial works span the likes of Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan L’Officiel, Elle, Marie Claire, GQ, and Esquire and he has worked with celebrities like John Legend, Suki Waterhouse, Kelly Osborne, Gigi & Bella Hadid, Scary Spice - Melanie Brown, and most recently, Jenna Dewan and Tina Arena.

But what is it really like being such a celebrated makeup artist who was known for almost a decade as “Mr Maybelline”? What did it take to get to where he is today?

In this episode, we dive into what it was like growing up in Singapore, how he almost became a professional sniper, discovering the world of fashion and makeup as well as the realities of living the jet-setting life, and what he is now up to since leaving his position as Makeup Director at Maybelline, where he had represented Singapore in NYFW.

Highlights:

• 1:59 The story behind the name “Stanislaus”
• 2:44 Being influenced by the feminine energy around him
• 4:59 Discovering his “front of house”
• 7:22 Being different from other guys
• 8:27 Studying apparel design & merchandising at Temasek Polytechnic 
• 11:19 Obtaining an internship in New York & attending his first catwalk (which included meeting Kate Moss!)
• 17:45 Completing national service in Singapore & discovering a talent for being a sniper
• 20:20 Excelling at Monash University 
• 22:41 Doing freelance makeup on the side 
• 23:40 Being told he would never make it as he “didn’t fit the profile”
• 25:39 Getting over his rejections
• 27:20 Getting his first agent
• 28:53 The importance of social media 
• 30:52 Nigel’s wildest briefs
• 32:51 How Nigel constantly upskills
• 34:32 Admiring “stalker-ish” persistence in his assistants
• 37:39 The reality of living a jet-setting life
• 44:14 Appearing on television
• 47:21 How Nigel decided to stop being the Makeup Director of Maybelline aka Mr Maybelline
• 54:33 How Nigel overcomes loneliness

📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/58 

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Robert James Ashe is a 4-time Emmy nominated editor and title designer, best known for being the Head of Post Production on Conan for nearly 8 years. He has also worked for Conan O'Brien on the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour, The 2014 MTV Movie Awards, and his show CONAN on TBS. Rob also served as the announcer, title designer, and lead editor for The Pete Holmes Show on TBS.

Here, Robert shares how he went from being an army brat and Disney kid, to life in musical theatre and how he ended up working in post production in Hollywood. As well as what it’s like being a parent to three young children with physical challenges.

Highlights:

• 2:43 Being a Disney kid
• 4:40 The realities of being in musical theatre
• 8:45 How Robert first got into production in Hollywood
• 15:51 Designing the original Conan logo & incorporating his daughter’s silhouette into it
• 17:40 Delivering a 42 minute show in 19 minutes
• 20:06 Knowing what to cut
• 22:59 The most time-consuming parts of travel segments
• 25:27 Why editing is like speed chess
• 27:09 Finding a rhythm to editing
• 29:47 Cutting for the Notebook 2 with Ryan Reynolds & Conan O’Brien
• 38:09 Most memorable parts of working on Conan
• 38:09 How Robert first heard that the Conan show would be ending
• 41:05 Advice for people who want to make it
• 44:31 Figuring out how to ace interviews in Hollywood
• 45:48 Caring for children with physical challenges
• 51:14 Advice for parents looking to adopt children with physical challenges 
• 55:06 Breaking into Hollywood through charities

📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/57 

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Amra Naidoo is the co-founder of Accelerating Asia, an early stage venture capital fund that runs programs for startups and investors, and General Partner at Accelerating Asia Ventures. Prior to that, she was the Head of Corporate Partnerships at UN Women, including Project Inspire (a UN Women global social entrepreneurship program) and a part of muru-D’s, which was one of the top startup accelerators in Asia. 

She is also the APAC Regional Lead for Shaper Impact Capital and Outgoing Curator for the Global Shapers Singapore Hub, an initiative of the World Economic Forum and is the host and creator of the Doing Good Podcast. She has been interviewed and featured as a guest author on industry blogs, including The Straits Times, Techcrunch, Reuters and named as one of Harper's Bazaar’s Women Who Inspire Others.

Highlights

1:56 Growing up in Zimbabwee

3:14 Moving to Australia

5:23 Why Amra started dreaming of working at the UN

7:26 Selling SKII & Shiseido

13:53 Deciding on how to change her life

16:18 Getting a UN internship

20:03 Becoming Head of Corporate Partnerships at UN Women

21:00 Running Project Inspire

25:50 How startups can run successful crowdfunding campaigns

27:28 The struggle with marketing 

31:35 Why Amra ended up leaving the UN

34:17 Obtaining a marketing degree from the University of Newcastle

36:30 Meeting Craig, her current co-founder, at muru-D

37:19 How the idea of Accelerating Asia began

39:20 The “missing middle”

41:26 The biggest challenges in setting up an independent accelerator

43:21 Bootstrapping to set up a consultancy program

44:16 Running the 100 days accelerator program

47:22 The regulatory challenges behind running a venture fund

48:24 Fundraising for their venture fund

50:37 Why selling a fund is similar to selling Chanel

56:25 Why Accelerating Asia focuses on pre-Series A companies

58:48 Whether Amra looks for social impact in their startups

1:04:00 Starting the Doing Good podcast

1:05:44 What Amra thinks about the creator economy & how VCs/startup founders should get into the space

1:07:31 How Amra ended up joining the Payment’s Race - MoneyAsia 2020

📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/56 

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Karl Mak is a Singaporean entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of HEPMIL Media Group: a holding company that owns SGAG, MGAG, PGAG, SGEEK and HEPMIL Creators’ Network.

If you’re a fan of memes, then you’re in for a treat because that is precisely what HEPMIL specialises in!

Karl shares how he almost became a professional swimmer, how he built a flourishing real estate career while in school, his experiences (and failure) with his first startup & how he ended up co-founding SGAG with Adrian Ang, whom he had first met back in 2005 in junior college. 

Highlights:

• 3:32 Swimming competitively
• 9:53 Entering the real estate business
• 13:28 The gift of the gab
• 20:26 Learning from Professor Soon Loo
• 22:23 Attending a coding bootcamp to find a co-founder
• 26:26 “Crazy” things Karl did to get enterprise clients
• 28:22 Why Televate, Karl’s first startup, failed
• 33:43 Meeting Adrian & starting SGAG
• 38:27 How they come up with memes
• 40:32 The Ah Lian meme, which was picked up by mainstream media
• 42:36 Milestones to track
• 47:47 The early days of SGAG
• 49:04 Land grabbing tactics used by SGAG
• 51:42 Distinguishing SGAG from other similar pages
• 56:40 Selling vulgar T-shirts
• 59:18 How the business deal with Scoot happened
• 1:00:57 Changing the engine of a plane in mid-air
• 1:06:03 Your failure makes you more valuable
• 1:07:26 Building a creators’ network
• 1:15:58 How COVID-19 impacted Karl & HEPMIL Media Group

📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/55 

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Yulia Brodskaya is a Russian artist and illustrator known for painting with paper. 

Pioneering contemporary paper quilling, she uses thick, coloured paper to compose stunningly detailed 3d portraits. And her work is owned by the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Hermés, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Paramount Pictures, Country Music Association, The New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, New York Observer, and Issey Miyake. 

She also designed the official poster for the 2015 Wimbledon Championships, designed a Google Chrome theme, created a Forever stamp design for the United States Postal Service in 2016 and Christmas 2017 stamps for New Zealand Post. In 2019, she was named a “Breakthrough Star” by Creative Review and featured among other leading UK-based artists in the BBC programme Making Art Work: First Idea to Final Piece.

Highlights:

• 2:32 Growing up in Moscow in the 1980s
• 8:27 Learning to see the world with an artist’s eye
• 10:12 Picking up a love of typography
• 12:43 Discovering a love of paper art
• 16:59 Creating the Christmas cover for the G2 supplement of the Guardian
• 19:27 What “paper quilling” is
• 21:54 Being protective of her own style
• 23:40 The process of creating her work
• 27:19 When she knows a piece of work is complete
• 30:18 Creating portraits of old folks
• 39:20 Publishing a book
• 41:52 Creating her own mobile app
• 44:16 Creating her first NFT

📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/54 

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Rahul Chaudhary is the Managing Director & CEO at CG Corp Global and CG Hospitality Holdings. And the second son of Binod Chaudhary, who is the first & only Forbes-listed multi-billionaire from Nepal! 

In this STIMY episode, Rahul shares what it’s like being the 4th-generation heir of a 140-year family business empire, starting from being a sporting champion at boarding school to striking his first business deal in New York, where everything that could possibly go wrong, did!

And how the CG Hospitality arm has grown and even thrived during the global pandemic.

Highlights:

• 3:12 Rahul’s great-grandfather, whose birth is taken as the genesis of the Chaudhary Group
• 6:48 Core family values
• 10:43 Always focusing on the good
• 18:02 Civil war in Nepal
• 20:30 Striking his first business deal, where everything went wrong
• 28:34 Leaving the US for opportunities in Asia
• 31:54 Forging a partnership with the Taj Group
• 39:44 Creating CG’s own hospitality brand, Zinc
• 42:19 Entering Dubai
• 46:25 Starting Prestellar Ventures, CG’s own VC fund
• 51:17 The CG Foundation & how it’s helped out during the 2015 earthquake in Nepal & the global pandemic
• 54:45 Becoming aware of the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic
• 59:36 Changes that have allowed CG’s hotels to thrive during the pandemic

📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/53 

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Kendrick Nguyen is the co-founder & CEO of Republic - one of the US’s top equity crowdfunding platforms where over USD$ 100 million has already been raised in just 2021 alone. And boasts a heavily curated list of startups that, according to Kendrick, is harder to get into than Harvard!

Before Republic, Kendrick was a trading and securities lawyer at Wall Street. Knowing that this wasn’t for him, he eventually transitioned into becoming a Stanford teaching fellow and COO of Kanbar Enterprises. He later became the General Counsel of Angellist (also its first non-engineering hire!) and simultaneously spearheaded Angellist’s expansion into Canada and Europe and the launch of various products. 

That is, until the JOBS Act passed, which changed the investment landscape and allowed non-accredited investors (i.e. anyone regardless of net worth) invest in startups. 

With the blessing (and investment!) of Angellist before him, Kendrick decided to launch his own startup, Republic, with the ultimate aim of becoming the Amazon of private investing. Where anyone can invest in the next potential Uber or Airbnb for as little as $10.  

Highlights:

• 3:26 Studying neuroscience & law at Berkeley and Oxford
• 4:38 Becoming a securities & patent litigator 
• 7:20 Becoming a teaching fellow at Stanford University
• 11:48 Joining AngelList as its General Counsel & first non-engineering hire
• 14:22 The JOBS Act
• 16:04 The vision for Republic to become the Amazon of private investing
• 17:51 Telling the AngelList board that he wanted to quit & launch his own startup
• 19:46 Getting 2 investments out of 250 VCs in 8 months
• 25:12 Republic’s curation process
• 28:25 The different lens between Republic and VCs
• 31:38 Allowing a 12-year-old founder to raise funds on Republic?!
• 34:48 Getting deal flow
• 37:43 Why startups would raise on Republic & not from other VCs
• 39:47 Republic’s business model
• 42:12 Hallmarks of successful campaigns on Republic
• 43:53 How Sahil Lavingia (founder of Gumroad) raised USD $5 million in 12 hours from just under 7,000 investors
• 45:51 How founders can activate their community
• 51:06 Distinguishing Republic from other competitors
• 52:54 Republic Notes - launching Republic’s own digital tokens
• 54:29 Partnership with Meet the Drapers television show
• 1:00:21 Use of Republic’s recent $36 million for Series A

📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/52 

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Nick Bernstein is the Senior Vice President of Late Night Programming (West Coast) at ViacomCBS & is the executive in charge of the Late Late Show with James Corden. 

In Part 2 of this STIMY episode with Nick, we explore how the Comcast's 51% acquisition of NBC Universal impacted Nick personally, how he ended up being the executive producer of the Pete Holmes show & ultimately (currently!) the executive in charge of the Late Late Show with James Corden. 

Nick talks about all things related to the Late Late show including his initial conversation with Nina Tassler (then President of CBS), how the show has transformed over the past 5 years, the impact the global pandemic has had on them and not forgetting, how Nick ended up in front of the cameras (with his own camera and mic!).

Highlights:

• 16:19 The announcement that James Corden would take over the 12.30 show
• 17:58 Speaking with Nina Tassler (then President of CBS)
• 19:45 The mad dash to get the Late, Late show ready for launch
• 23:25 How Carpool Karaoke came about
• 26:14 Why the Justin Bieber Carpool Karaoke video exploded on YouTube
• 27:38 When Nick felt that the Late, Late show had “made it”
• 31:37 Jumping out of a plane with Tom Cruise
• 33:01 Having a direct relationship with fans of the show
• 36:58 “Kidnap One Direction”?
• 38:30 Impact of the global pandemic on the Late, Late show
• 43:57 How Nick ended up on the show itself!
• 47:47 GAP clothes, Carnival Cruise… updates?
• 52:17 Advice for those wanting to be just like Nick Bernstein

📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/51-2 

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Nick Bernstein is the Senior Vice President of Late Night Programming (West Coast) at ViacomCBS & is the executive in charge of the Late Late Show with James Corden. 

In Part 1 of this episode with Nick, we explore what it was like growing up in Maryland and how he would spend 4 hours every Sunday morning charting America’s Top 40 biggest hits on radio, the impact that Camp Taconic had & continues to have in his life, and how he ended up being an NBC page and working with legendary late night television executive, Rick Ludwin.

Highlights:

• 7:04: Why summer camps were & continue to be so important to Nick
• 15:13: Majoring in broadcast journalism at Syracuse University
• 19:28: How Nick became a NBC page 
• 24:39: How Nick ended up working for Rick Ludwin, who’s worked with every The Tonight Show host from Steve Allen to Jimmy Fallon
• 30:28: What makes a good host
• 33:11: Why Rick was a “man of conviction” who stood behind hosts like Conan O’Brien when no one else would
• 39:05: Believing that Conan O’Brien & Jimmy Fallon were the future of late night back in 2002
• 42:41: Replacing late night hosts
• 48:41: The Conan/Jay Leno debacle
• 56:00: Giving as much runway to shows as possible or… not?

📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/51-1 

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PART 2 of STIMY’s interview with Ning-Geng Ong - Artisan chocolate maker, farmer, and founder of Chocolate Concierge & Culture Cacao.

For Part 1, please refer to the earlier episode. 

Highlights:

• 2:48: How the signature flavours of chocolate are brought out
• 4:34: What Ning means by saying he is “fiercely unbending”
• 12:10: Why Ning runs fermentation anywhere between 6 to 71 days!
• 18:23: The sheltered, sun-drying process
• 21:54: Creating some of Chocolate Concierge’s signature flavours, including Assam laksa and nasi kerabu bon bon
• 34:10: Impact of the global pandemic
• 37:24: Advice for those seeking to be chocolate makers too

📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/50-2 

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