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The S2G Podcast

The S2G Podcast

S2G Ventures

This is the S2G Podcast, where we talk to business leaders, investors, policymakers, and thought leaders who have a transformative vision for the future. We’ll explore how their experiences and perspectives offer lessons into scaling the food, agriculture, oceans, and energy transitions.

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Top 10 The S2G Podcast Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best The S2G Podcast episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to The S2G Podcast for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite The S2G Podcast episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

The S2G Podcast - How to Build Your Brand for Exit
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05/13/21 • 29 min

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In this episode, Sanjeev Krishnan, co-founder and managing partner of S2G Ventures, takes us through his career path from investing in telecom in emerging markets to building out a life sciences investment group at the IFC, the early days of energy environmental investing, his decision to hone in on food and agriculture, and finally to his journey with S2G. Sanjeev shares learnings critical for anyone investing or innovating in tough tech sectors, including his framework for using capital markets to transform industries, his approach to systems thinking, and his perspectives on the power of specialization and the importance of bringing value beyond capital. From his wealth of experiences to the Sanjeevisms that have permeated our vernacular, Sanjeev has been a spirited and thoughtful leader since day one at S2G, and we are excited to share this conversation with you.

Key Topics:

  1. Specialization: Sanjeev underscores his belief in the importance of industry specialization. By deeply understanding the nuances of a specific sector, he believes investors and entrepreneurs can uncover unique opportunities for innovation and growth.
  2. Innovative Business Models: Sanjeev shares examples from his past that illustrate how rethinking traditional ways of doing business can lead to profitable ventures that also contribute positively to people's lives and the planet.
  3. Capital Markets: Sanjeev advocates for a capital market system tailored to the unique financial needs of sectors undergoing significant changes.
  4. Consumer Demand: The rising influence of Millennials and Gen Z consumers, who prioritize sustainability and social impact, creates a growing demand for aligned products and services. Sanjeev discusses his perspective that aligning company values with those of conscious consumers can drive substantial market growth.
  5. Systems Thinking: Sanjeev discusses how the interconnectedness of various sectors presents unique challenges and opportunities for innovation. Systems thinking, which focuses on the 'seams' between sectors, encourages a holistic view of industries, where understanding the broader ecosystem and leveraging partnerships can lead to groundbreaking solutions.

This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. Please note that S2G may maintain investments in some of the companies discussed on this podcast. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results.
For more important information, please see s2gventures.com/disclosures.

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The S2G Podcast - What Makes or Breaks Corporate Innovation Efforts?
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10/17/24 • 38 min

In this episode, we’re digging into successful strategies for corporate innovation with Audre Kapacinskas, Principal of Corporate Development at S2G, and Ryan Smith, Chief Growth Officer and Executive Vice President at Ajinomoto Health and Nutrition, a multinational food and biotechnology company focused on seasonings. Audre shares five takeaways from over 600 conversations with corporates about driving effective innovation in the face of significant challenges to making the kind of rapid, large-scale progress needed to meet global sustainability commitments. Audre then speaks with Ryan about how Ajinomoto encourages innovation and utilizes the company’s distinct advantages as well as novel business models to position itself for growth. We hope that these conversations can support companies in driving growth while achieving their sustainability objectives and spark broader discussions around effective corporate strategies and how we better convene groups and share best practices.

Key Topics:

  1. The Importance of People, Structure, and Culture: At a time when CEO turnover is spiking, Audre highlights the importance of having the right people in the right positions to shield teams working on long-term growth initiatives from disruptions. Ryan explains that at Ajinomoto, listening to employees and customers is a key part of the company’s search for innovation.
  2. The Need for Clear, Strategic Direction: Audre speaks about how having clarity and consensus around strategic objectives can help leaders build trust within their organizations and encourage widespread buy-in.
  3. Leveraging Distinct Advantages: According to Audre, many companies that innovate successfully do so by taking advantage of their entire organizational structure and expertise. She uses Koch Disruptive Technologies as an example of a company that is proactively sending new products out to its different business units to enable business development opportunities while identifying new technology use cases. Ryan shares that Ajinomoto’s ability to vet startups through its internal processes gives it a leg up in conversations with potential customers.
  4. Integrating Innovation Initiatives with a Long-Term View: Audre recommends setting up a strategic roadmap and enabling the people within your organization to execute against it. According to Audre, “Once you have a plan and feel good about it, empower it and fund it.”
  5. Embracing New Business Models: S2G’s Corporate Development team is seeing new business models bolster innovation engines within corporations, and that creative financing and risk management can make companies more willing to experiment. Ryan speaks to Ajinomoto’s effort to surprise their customers by exploring many different angles of food production beyond just ingredients.

Resources:
Adapt or Collapse: 5 Lessons for Scaling Sustainability to Drive Growth

This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. Please note that S2G may maintain investments in some of the companies discussed on this podcast. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results.
For more important information, please see s2gventures.com/disclosures.

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The S2G Podcast - Becoming a Category King with the Play Bigger Team
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05/30/24 • 41 min

In this episode, Chuck Templeton sits down with Jason Wellcome and Mike Bruno, advisors at Play Bigger, to discuss the methodology behind category design. The discussion unpacks how companies can shift their thinking from making better products to forging entirely new market categories, drawing on illustrative examples like Qualtrics' evolution from survey tools to an experience management platform. Jason and Mike delve into the strategies that enable businesses to identify unique problems, achieve "Category King" status, and ultimately drive unprecedented growth and market leadership. This episode offers valuable perspectives for investors and entrepreneurs keen on leveraging category design to secure a competitive edge.

Key Topics:

  1. Problem Identification: The Play Bigger team emphasizes the importance of pinpointing unique, high-impact problems that consumers often overlook. This critical step lays the foundation for creating a new market category, setting leaders apart from competitors focused merely on iterative improvements.
  2. Creating a Category Blueprint: Establishing a new category necessitates a detailed blueprint that ensures both customers and competitors grasp the full scope and transformative potential of the new category, fostering wider market adoption.
  3. The Advantages of Category Leadership: Leading a new market category offers substantial economic benefits, with "Category Kings" capturing up to 76% of the category's total value.
  4. Inventing a Taxonomy: Effective category design involves crafting a distinct language and taxonomy. This effort not only differentiates the new category but also educates the market.
  5. Iterative Validation and Organizational Alignment: The journey of category design is iterative, requiring ongoing validation and alignment within the organization. By engaging leadership and synchronizing efforts across all departments, companies can ensure cohesive execution and maximize their chances of achieving market success.

Resources:

Play Bigger

This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. Please note that S2G may maintain investments in some of the companies discussed on this podcast. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results.
For more important information, please see s2gventures.com/disclosures.

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The S2G Podcast - Weeding Out Herbicide Inefficiency with Sentera
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08/22/24 • 45 min

If you’re looking for insights into developing a go-to-market strategy, this episode is for you. Chuck Templeton sits down with the team at Sentera, a company that uses remote data collection to empower growers and agribusinesses to make real-time decisions to help improve farm profitability. Sentera's CEO Brian Wenngatz and CTO Eric Taipale take us through their journey to launching Aerial WeedScout, which enables the rapid detection of weeds so farmers can reduce herbicide use and maximize equipment efficiency. To launch this product, the team had to understand how they could best use their expertise in aerial imagery and computer vision to improve farm outcomes. Chuck also talked with S2G’s Cristina Rohr about her perspective on the market opportunity for Sentera’s technology. From offering a clear and differentiated value proposition to designing an innovative business model to get the product to farmers at the right price point, there are so many aspects of this conversation that are relevant to entrepreneurs in the world of agtech and beyond.
Key Topics:

  1. Understanding Core Differentiators: Brian and Eric highlight the importance of understanding the company’s “unfair advantages” to ensure they continue to stand out from the competition and provide the best possible product to farmers.
  2. Offering a Clear Value Proposition: The team shares what they’ve learned about not only developing a product that addresses both economic and environmental challenges in modern farming but also about how to message those benefits to customers.
  3. Finding the Right Sales Channel: Sentera determined that working with ag retailers and trusted advisors would generate more traction than going directly to farmers. Strategic partnerships with leading seed, chemical, and equipment companies have been pivotal for Sentera's market penetration and scalability.
  4. Business Model Innovation: Sentera’s technology offers the opportunity for a no-upfront-cost approach, which addresses financial constraints and risk aversion among farmers, enabling easier adoption of advanced technologies.
  5. Taking a Systems-Based Approach: Understanding the role their technology can play not only on farms but in the broader stakeholder ecosystem has helped Sentera build partnerships and bring together stakeholders to improve opportunities for scale.

This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. Please note that S2G may maintain investments in some of the companies discussed on this podcast. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results.
For more important information, please see s2gventures.com/disclosures.

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The S2G Podcast - Why We Need a Climate Finance Relay Race
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09/19/24 • 46 min

This week we launched a report called The Climate Finance Relay Race. It explores how asset owners are navigating climate investment and their rationale for their approach. We believe the most impactful and perhaps swiftest approach to designing a fit-for-purpose capital market system is partnership with asset owners. The idea of the “climate finance relay race,” is that the handoff of risk and reward across parties can better enable asset owners to underwrite more productive and less volatile economies.

To complement the report, we are excited to share this conversation between S2G managing partner Sanjeev Krishnan, Regine Clement, CEO of the CREO Syndicate, and Tom Rotherham-Winqvist, Co-founder of Featherlight Capital. They dissect the intricacies of this “relay race," emphasizing the pivotal role of asset owners such as family offices, pensions, and sovereign wealth funds in driving the climate transition. Tom and Regine discuss the challenges facing the asset owners they work with and underscore the urgent need for a robust and adaptive capital market system capable of scaling climate investments from billions to trillions. If you are looking for insight into the asset owner landscape and how it can evolve to better support climate solutions, this episode is for you.

Key Topics:

  1. Strategic Role of Asset Owners: Tom and Regine discuss the role of different asset owner groups in financing the climate transition and what family offices and institutional investors bring to this effort.
  2. The intersection of Climate Megatrends and Finance: Asset owners can have an enormous impact on global economic systems, and understanding what they care about is critical to capitalize on emerging opportunities. Tom and Regine discuss the role climate plays in asset owners' investment approaches and what drives those investment decisions.
  3. Scaling Challenges: The transition from billions to trillions in climate investments presents formidable challenges, requiring innovative financial instruments and collaborative frameworks. Sanjeev, Tom, and Regine explore opportunities to activate that growth in investments.
  4. Capital Market Adaptation: A robust, fit-for-purpose capital market system is crucial for the effective scaling of climate finance. Tom and Regine share why they believe our capital markets can become fit-for-purpose, the question is, on what time scale and how can we accelerate it?

This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. Please note that S2G may maintain investments in some of the companies discussed on this podcast. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results.
For more important information, please see s2gventures.com/disclosures.

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In this episode, Chuck Templeton is joined by fellow Chicago entrepreneurs and old friends Chris Gladwin and Mike Evans for a captivating conversation about scaling their respective companies for exit. Chris founded and sold CleverSafe and is currently the Founder and CEO of Ocient, a data analytics platform for the world's biggest data sets. Mike is the Founder of Grubhub and now the Founder of Fixer, a home maintenance membership company. Chris and Mike compare their customer acquisition experiences, discuss their hiring approaches, consider their mutual passion for endurance sports, and dig into their core business philosophies. It’s a conversation any entrepreneur will take valuable insights from.
Key Takeaways:

  1. Customer acquisition for enterprise companies and small businesses: Mike shares how he thought about building a brand and providing customers with value early on. Chris speaks to the importance of understanding the buyer’s motivations.
  2. Their “just start” and “stay in business” mentalities: According to Mike, the only way to know if customers will buy your product is to start selling it. According to Chris, the number one reason businesses fail is because they don’t last long enough.
  3. What endurance sports can offer entrepreneurs: Read: a learning mindset and a lot of pain.
  4. Hiring for scale: Chris and Mike both share how they approached hiring and maintaining talent through different stages of growth.
  5. Building companies for exit: Chris and Mike discuss their philosophies on designing a company for exit, from creating a growth template to maximizing the probability of an exit.

Ocient Socials:

Ocient Resources

Mike Evans Socials:

Mike Evans Resources

This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. Please note that S2G may maintain investments in some of the companies discussed on this podcast. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results.
For more important information, please see s2gventures.com/disclosures.

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GreenLight founder Andrey Zarur and MIT Professor Charlie Cooney discuss what GreenLight is working on in their COVID-19 response, including when and how a vaccine may be ready for the public. They also discuss how planning now can help during future pandemics, and the rules GreenLight set for developing a vaccination.

This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G Investments, LLC or its affiliates (“S2G Ventures”). Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the views of S2G Ventures. Specific companies are mentioned herein solely for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any particular company or investment. Please note that S2G Ventures may maintain investments in the companies mentioned herein.

For more important information, please see www.s2gventures.com/disclosures

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In this episode, Dan Ripma, Vice President at S2G, sits down with Grant Leslie and Jacqlyn Schneider, food, agriculture and nutrition policy experts from FGS Global, to explore emerging opportunities for progress and multi-sector partnerships in the food and nutrition sector. They discuss the significance of the recent White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, the novel opportunities for collaboration between unusual partners, the implications of the national strategy for the upcoming farm bill, and how investors and entrepreneurs can build off of the momentum and realize real progress in the sector.

This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G Investments, LLC or its affiliates (“S2G Ventures”). Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the views of S2G Ventures. Specific companies are mentioned herein solely for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any particular company or investment. Please note that S2G Ventures may maintain investments in the companies mentioned herein.

For more important information, please see www.s2gventures.com/disclosures

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When the world seems so deeply divided, how can we step across barriers and preconceived notions to build avenues for conversation and collaboration? In this episode, Kaitlin Yarnall, Chief Storytelling Officer at National Geographic, argues that storytelling could hold the key. National Geographic has become synonymous with eye-opening, awe-inspiring, perspective-shifting storytelling. They have been honing the craft for well over a century, telling stories that have helped to alter perceptions, build coalitions, pass legislation, and ignite movements. Kaitlin shares the components for effective storytelling, from the narrative elements to tapping into the right emotions and having a clear understanding of your audience and how to reach them. At S2G, we consider storytelling to be one of the key ingredients for the climate transition. This episode so beautifully illuminates the potential of storytelling and how to tap into its power to move audiences and bring more people into the conversation.

Key Topics:

  1. Tapping Into Awe Instead of Fear: Kaitlin shares some of the research behind which emotions drive people to action. While fear, shame, and anger can motivate someone to act in the short term, emotions like awe, wonder, and hope can get people to think and act differently in the long term.
  2. Translating Science to Storytelling: According to Kaitlin, we need to bring characters into science stories, get creative with communicating scale, and maybe even do a little reframing of the scientific method.
  3. Knowing your audience: As Kaitlin says, “The audience is everything.” It is not enough to say you are creating something “for the public.” We have to have a very clear understanding of who we’re speaking to and what they will relate to.
  4. Communicating about Climate: Kaitlin has a very simple message for those of us trying to communicate and educate about climate: We have to try harder. Polar bears don’t move everyone. We have to reframe the conversation based on what different communities care about.
  5. Storytelling Tips and Tricks: Find the visuals, know the audience, and don’t forget the humor.

This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. Please note that S2G may maintain investments in some of the companies discussed on this podcast. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results.
For more important information, please see s2gventures.com/disclosures.

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FAQ

How many episodes does The S2G Podcast have?

The S2G Podcast currently has 66 episodes available.

What topics does The S2G Podcast cover?

The podcast is about Entrepreneurship, Investing, Environment, Podcasts, Business and Sustainability.

What is the most popular episode on The S2G Podcast?

The episode title 'Episode 05: The Future of Organic Farming at Scale in America' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on The S2G Podcast?

The average episode length on The S2G Podcast is 36 minutes.

How often are episodes of The S2G Podcast released?

Episodes of The S2G Podcast are typically released every 14 days, 18 hours.

When was the first episode of The S2G Podcast?

The first episode of The S2G Podcast was released on Mar 31, 2020.

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