From the series Doing Business in Timor-Leste.

Vinay Mathur is a chartered accountant who started out as an external auditor, then moved into prominent roles with PepsiCo and Heineken. He moved to Timor-Leste to set up Heineken's operations, built a greenfield brewery from the ground up, and has since gone on to co-found Halodili, Timor-Leste's largest e-commerce platform, and Think Forward Consulting. He's also co-founder of coaxis.ai

In this episode:

The accidental $15 million Solomon Islands deal that changed how Vinay saw small markets
Why the Petroleum Fund convinced Heineken to make one of Timor-Leste's largest foreign investments
Negotiating the special investment agreement: how 40 cents and 20 years came out of an Excel model
Securing land in Hera and compensating the families on it the right way
Digging up a factory floor built without rebar
Building trust with government through proactive engagement and letter-writing
Halodili, and why cash payments are the biggest limiter on e-commerce
Think Forward Consulting: Big Four standards, built in Timor
coaxis.ai and what AI can do for SMEs in markets without formal data
A failure Vinay is grateful for, and his five-year outlook

Links:

Halodili: https://www.facebook.com/halodili/
Think Forward Consulting: https://thinkforward-tl.com/
coaxis.ai: https://coaxis.ai/contact/
Vinay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinay-mathur-72660017/
Full transcript: https://stevepocock.com.au/s2-ep-1-business-in-timor-leste-vinay-mathur