 Hello and welcome to leaders room by Eclipse the leadership and governance center We're sitting here today at our annual leadership energy summit Asia where we have the privilege of sitting with leaders Not only from Asia from all over the world to talk about their Wisdom and insights so today is an honor for me and a privilege to be sitting here today with Isabel madam Founder and CEO of X-Runner. So hello. Good afternoon Good afternoon. So I guess we'll have about maybe 15 minutes to talk a little bit about what brought you here you know and So actually one thing that stood out when I was looking at your bio and reading your stories is the word entrepreneur And it made me realize that I didn't even really know what it meant So I had to go look it up in the dictionary and the definition that I found You know actually have it written here You know it's a little bit kind of left me a bit unfulfilled Because according to to my online dictionary it says Entrepreneur is a person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss in order to make money and That's it So I was just wondering you know I got to ask you What is your definition of entrepreneur what do you think of what do you think of this one? What it what does it mean to me? I think to me it means to take things into your own hands. So For me it has more of a definition almost almost activist like in the sense that You define something or you find realize that you care about something anything And it becomes so important to you that you just want to do something either about it or For it or sort of invent something new But it's something that you decide that you are gonna take into your hands as opposed to you know reaching the conclusion. Oh well Things won't ever change or I'm not good enough for that or other people You know if if it's such a good idea. Why hasn't anyone else done it already sort of ignoring those things and just saying well I'm gonna try it So yeah, that's what it means well What are the reasons I asked Isabelle's because she is one of the top, you know recognizes one of the top entrepreneurs in in the world and This has to do with obvious ex-runner. So maybe just take a moment. Tell us a little bit about What is extra on it? What is your story? Well ex-runner what we what what ex-runner does Is we provide low-income urban households with a safe and modern toilet system? That improves their lives in a way that Doesn't compromise dignity and doesn't affect the environment And we do that because there are millions and millions billions of people worldwide who don't have a proper toilet in their home They have everything else And everything other than a toilet to go to the toilet. So I think we're used to sort of modern comfortable Toilets that we don't even think about right? It's like oh, yeah, and several times a day every day and it's sort of choice it's not like you can say you want to not go to the toilet you have to go to the toilet and and and we have the privilege of Just not having to think about it But a third of the world's population does have every time they go have to deal with unhygienic scary sometimes even dangerous conditions and so our goal is to For each and every one of these people around the world replace that situation with a with a modern And safe and dignified version Wow Well, that is that certainly expands a lot more from that definition that I found on yeah, right? So um, so where is the bulk of the operation of X-Runner? The we operate in Peru in the in the capital, which is Lima And what kind of scale we're talking about here how many households We currently serve 600 households Which means that 3,000 people individuals use this toilet and and if you consider that we do all of this on a basis of First of all having developed a system that that tries to be complete and And sort of and good on every level so not just the toilet in the person's home because but also for instance We go and pick up the accumulated waste and then we turn it into compost So in order to provide people with a perfect and dignified toilet solution We also have to do everything else well We can't only just put a nice toilet and not care about what happens with it We have to do everything so given that and given the fact that we charge for the service 600 households is a lot because low-income urban households have so many priorities for spending their their limited resources that have sort of Trying to fit in one more thing that they would want to pay money for is very challenging It's a process. There's not just putting you know something there So I have to ask this Why this? There's so many other things in the world. Why the portable toilet I mean Now why this because I think I believe that everybody should have I mean It's a human right to have access to good sanitation and I think that All human rights should be sort of fulfilled. And so to me that's why it's important today back then It's a less glamorous thought. It was it was just that I didn't I didn't know what to do And I tumbled into X-Fender a little bit It didn't I didn't say I met a friend who she's now my friend and business partner who was thinking about doing that And I thought oh, well, it's an interesting idea. I'll give it a try but it but and that's how it started Well, I mean because it's you know, it's you can think of so many things that that that you can do in the world, right? And this would be perhaps not at the top of the list, you know, yeah, because you originally you're from Vienna, right? Peruvian At Eclipse, we like to think about leadership as being driven by this values and purpose How clear you are about what you want to get done with your with your life? So and oftentimes these leadership energy if you will is is you know, it's driven by By moments, you know where you Maybe perhaps you face the greatest challenge in the journey or then just before you decided to jump on the bandwagon Dedicated your life or cost like this So perhaps maybe I could ask to share some of these so defining moments Along this journey of establishing X-Fender. Yes I mean that there are that there are defining moments prior to X-Fender and then defining moments during X-Fender and I think prior to X-Fender One and that is a moment was When I would travel to Peru to my mother's country and suddenly see poverty because as I told you in Vienna I grew up in Vienna and Vienna is not a poor city all the con on the contrary And so seeing poverty in Peru just didn't make sense to me. I didn't I was so I didn't understand I was like wait, how come people live in those Conditions and then at the same time you have this whole other side of Peru where people live in a luxury that you also Don't find in Vienna. So and and that just was Very defining because I thought well, I I don't accept that. I mean, I don't think that's the way it should be Because I would see the poor houses of poor or lone income people And I would just start to imagine what I would feel like living in there and I didn't like that So I was like, well, I don't think they like that either and so let's do something about that and then during X-Fender, I think A defining moment that helped me Just continue was seeing that people accepted the solution and the way that I saw that was because they paid for it And paying for it is the best way to to see whether it really makes sense or not because then they could say no I don't want that. I'm not gonna pay that for this, right? But they said yeah, and so I could and then and then and that was super Inspiring because it said it showed us while you're on the you're doing something right, right? I'm actually sitting here thinking about the fact that you're right I mean, it's you know, putting putting a toilet in someone's house It's it's not just a matter of putting the toilet there There's so many other things that you have to think about to make sure that this you know, the circuit is completed Yeah, was there some things that came up during this journey that you sort of didn't think of it It's kind of surprised to you along the way about putting this Yes, sort of the for instance our toilet works with Sawdust so it's a toilet that is dry that doesn't use water And what it uses instead is sawdust that you pour over and that you that has to sort of dry and sort of cover up everything I didn't know that there are so many different types of sawdust and that one actually makes everything worse and another is actually really good And I was just like let's buy sawdust and put it there And then things were going wrong And I was suddenly we were confronted with having to do research about wood and the quality of wood and Types of sawdust and those are that that's very typical for for everything Entrepreneurial that you suddenly have to deal with things that you didn't think were important for for this Well, so what's next what's next is that we want to Overcome the the biggest challenge that we always face which is 600 households is a lot But then when you look every time we go to those communities and the Sun comes out and the sky is blue And we suddenly start seeing how big the community is to just sort of feel like oh my god this is really big and We want to do that by by really getting the government involved in this as well And Peru now has a new government from as of a couple of months ago A government that seems to be a little bit more interested in actually, you know doing something and And that's something that we really want to want to push sort of just to have the government understand that in order to get everyone To give everyone the proper sanitation They they must also look at options that are not traditional and have the courage to be a bit more Entrepreneurial themselves and and take a few risks and try out new things So it's kind of you clear the hills now you can begin to aim for the summits a little bit exactly Yeah, great. Yeah So we're coming towards the end of our session today. So Anything you'd like to leave for other leaders out there are the entrepreneur other entrepreneurs? Yes Yes So I was I thought about a couple of things and I think the first one is Links a little bit to what I just said about sort of seeing suddenly the the the larger scope And I think as leaders it is it's really important difficult but important to be able to to at the same time think big and do small things So sort of Have the huge vision and be like yes, that's where I want to go But also be able to see okay And now I have to do these small things to get a bit closer Because often I mean if you don't have a vision you'll get frustrated really soon because you won't understand the context of the things that you're doing But you also have to be patient enough and understand that it will take you a while that the vision is a guidance for you to do The small things that bring you closer to it. You have to be able to appreciate small successes as well The other thing is I think that's something that you always hear is that you have to be good at listening Really listening and also listen to yourself And then the last thing I would say is something that I learned in all of this is that you have to be Aware of your role as a leader. Maybe you don't want to be a leader. Maybe you don't You're scared of it, but it's a it's a great It's a role that if you take it seriously and if you start identifying with it has great potential because you can You know get people to on board for things that are important to you Now I know why you know We invited you Because a lot of what you say resonates really well with what our beliefs at at Eclipse as well and today actually have a Have a better definition for me. Anyway, you know entrepreneur So it's actually a short. It's a better one with a shorter one, too, which is think big and do small Okay, so thank you very much Isabel for sitting with us with us today and I have a great rest of the Lisa Summit mm-hmm, and then hopefully we'll see you again the future Thank you. Thank you for having me and for taking interest in in X-Runner something that's happening on the other part of the world Great. Thank you