James Chen – The moonshot moment: how to create impact

Episode 27,   Aug 21, 2020, 09:01 AM

Philanthropist and Chairman of the Chen Yet Sen Family Foundation, James Chen sits down with Michael this week to talk about how he is tackling the world’s largest unaddressed disability – poor vision; as founder of award-winning charity Vision for a Nation and the campaign Clearly. In this episode, James explains his unique take on philanthropy that involves catalysing change by investing in high-risk, moon-shot solutions and creating a domain expertise in specific focus areas: early childhood literacy and poor vision. This approach allows him to learn from and privatise his failures, while socialising his successes for greater impact. James also shares why family values are so important to him and how they inform his philanthropy, and the story behind his investment in Rising Phoenix, the major new Netflix film documenting the story of the Paralympic Games.

Born in Asia, raised in Africa and educated in Europe and the US, James Chen is a venture philanthropist with a global outlook. The importance of giving back was instilled in him by his father, Robert Yet-Sen Chen, whose lifetime of philanthropic work led to the creation of The Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation, which focuses on improving early childhood literacy. As chairman of the Foundation, James continues the work his father started. For the last 15 years, James has championed the cause of vision correction with campaigns Adlens, Vision For A Nation, and Clearly – to inspire new innovation and promote greater awareness of the global vision issue.
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