At PwC, I helped leadership teams shape their strategy and make the necessary structural and operational changes. This often involved dealing with outdated systems, long-standing processes, and traditional ways of working. When I started at SoftBank, there were no tables, no chairs. It was just a few investors/operators, and a jar of peanut M&Ms. It was an exciting, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create something which had never been done before, from a blank canvas, at a previously unimaginable scale.

At the beginning, we were designing how we wanted to operate and scaling at pace. We learned from our experiences, iterated, and improved how we do things accordingly. The role we needed to play in addition to investing for returns was very apparent and so was the imperative to implement authentic and sustainable ESG practices.

I am passionate about investing and supporting founders from underrepresented backgrounds. I was one of the founding members of our Emerge program, a global accelerator that invested in founders from diverse backgrounds at an early stage. The thesis is to nurture these companies early in their scale-up journey in the hope they might become eligible Vision Fund investments. Emerge had an important social equity angle, and as ESG became a stronger focus in venture capital, I worked on shaping how ESG is embedded throughout our business and strategy more broadly.

At SoftBank, we have four “material” pillars for ESG: responsible AI, climate change, forced labor and harassment, and human rights. My team works with our investment professionals to carry out due diligence on potential investments, identifying key risks and opportunities in these areas. Post-investment, we engage with portfolio companies as needed, encouraging them to scale on the right path. We’re not an impact fund, but we do recognize that, as a fund of our size, we can play a big role enabling responsible, sustainable, and positive societal changes.

With AI at the core of our investment strategy, I am proud of the proactive steps we’ve taken to prioritize our understanding of responsible AI uses and practices within our portfolio companies through due diligence. This is especially vital in a world where a globally adopted “responsible AI framework” has yet to emerge. I firmly believe that thoughtful regulation in this area is a positive step forward, a catalyst for driving innovation in technologies that serve humanity rather than hindering it. Now is the time for leaders to embrace practical, forward-thinking, and safety-driven strategies to shape the future responsibly.