Part 1: Flight

[Music] I think we're still at a place where there needs to be more successful entrepreneurs and more venture capitalists and more venture builders and being the role models for others. We'd like to have more FFA's on the continent supporting the ecosystem. That's Alina Trujina, Chief Strategy Officer at Founder Spectre Africa, also known as FFA. Alina spends weeks on the road and up in the air, crisscrossing the world's two-drive expansion and growth for the business and of course ensuring that FFA is aligned to global opportunities. Alina is singularly intent on making sure that her time and efforts achieve maximum impact, commercial and otherwise, so it's no coincidence that within the four short years since she co-founded FFA, the Pan-African Investor, Venture Builder and Accelerator, which is headquartered in Johannesburg, they've secured three major corporate investment partners and they've built an investment portfolio of over 50 Fintech, AgTech and HealthTech startups. There's also a tiny matter of the $140 million RDS that Alina's read instrumental in raising through the business in order to back tech and trope entrepreneurship across Africa. I'm Rifilo Mbacagnyane and this is Build to Thrive, the Alina Trujina story, a three-part podcast mini-series unpacking the story of a little lesbian girl who grew up to be a global citizen with audacious entrepreneurial ambitions to change the world. Along with FFA, Alina's abiding obsession is to create a vibrant pipeline of tech ventures and consequently a thriving startup economy on the continent. In many ways that mission is an extension of Alina's evolution as a human being. FFA has consistently updated its model over the years and uses a localized hybrid approach to investing on the continent in order to hone delivery of bespoke venture support to many of Africa's brightest tech founders. Alina's current life as a successful jet-setting innovator and businesswoman might seem a natural extension of her childhood where she excelled at school and received a number of scholarships to further her studies but by the age of 10 she was also a refugee. Her family lost everything and her parents had to start over in a new country where Alina had to learn a new language and adapt to a new normal. Can you describe life in Riga before the dissolution of the USSR? What I know, what Lutzl I know about Riga's effect that its historical center is a UNESCO world heritage site, right? Yeah, so you're absolutely right. What comes to mind immediately is there is Riga has an old town and it's absolutely beautiful. It's filled with these cobblestone streets and gorgeous buildings and I remember it really well maybe to caveat I was very young. This is me growing up until I was 10 years old so me as a six seven eight year old but I remember really well because that's where my parents had their dental practice and they had their own business. It holds a special place in my memory. It's beautiful and then the suburbs look completely different to the old town and we lived in this really for the times I would say, "Nouveau design bright yellow building" and it was like the place to be and I remember being so proud of it because it was just so in my mind innovative and as a young girl it was all about living somewhere where your friends would feel really cool to hang out. I was part of USSR you know, a USSR baby and so my friends were from different parts of USSR. I had my best friend from Tajikistan and I went to school with Russian speaking people and so for me it was like yes there are people who are laughing people and there's people who are Russian people and that old jeld into a city that I remember. Now an update on the events in the Soviet Union. Baku who ousted Soviet president got a bichoff has collapsed and Mr. Gotter bichoff says he isn't complete command of the country. He told Soviet television he will resume his full deal. It's an almost unimaginable situation to find yourself in forced to flee the only home you've ever known and then once in a country of safety spending five years applying to the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees for your status as a political refugee to be made permanent. That's what Alina, her mom, dad and sister went through. But before we get into what life in Australia was like it's important to understand the conditions that made life in Latvia untenable. Why did your family have to flee? How did you find yourself a refugee at the age of 10? Latvia became independent from USSR so 1991 and the years before and obviously following that there's a lot of turmoil across all levels of society and not least just the political changes but economic changes changes to how people all of a sudden started to turn in each other and how for different reasons Russian people were discriminated against it became very hard for my parents to see a future for my sister and I. It was a very hard time because even the leaving part was not easy. You know what I experienced as a child was having to move out of this beautiful yellow house and actually leaving school we moved into this one little room apartment and almost hid while trying to get out and move to Australia. It was a hard time because I could see just how hard it was in my parents and how there was nothing guaranteed there was this goal and determination for a better life and to escape death threats to a place where we are free so to speak and how none of that was guaranteed and my parents were so young they were in their early 30s which I keep reminding myself I'm now past that age and what they did was just mind blowing but my grandparents stayed and there was no knowledge of when we'll see them again. I'm not Latvia and I'm not Russian and I'm not Australian and so I feel all of those three things and more from what I've experienced around the world so yeah it's a hard one I'm a nomad. When you read a Lena's biography a rather compelling phrase always jumps off the page Russian born ethnically Latvian and Australian raised with any of these descriptors to turn to just how does she introduce herself when she meets people around the world. Yeah it's interesting I get that question a lot you meet somebody new and they say where are you from or what is your nationality and no matter like how many times I've had to answer that question I still stumble I think part of it is because interestingly it actually depends on the person how I describe myself for a very long time if I said I'm from Latvia I would immediately have to explain where it is in the world so I would give that context because it's a very small bolted country and not many people know it and no judgment there obviously very unfortunately today more people know of it because of what's going on in the world but the Russian piece is interesting as well because there was a time and still is a time where I think twice about revealing that side of me and it created a conflict in my mind because it culturally that is who I am. The Australian part is interesting because I don't really feel Australian but it's where I grew up so my answer always lands on explaining that the whole journey and then overwhelming people and then having to backtrack a little bit and then give context to it but it's important because all three sort of pieces contributed in different ways to who I am. I marvel at her work ethic. The first time Alina and I ever spoke she just come off a plane and took our virtual meeting at the airport in Bangkok and despite those flight delays she still chatted with me with great humour and wasn't high spirits. Described by her colleagues as passionate about FFA's mission and exacting in her approach I asked Alina whether her constant drive to be high achieving is a cultural or family dynamic. I think it's definitely a cultural thing and it's a very interesting topic. I think there's other cultures in addition to let's say Eastern European culture of persistence and the high value of education, not just high value of kind of the education you receive at school but also being a worldly person, a cultural person, you know in Russia's history there's a lot of interconnections with France and the French and so there's a lot of sort of expectation for one's child to grow up, learning how to play violin and a piano and going to Dubai and being this culturally and intellectually and spiritually but maybe less but holistic person, an ideal person that is growing up. So it's definitely a cultural thing and it's one that till this day I see the positives and negatives because there's definitely things that now you know experiencing what it is like in other parts of the world in Australia. You question whether that is the correct way and question whether the kind of the immense emphasis of being perfect and studying so much is somehow diluting the social aspects of your childhood. But then there's other aspects like I wouldn't be here if I wasn't taught the discipline. I definitely wouldn't be here if I wasn't taught the persistence that one learns in an environment like this. Yes, definitely a cultural thing and a lot of pressure from that too. Not just one's parents but it's school and friends and other families. Fast forward to the Trujina families arrival in Australia, a place that Alina had spent so much time romanticising as a utopian destination. Did reality hold up to the daydream? My experience was obviously different to my parents' experience but in some ways it overlaps because for five years again there was no guarantees so we came as political refugees and so when we arrived we had to rely on a lot of support networks, red cross migrant networks that help people who are migrating to find a job because my parents had to quickly do that to find a school for my sister and I and to find a house. For a long time we lived in a house that belonged to the Red Cross Society and obviously could not afford something by ourselves but it was this interesting juxtaposition of both sort of being in a place where you felt relief and hope for the future but also the challenges of adapting to a completely different society with completely different cultural norms and language obviously and having to learn that when we arrived I didn't really speak English, well I didn't speak English and immediately that became a barrier and most of all in this applies to my parents starting from zero because they couldn't continue with their profession, doctors are not recognised into state and seeing that and feeling both safe but at the same time feeling the immense bolder that we need to push up a hill in order to feel okay and have the foundation for life whilst for five years again going through tribunals and reapplying for this refugee status because we got declined several times as there wasn't enough data information for Australian government to make that decision, those five years were incredibly hard and of course when we found out that we're allowed to stay and could become residents of this amazing country such relief, you know I remember as a little girl doing these like any mini money mo games sort of like are we gonna be kicked out will we get to stay will we not get to stay it's intense thinking about it because it was literally like we don't know and we could be on the airplane back to the place that we've led and so being in that state of insecurity has certainly I'm sure impacted was that you scenario planning in your young mind probably yeah a Lena's parents lost their medical practice when they fled Latvia and when they settled in Australia they had to work as unskilled labourers to support the family her admiration for them always stands out when she talks about them so what powerful values did they model for a Lena during this time and what does she still hold close to her heart I think looking at them both this just immense hunger for persistence and having again having that resilience to do something no matter what is absolutely something that I carry with me till this day um both of them were in some ways you have to put your pride aside right to go from being a doctor to working in a factory or so my mom was at a fruit and vegetable store in a market you have to put all of that aside and believe that you can still provide for your children and your family but also this belief that actually you may someday get back to who you were and giving all of who you were up professionally but you know some ways socially and then you give all of that up and still believe through all the hardships that you can have that someday again that's mind blowing yeah watching them do that that definitely has made a huge not only impact but also instilled that drive in me because no matter where I go I think of what they've done in their early 30s where I'm now and and wanting to do something that is as big as that at scale so definitely perseverance and grit and resilience come to mind you'll be happy to know that ever the models of grit and perseverance a Lena's parents that the incredibly difficult thing of qualifying as doctors in Australia and have run their own medical practices for over 10 years talk about overcoming a Lena had dreamt of studying medicine like her parents but after twice applying and twice being rejected from medical school a Lena ever the pragmatist had a hard decision to make since I've gathered that she prizes empathy in relating to others I wondered how a Lena processed that devastation and whether she was able to show herself a little grace yeah there was zero empathy I was 16 at the time it was absolutely an embarrassment it was absolutely a failure it was incredibly demoralizing because here I was with incredible academic achievement I've done nothing but give up my social life to study and succeed and to end up in a place where other people that I've seen did not put in nearly as much time enough at getting the spot that I thought I should have received or just getting in so no and I was incredibly hard at myself so there was a lot of I thought I needed to work harder and clearly wasn't good enough and I think that also maybe partly that experiences instilled a level of comparison that I still carry with me it's both a positive and a negative but comparing myself to others in that what it is that they do and how much have they had to do to work for it certainly at the time there are individuals who as I said did not put in healing enough effort in time and got the place and I didn't feel that was right I felt that was very unfair so it was a combination of all those things do you think you've done enough or you've honored them in your career so now? no no no stop stop stop stop stop sent this message to my mom literally the other day and she was saying how proud she is or how proud they are of what I'm doing and I said like I carry you with me everywhere I go and obviously a huge part of it is do it with the people that I serve and we'll get into that but definitely a part of it is carrying my parents and my sister with me and paying tribute to them for the opportunity they've given me I think I'll forever be enriched by the conversations that I have with the Uber driver in Pakistan or the grandma in Etchik and Chopin Kenya every one of those conversations is like a piece of the puzzle that fulfills me but not enough to make me stop I'm struck by Elina's Wanderlust I'd imagine that when you're forced to flee a home and you get to the next place you'd want to put down some really deep roots but Elina has gone in the other direction and travel is her mainstay I want to know if this is simply a byproduct, a bug or feature of the line of work she's chosen or part of her DNA I think about it a lot and I think it's connected to the question we're talking about identity and so as I travel to different countries and meet fascinating incredible people of all backgrounds and all different yeah socio-economic levels and all educational levels there is something in me that connects to those different parts of the world and feels at home and all those different parts of the world and surprisingly well unsurprisingly maybe some parts of the world actually resonate and make me feel more at home than others I think I'll forever seek that and I think it's also part of my personality that curiosity and wanting to learn about the world and wanting to understand it. While Elina was born into a Russian Orthodox family her spiritual practice is now heavily influenced by her mother, whose own approach is research-based and methodical. This practice isn't viewed with a healthy appreciation of being a small part of something much, much bigger. My mom has influenced me a lot in this respect, and she sort of reads a lot about spirituality and Buddhism and tries to understand the interconnection between science and religion. She's incredibly curious, as you can tell. And so, for me, even that is not necessarily a reference to a god, but a reference to something significantly incredible out there in the universe. That is not protecting me, but it's a nod to that. And it's a nod to appreciating who I am as this small little human on planet Earth who recognizes that I am a teeny-weeny part of something incredibly big. A teeny-weeny speak in the universe making me a bit of a doing impact at scale. I like, isn't that just, I guess, the weird sort of dichotomy of being a human being that understanding your place or in the order of things can be quite comforting, and yet one's ambition can be enormous. I agree. I think it also being empathetic. I learnt that word first when I was preparing to do exams to enter medical school. There was a lot of talk about doctors need to be empathetic. Are you empathetic? Show us that you're empathetic. And I'd be like, yes, I'm empathetic. And there would be a clinical description of what empathy is versus sympathy. And it wasn't until, like, later on that I actually learnt what empathy was, or at least, I hope I understand it more. And it is very much through these conversations with people all over the world and being able to listen and understand and not make it about yourself. And so, yes, absolutely, it is this recognition that we are all doing incredible things. And I'm not any better than you are, or anybody else who is doing other types of professions or chosen a different career or just or not, right? And just consistently reminding yourself of that. The funny paradox is that if one or I need to be cognizant of when to turn that up and when to turn that down, because you need to have a level of confidence to still lead and continue in the direction of your vision and be empathetic at the same time whilst not coming across as arrogant or entitled. The reason it was hard was because I was going to miss my family. It wasn't because I was going to miss Australia or because I was doubting whether this was the right thing to do. It was only because I was going to miss seeing them on a daily basis. There were a lot of tears, but the drive towards the future pulled me through. There's that wonder last again. I wonder what Alina Leven Australia did to her close-knit family of four and how did the hard choice of leaving help a owner treat that would stand her in good stead right throughout her career. So I actually left twice. The first time was I started my career in media working for two incredible organizations or companies, I should say, in media advertising. And I felt a curiosity, but again also this incredible nostalgia and pull towards understanding what doing something at scale and doing something purposeful and impactful would look like. And so the first time that I left was when I applied and received this scholarship to study in France. And that was an incredible opportunity. My mom was always talked about France and Paris since we were going up. And in a way it was her dream, but it was also my dream to experience the city. And so of course I went for this and I studied for a year in this university and this very, what I've learnt, I really tough to get into university called Céon's Pull. So that was the first time that I left after that coming back and being incredibly determined to continue a career in diplomacy and in international development made me think that I have to apply and do a masters in that field. Because again at the time I had a bachelor in my hands, which was in media and communication and arts. I had this experience working in the corporate world with some incredible corporates. So the second time I left was to go and do my masters. Finally enough, there was no question about it and it's something that I have learnt is an intuition or that once I know that it's time to go, it's time to go and to go to your new chapter. And it's just such a strong feeling that once I decide like it is just so super clear. Listen, if you could bottle that and sell it clarity of vision and knowing what done here, you would become it's possible. The world's richest woman. It's a rare commodity. It really is. It's an interesting one because I think that so many of us have those moments of incredible intuition and vision and clarity, but we tell ourselves otherwise and we find excuses. So these days when I work with founders and entrepreneurs who are constantly facing the hardest decisions in their lives of not only how to grow their business but also how am I going to get food for my family because I need to provide for them. I find myself often encouraging both them and others in my life to just trust your intuition. It sounds very soft and it sounds very, you know, woo, thank you. But it's so true and I've made the best decisions in my life trusting my God. In the next episode of Build to Thrive, the Alina Trejina Story, we explore Alina's professional life from the corporate media space in Australia to seven years at the World Bank and joining Spring where Alina formed key relationships in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa while garnering on top of neural experience that led to her co-founding Founders Factory Africa. Whether you're a president or an entrepreneur, we're all humans trying to do and make our role within this world. We need to do more. We need to collaborate. We need to find a common language. We need to communicate. We need to join forces and we need to innovate and we can't be static. We cannot just remain in our status quo. We need to look for new models of collaboration and new solutions to existing problems.