#impact Podcast: Social Impact | Social Entrepreneurship | Careers for Social Good · Regina Larko

Connecting the Dots on Your Own Doing Good Journey | Mabel Sieh

·46 min·3 clips

A mentor taught Mabel that real learning means standing on “one foot” in safe land and one in unknown land.

1. #impact Podcast: Social Impact | Social Entrepreneurship | Careers for Social Good features Regina Larko talking with Mabel Sieh about “connecting the dots” on a doing-good journey. 2. Mabel Sieh is introduced as a former teacher, communication specialist, and journalist who led a local NGO, a corporate CSR team, and now helps a Hong Kong family shape philanthropy. 3. The episode asks how Mabel’s career changes, travel, and surprise encounters turned into a new way of doing social-impact work. 4. Regina and Mabel revisit Hong Kong, where they first crossed paths and worked on projects together years earlier. 5. Mabel says a conversation at a long award ceremony led her to a woman working in an NGO and back to Nepal, where she had reported on education work 12 or 13 years earlier. 6. She explains that the Nepal connection felt like one dot in a life that spanned more than a decade, rather than a planned career move. 7. Mabel says she began telling friends about the experience and felt supported by new colleagues after changing fields into doing good. 8. She describes joining a charity hike, fundraising for children in Nepal, and spending a day at a school with students before trekking Poon Hill for three days. 9. A volunteer later invited her back to Nepal, and in April she taught a three-day leadership program for university students and volunteers. 10. Mabel says she did not know in advance what she would teach and built a leadership curriculum after researching with people in Nepal and collaborating with local partners. 11. One of her clearest points is that the work became a co-creation, even if the students did not use that word. 12. She says the class had 31 students, and she trusted the recruitment process instead of controlling who attended. 13. Mabel ties her method to cultural sensitivity, saying you cannot simply take what you learned in the West and “dump it on them.” 14. She argues that perfectionism is a safety zone, while flexibility lets an educator respond to what is happening “right there, right now.” 15. Mabel connects that mindset to empathy, saying communication is not only about crafting a message but about hearing what people actually want to say. 16. She also says leaders who focus only on tasks can lose people, while focusing on the person helps others grow confidence and skills. 17. Regina and Mabel’s exchange is conversational and reflective, with Regina repeatedly naming the themes of community, co-creation, and human dignity. 18. Mabel’s tone is personal and practical, mixing stories, quick-fire answers, and self-correction as she describes changing from control to trust. 19. Listeners interested in social impact, facilitation, community building, and cross-cultural teaching will get the most from this conversation. 20. People looking for a fast, purely tactical career guide may skip it.

As heard by us

A reflective conversation about impact, service, and listening before leading.

Regina Larko and Mabel See share a reflective conversation about how impact work takes shape over time. Mabel comes across as a teacher, communication specialist, and journalist who later moved into doing good, leading a local NGO serving youth, working with a corporate CSR…

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When you want a calm map from one good job to the next.

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