Line of Sight Podcast · Don Heider PhD, Brigit Helms PhD

From Waste to Opportunity with Madrin Maina of Sistema.bio

·51 min·3 clips

Madrine argues that emotional intelligence matters because the human and employee are the same person.

1. Line of Sight Podcast’s “From Waste to Opportunity with Madrin Maina of Sistema.bio” centers on Systema Bio’s work with biodigesters and farmers. 2. Karen Rundy hosts Madrine Maina, the country director of Systema Bio Kenya, and her questions frame the episode around scale, leadership, and climate impact. 3. The episode asks how Systema Bio turns farm waste into value for farmers, climate, and company growth. 4. Madrine says Systema Bio works with smallholder farmers by using biodigester technology to convert organic waste into biogas and biofertilizer. 5. She says the biogas can support cooking, water heating, and machinery on farms, while the biofertilizer helps reduce reliance on synthetic fertilizer. 6. Madrine describes regenerative farming as “not extractive” and says the goal is to keep feeding soil so land can keep producing food. 7. She says Systema Bio is active in 11 countries and names Mexico, India, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Morocco, Ethiopia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Ghana. 8. She notes that Uganda started in 2023, Morocco launched in January, and Ethiopia is expected to close the year around 600 units. 9. She explains that Kenya’s farmer base is mostly smallholder farmers with 2 to 10 or 12 cows, while Latin American markets include farms with 30, 40, or 200 cows and pigs. 10. She contrasts India’s cooperative-heavy farmer structure with Kenya’s smaller cooperative landscape and mentions working with Cooperative Bank. 11. Madrine says the Safaricom partnership launched at the beginning of the month and could reach farmers through a 30 million-subscriber base. 12. She says Safaricom loyalty points can be converted into money that farmers may use to invest in biodigester technology. 13. She explains that carbon credits help subsidize biodigesters by 50 percent and make the technology more affordable. 14. She says the carbon program aggregates impact because individual farmers cannot easily access the carbon market on their own. 15. Madrine says the company grows by around 30% year on year, which she contrasts with the 3% to 5% growth typical of many businesses. 16. She ties that growth to affordability, farmer-to-farmer influence, and the power of a group. 17. Madrine traces her own path from telecom and real estate into renewable energy, then into Systema Bio, and says she found purpose by seeing children do homework on solar power in Western Kenya. 18. She says leadership depends on culture, mission, values, honesty about stress, and emotional intelligence, and she insists people should not pretend there is no issue. 19. People interested in climate enterprise, farmer livelihoods, and mission-led leadership will get the most from this conversation. 20. Listeners wanting a fast, purely technical business pitch may skip it.

As heard by us

A grounded conversation about mission-led growth, leadership, and community impact.

This conversation sits with purpose and value in impact work, especially once a team grows and the mission has to guide hard calls. A civil engineer who moved into renewable energy argues that culture, values, and listening to farmers matter more than polished strategy.

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Listen if you want a human take on impact leadership at a social enterprise.

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