Becoming the CEO Your Company Actually Needs to Scale & The Future of Virtual Kitchens with Kim Yao, CloudEats
We've heard a lot about scaling tactics for businesses, but have we paused to think about what it takes to scale ourselves as leaders at the helm? In this episode, Kim Yao, shares with us about how each chapter of her companies demanded different versions of her as a leader, and the future of 'virtual' or 'ghost' kitchens, i.e. delivery-only restaurants that proliferated during the pandemic and is set to be a $1 trillion industry by 2030.
About Kim Yao
Kim is building the leading tech-powered food service ecosystem in Southeast Asia through digitally native restaurant brands and proprietary smart kitchen technology. By revolutionizing a massive yet traditional food service industry, her mission at CloudEats is to create the largest cloud restaurant group in the region, challenging brick and mortar heavyweights in F&B. With almost $14m in funding for CloudEats to date, Kim is known to have raised the largest amount of venture capital for a female Filipina led startup. She hopes to inspire female, underrepresented founders to keep dreaming big and work together to pave the way for more women entrepreneurs.
Find out more about Kim here, and CloudEats here.
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𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐌𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐬
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Kim Yao
Co-founder and CEO, CloudEats
Kim is building the leading tech-powered food service ecosystem in Southeast Asia through digitally native restaurant brands and proprietary smart kitchen technology. By revolutionizing a massive yet traditional food service industry, her mission at CloudEats is to create the largest cloud restaurant group in the region, challenging brick and mortar heavyweights in F&B. With almost $14m in funding for CloudEats to date, Kim is known to have raised the largest amount of venture capital for a female Filipina led startup. She hopes to inspire female, underrepresented founders to keep dreaming big and work together to pave the way for more women entrepreneurs.
Already a veteran in the food and beverage industry, Kimberly Yao opted to “evolve and futureproof” her career by going digital. CloudEats eschews physical restaurants and focuses its 50-plus in-house brands and customised kitchens on delivery. Established in May 2019, the company was recognised by Tech in Asia as one of Southeast Asia’s top 50 rising startups. CloudEats has thrived during Covid-19, opening a new kitchen and donating 55,000 meals to first responders.