Driving change for a 150-year-old business feat. Shanya Amarasuriya of B. P. de Silva Jewellers

Full Transcript

Chris Edwards:
Research shows that 70% of family businesses fail. So when I got the chance to speak with Shanya from B P de Silva, the fifth-generation creative director of a 150 year old family business, BP de Silva Jewellers, I knew I couldn’t miss the opportunity.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
Usually in Chinese, they say, 富不过三代, like the family wealth doesn’t cross the third generation.

Chris Edwards:
How have they survived this long? And how are they adapting to today’s environment where there is greater emphasis on sustainable and ethical practices?

How has such an old business become so modern in its approach, that they have been one of the first businesses in Singapore to adopt B Corp certification?

Shanya Amarasuriya:
I think everyone knew that we needed to change. And I just, I think I’m really blessed because the dynamic I have with our stakeholders, like our board of directors, as well as the team, has always been very… Like there’s always been trust. Maybe because some of them saw me growing up as well, right? So the relationship has also been… a long-standing one. And I think when I shared the initial vision, it really supported their belief in what we were building together. Yeah.

Chris Edwards:
Welcome to Good Business, a Launchpad podcast that goes behind the scenes of the leaders of good businesses, who have people, planet, and profit at the core of their mission.

I’m Chris Edwards, founder of The Honeycombers and Launchpad, and this is the story of how Shanya, the fifth generation leader of B P de Silva Jewellers, is transforming a 150 year old business to be one of the first movers in the social and ethical movement lead by B Corp.

Chris Edwards:
It all started by Shanya’s great grandfather when he was just 19, making and selling jewellery in people’s homes.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
So he came to Singapore from a tiny little part of Sri Lanka you know sailed across Asia he even went to the Americas and Australia and decided that Singapore would be the place for him. and as a gem merchant he just brought a pocketful of gems and at 19 without Google Maps decided this was the place for his next chapter. So that’s how BP started out and yeah little by little he grew the business. He used to make jewelry in people’s homes which I find very charming and created a lot of really interesting, I would say… Cymbal sent stories through his jewelry and through that connection that he innately had with people um slowly developed the business and created what we know as BP the Silver the brand today yeah

Chris Edwards:
To give you context, 150 years old means that the brand is not only older than Singapore itself, it also survived the Japanese invasion.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
So our manager at the time had, he had known that people were going to raid and loot the store. I mean, during war, who needs a jewelry store? Everyone would probably be in their survival mode. And he had the foresight to take the jewelry and to hide it and keep it stowed away. So to sort of like protect the business and he returned it after the war, which I find incredible because Again, you’re imagining someone who could have easily just looted it himself and just, you know, done whatever he wanted, took care of his own family. I think many people might have done that, but thanks to him, the business was saved. So for me, like, the business in many ways represents a lot of value systems. And this is one of the stories that I think speaks to integrity. And yeah, it’s quite precious to me.

Chris Edwards:
The value systems have remained consistent across the generations, but the way they are operating is evolving.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
I don’t think many people know we’re B-CORP certified. Something in me likes that because again, it’s, I think those who come to know will know about it, but it’s not the pure reason for why we’re around. We’ve been around like… 151 years. This is us just trying to put our values into a much more, how would I say, structured format so that we can take it on the next few generations.

Chris Edwards:
And the person taking BP Desilva into the next 150 is Shanya. She joined the business when she was 19, initially working at a different subsidiary. She remembers looking at what her father and forefathers had built, feeling an overwhelming sense of pressure.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
My dad inspired me to think about how I could use the business as a platform. to do some good, to exercise my creativity, to work and collaborate with people. And through his subtle persuasions and also a general interest in what my family had been a part of, I then got into the jewelry business for a couple of years and learning from our senior managers at the time. And then I decided to take it on seriously and I went to New York to study jewelry design, both the traditional techniques and modern techniques, metalsmithing, using computer aided design, painting with like French gouache. Like, yeah, it was wonderful because for me, like I really associate myself as a creative person at heart. I think we all are creatives, but for me, like I’ve always wanted to exercise that part of my life. So. Yeah, it came together really nicely eventually, so I think it feels a bit like I fell in love with it. Yeah, I didn’t expect to, but yeah, it came together.

Chris Edwards:
She took on the role of Creative Director of the Jewellery business in 2018. She didn’t realise it at the time, but she was about to embark on a journey of revamping the business altogether.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
As my brother says, the cosmic roll of the dice gave you this opportunity. And some people don’t really think beyond their own interests. So for me, I think with the jewelry business, it was a little different at the time because we had run the business in a certain traditional way for so long. And my father, while he’s older gentleman, he’s 74 this year, he always had foresight. that this business really had to be reborn in a way. He felt like, or he could sense that it really needed some sort of a vision and so not only was it that but he also said he felt like it should be family-led again because he felt like it was truly that sense of that personal touch that made the difference in BP’s journey when he started off. And because our businesses had diversified away from the original jewelry business, it was almost like being a 150-year-old startup again, which is a very unique place to be.

Chris Edwards:
As part of this start-up energy, Shanya took on an unexpected challenge.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
My brother really inspired all of us to look at how we could view business performance differently because I think a lot of times when people think of business performance, especially in the business world, it’s just dollars and cents, it’s your P&L. But he was already talking at that time about the triple bottom line and all these concepts that I think as a traditional family business were really new and fresh.

Chris Edwards:
So it was Shanya’s brother who brought up the idea of becoming b-corp certified.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
I must say it like five years ago maybe while he was still working in the company. And he had told my dad, hey, I really want to do this. This is great. This is a framework that we can use to really assess what we’re doing from so many points of view, like socially, from governance, from environmental standards, so on and so forth.

It wasn’t that my dad and him didn’t have the same values, but my brother was trying to find a way to professionalize and organize this into a tangible framework. So how I got involved was I was watching him work on one of our subsidiaries to try and get it B Corp certified. And it was quite a large subsidiary. It’s vertically integrated with manufacturing and a front office. And you have to gather a lot of data and information and collaborate with different people. um to do the B-Corp assessment that’s like I believe over 400 question questions with supporting documents and I could see he was getting frustrated and I must say how I got connected to this project was first from a personal love for my brother in the sense that I just wanted to see his project succeed. I didn’t really understand B-Corp though that’s the honest truth. I was just like, sounds like something interesting, but I really was watching him get frustrated and didn’t like it. So I told him, I was like, hey, you know what, I’m working on the jewelry business. Our team’s relatively smaller. Why not you pass this initiative to me and then I can take what you have done and hopefully execute it much simpler with this team and use it as a pilot for the whole group.

Chris Edwards:
What Shanya didn’t realise, is how BIG a task this really was but more importantly, what impact this would have on the business, the employees and her.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
I think within a day or two of researching the B-Corp assessment and the standard, I was in two very strong emotions. One was, what did I get myself into? Because this is not easy at all. And number two was, wow, this would really change the world if everyone really wanted to look at it. And so with that in mind, I was pretty excited.

And yeah, so that’s really how it started. And we started doing like really cool stuff.

Chris Edwards:
As part of getting b-corp certified, Shanya and her team took on a lot of different initiatives that had a positive impact on them and the world around them.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
Like we have pro bono volunteer hours where our team can just use office hours and just go and do something in terms of like community service. And… I remember one of my staff going, are you sure you wanna do this? It’s gonna take time away from work. We have objectives to meet. I don’t really wanna do this. And I was like, nope, it’s part of our company culture. Just find something you like and just give it a go. And the nicest thing was that next Monday, she had gone, I think, the last Friday, so I didn’t see her. But I remember on the first Monday, we have huddles and she was telling me how she made friends with this old lady because she had done community service with the elderly. and she still keeps in touch with her now. So I think as someone who also struggled to find a connection with Singapore as a very modern cosmopolitan city that sometimes can feel a bit cold, like this was a way to also get our team very rooted into the environment and also to recognize like how much bigger like our actions can be.

Now she brings her daughter every weekend to do that same community service. So to me I’m like wow that value system is even going into the home and yeah it’s giving me chills. I don’t know why. I guess like sometimes when… I don’t know, when you’re going so fast in business especially, you miss these moments of soulfulness. And these moments where you really think you’re making a difference no matter how small. And I just thought it was really beautiful that she was someone who had really not wanted to do this. Then fell in love with service and connection. And now is passing on that sort of experience and that care, that love. onto her child.

Chris Edwards:
Wow – how incredible is that? But it hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. There were some tough decisions Shanya had to make in their aim to become more sustainable and ethical.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
B Corp also talks about transparency of your supply chain and your partners that you work with. So one of the things we did was create a code of conduct for all our suppliers. And while we are 150 years old, we’re not like one of these huge, multinational jewelry brands that can really… put some force on your suppliers and say, you do this, you don’t do this. It’s really a lot of like small conversations we have with our partners. So bringing forth a code of conduct, the then was like way formal. And they were just like, what is happening? And they have to sign it, you see. So there was some resistance and we had to cut out like a good 80 to, I would even say close to 90% of suppliers just because they don’t wanna sign.

So it was difficult because I think a lot of people just didn’t feel comfortable. But what we’ve managed to do is also create much more meaningful partnership because the people who were interested, even if they were hesitant, I don’t know, they made me want to support them. Their way of responding to us, bringing forward a code of conduct also.

gave me as custodian of this business a sense of who they were. Because if not, it’s just transaction, right? I need this, you provide that. But then now we’re talking about values. Now I’m talking about like, you know, what would your kids want in the future, right? Like, what kind of business do you want to run and operate? Yeah. And…

Chris Edwards:
Mm.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
I don’t know, again, I guess it’s like failure. It was kind of like really cool and badass to me that I was like, okay, sorry you’re gone. Like we gotta find someone else. Yeah, like, yeah, my operations manager who’s now the general manager was also very, oops, very strict on cutting out certain suppliers when they didn’t abide by this.

And I was very proud because it wasn’t just me, it’s the team that is now defensive. You know, they’re like, no, we can’t do this.

Chris Edwards:
Despite the ups and downs, one of the big changes that came about from getting b-corp certified is the mindset shift in the team.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
I’m always really proud when the staff comes up to me and like, hey, I don’t think this is a good material and this is why That’s when I know that oh my gosh, this is actually like moved into the DNA a little yeah, so I Guess the biggest change for me is like that mindset change and I think it’s again an evolution. It’s gonna take time.

I know it sounds so idealistic to say, but it feels like… Like the business really is a platform to put some good energy back out there. Yeah, and I think I’ve always wanted that in whatever my hands touched like or created. Like I always want to bring back some sort of like joy or hope, not because I think the world is… hopeless but it’s just like a instinct for me and I think B-Corp has done that through even the smallest initiatives. Like even doing our check-ins with the team, like there’s certain really small best practices in B-Corp, I’m not sure, when you’re going through the assessment they have like these examples of certain, let’s say governance practices in HR for example. doing quarterly surveys with your team. Like it sounds so basic and I think also coming from a traditional family business, there’s certain things that we don’t put in place naturally but we all add up to create a much more wholesome environment for everyone. Yeah I don’t know, I can’t really… yeah I don’t know if that answers your question. I’m just thinking why do little things? I think that’s the beauty of B-Corp. It’s a whole bunch of little things coming together.

Chris Edwards:
The mindset shift included how hiring and people management is conducted.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
Even the way that we hire I think subconsciously has changed.

Like building habits, like you yourself don’t realize you are changing as a person as you start putting these habits into practice. And for me, because our team is smaller, I tried to get involved with every hire. Yeah, we’re about… I’m 14 now? Yeah, 14 of us. So it’s possible for me to get involved. And I think it’s super critical, especially when you’re a smaller team, to get involved as much as you can because that’s your culture, that’s your work fam, you know, you’re seeing these people more than your own family. What changed for me after B-Corp, I think is… I guess I just observed through all the stakeholders how people were responding to B-Corp and then I realized how strong the bonds of shared values are when you find them. And so I kind of try to suss out during interviews where a person’s values lies. I think a lot of times when people are trying to find someone to fit the role, who can execute the job, we still obviously look for that odd. look for the potential to like train and develop the passion these things will always look for but i think it also put a focus in me to search for that value system much more than i did before to understand whether or not they want to be part of something greater you know what i mean like and i think they get excited by that same excitement that i get when i say like wow you know.

Chris Edwards:
With the strong values system instilled from her great great grandfather to the techniques learnt from B-Corp, Shanya is leading the business with her heart.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
I think subconsciously after going through B-Corp, because of my interactions with different people responding to the process, it made me also want to search for that tribe so much more. Yeah.

I want to just make sure that BP’s always has a degree of that soulfulness. Not just in what we do behind the scenes, but also with our clients and with what we create. Not just the jewelry, but also experiences.

Chris Edwards:
I’ll be honest. We tried, and gave up, getting b-corp certified, – for many reasons it was out of reach for us right now – but this conversation with Shanya is very inspiring and it’s great to see a 150 YO company stretching itself to get b corp certification.

Shanya Amarasuriya:
But it’s tough as beep to get it done, but yeah. Slow and steady, yes.

Yeah, I guess I’d really want to encourage like anyone who’s running like even a business by yourself or you’re in a big company and working for someone working with someone to just look up B-Corp and go through the assessment even if you don’t get B-Corp certified. There are a lot of great ideas on how to support your business from the inside out. and don’t be intimidated and there’s a really great B-CORP community in Singapore as well that are super supportive and yeah, keep dreaming.

Chris Edwards:
So there’s a lot of takeaways for me in this conversation today. I think, you know, some of the more tangible ones is the fact that Shanya had to get rid of almost 90% of her suppliers and find new suppliers in order to meet the certification requirements, which is a massive undertaking. But the story that really sticks with me is how she has truly created cultural change within her company, with the community service element. And that’s so powerful and wonderful that an organisation can, I suppose, gently shift the way people spend their time on in their free time or in their weekends and, you know, care about. the social issues and the community as much as we all want to, but actually not just caring, but actually taking action and giving back in a very real and meaningful way. So yeah, it’s incredible to really see the tangible benefits of a process like B Corp. And honestly, I was kind of slightly jaded and disappointed that we didn’t reach you know, the points required to kind of really get B-Corp certified. But these stories, yeah, it’s really inspiring and makes me want to completely reconsider and have another crack.

Thanks so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. If you wanna learn more about B P de Silva Jewellers, check them out at bpdesilvajewellers.com.

I also just wanted to just thank you for your support of the Good Business podcast. And please reach out if you’ve got anyone that you think we should welcome to the show, you can email us at [email protected]. And of course, we’d really appreciate it if you could give us a rating or leave us a nice review on any podcast platform that you’re listening to. If you liked today’s episode, please share it, post it on your socials. That’s how podcasts grow and get discovered. And if you’re not a subscriber, give that follow button some love. We’ve got a lot more stories to share with you. Finally, if you are looking to join a community of purpose-led, kind entrepreneurs, hit us up and come and join us at the Launchpad. It’s www.thelaunchpad.group. I think you’ll be really surprised at what you could harness from joining our community.

Before we close out, I just want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land of which I’m recording this podcast, the Arakwal people of the Bundjalung nation, and I pay my respects to elders, past, present, and future. And I extend my respects to all traditional cultures. Thanks again for listening. I’m Chris Edwards, and I hope you feel as inspired as I am to create your own good business.