From cashmere to data centers, these leaders share why Mongolia is primed for global investment and growth.
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Show Notes:
In this Mission Matters episode hosted by Adam Torres at the Milken Global Conference 2025, we spotlight Mongolia’s economic and cultural evolution with four influential voices: Nomin Chinbat, Minister of Culture, Sports, Tourism and Youth of Mongolia; Namuun Battulga, CEO of Jenko Tour, JSC and Igo Hotel and Resorts; Daniel Kang, Founder of Berify & Investor in Hyper-Innovation; and Tianna Nguyen, Founder of Alensia. This dynamic conversation explores Mongolia’s emerging global role in renewable energy, sovereign infrastructure, tech innovation, and creative diplomacy.
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Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. Today we are in Beverly Hills, California and we’re at the Milken Global Conference 2025. This is the fourth year that Mission Matters is covering the conference. This is gonna be part of our interview series that we’re putting together that’s gonna contain anywhere between.
70 to a hundred interviews from the conference with participants, with people that came into town for the conference and for other events as well. So today is a very special episode. So we’re gonna go through and let, let’s start with the intros. Alright. So first off Ms. Nome Shiba she’s Mongolia’s Minister of Culture.
Sports, tourism and youth. She’s a Harvard Business School graduate and one of mongolia’s most influential leaders since 2021. She has championed Mongolia’s Creative Economy, introducing landmark legislation like the Cultural Creativity Bill, driving a record 1.6 billion with a B in tourism revenue, and modernizing the country’s culture and legal infrastructure.
Big deal.
All right. She’s also a couple other of her, of her accolades. So Forbes, Mongolia 30 under 30. She’s recognized in 2024 women changing the World Gold Award and, geez, the list goes on you Chair mongolia’s International branding efforts for its global partnerships with institutions like Cambridge University and the premier Leagues full of fc.
So let’s, let’s give it up for doin. Thank you.
All right. And then I have next. Tiana Nguyen is founder of Lencia and has held roles at PWC Credit Swiss Swiss in Invesco and JP Morgan with a background in pe, VC m and a and corporate finance. Her work included projects in tech, sustainability and impact investing. Tiana holds degrees from Ohio State University, Harvard University, and Holt International Business School.
She’s a Milken YLC member, co-founder of Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs Singapore, a philanthropists, and serves on multiple boards and mentorship programs. She was also a key speaker at the Mongolian Economic Forum in 2024. Let’s give it up for Tiana.
All right. Nam Naga, she’s CEO of Jenko tour, JSC, and. By yogo Hotel and Resorts. Stand that right, byo All right there. Go. And she’s a board member at Mamm Imports. I wanna make sure I get it right. Media Export Company. Wonderful. And I, I have to say, when we were prepping for this interview, she showed me this amazing PDF in this presentation on a meditation center that, that she’s putting together and that she’s, I’m doing, we’re gonna talk about that today, but it’s called the Grand Mara Complex.
And you’re gonna have to send that out to everyone because it’s amazing. It’s beautiful. I can’t wait to hear more about it. Let’s give it up for Na Moon.
Alright, Dan, the other side. The guy up here, right? We got some. The only one. Next. Daniel King, also known as Dan, is a veteran entrepreneur. With over 25 years of experience, global apparel, manufacturing and sourcing heavy lead operations generate over 2 billion in revenue. And managing a team of 2,500 plus across international offices.
Today he channels his expertise into building legacy driven, community focused ventures, like verify a dynamic tech platform designed to empower creators and brands through peer to peer engagement exclusive content and play to earn experiences. Welcome, Dan. Thank.
All right, Nain. So I’ve been in, in preparing for this and just understanding the panels that be up here. I’ve been excited, I’ve been excited to learn more about Mongolia. Like Sean mentioned, you may know some of the things about the history of Mongolia, but like what’s happening present day. So I guess first thing, first, let’s, let’s start with stability.
So how important has stability been to Mongolia? Hello, everybody. It’s nice to see you, everyone here and thank you very much for having us. Well Mongolians have been a very proud country as a heritage history. We are a, as you may know, have a long history, and I’d like to start with something and I want everybody here to kind of learn something about Mongolia.
I think everybody says Han, but we call him. Han means a spiritual word that really brings you luck. So please, next time when you talk about. Properly announced his name. So his name is not ch Han. It is Ching Han. Got it. Did I mispronounce it? No, no, no. You have actually done it perfectly. As a minister of culture, I think I would love to say this and that to during Milken a lot of people were saying it Han so I just thought it would be nice to start with that.
But having said that, this country is actually in the rise. Our country has been last four years, a very stable country over the, so in about 32 years ago, our country transitioned from socialism to free market economy. And since then of every, almost a year and a half primes were changing.
But last five years, we have been having a stable government. A very young and visionary prime minister leading the country, which has a who, who was the author of our Vision 2050, which is a long term vision. So that allowed us to have a stable growth. Today we have around five to 7% year year on year growth of GDP and doubled our GDP per capita within last three years and one of the fastest growing economy in Asia.
So I think the stability has allowed us to bring back our country on the market. Mm-hmm. Let’s keep it on culture a little bit longer. So Tiana culture, maybe some tips on doing business in, in Mongolia? Yeah, I think Mongolia’s extremely proud of their culture and heritage. So the nomadic lifestyle is something that’s extremely important to them.
So I think that’s something that. People have to really understand and reiterate and really try to dive deep when they meet other fellow Mongolians. Also, the sense of hospitality and you know, Mongolians are known to be super welcoming. There’s these tents because of the nomadic culture to have gears that are placed around.
And so when you have travels around food can be placed out. There’s exchange of food and drinks. And there’s also some famous JK vodka, I didn’t want to say alcohol, so you can’t turn that one down. And also tea as well on the food. And then also there’s a gift giving custom as well. One of the things that I’ve learned, and it happened when I was in Mongolia for the first time before someone accidentally stepped on my foot, and when you get your foot stepped on, you actually should shake pants with a person right after.
Oh yeah. So there’s these really small customs that once you actually. Immerse your socks into it. I think it’s been a beautiful, beautiful time there as well as the people are just so friendly. Hence the panel and na moon. Speaking of doing business, so I know you’re in the meat export business and also wheat I believe.
So maybe you can get some chips as well. Thank you. From Molia, we are, our agriculture and tourism is growing very expansively and yes, we export organic meat to China, Iran, and other countries as well. And of course we would love to, I guess maybe someday to come to America as organic. Meat yeah, for tourism as well.
Moya has been growing a lot, especially, we have a lot of movies in the past, types of spirits, and that has led a lot of people to come to Voya, to travel and immerse in our culture. And then. So, I know you’re veteran in business over 25 years doing business in Mongolia. That maybe could talk a little bit about the startup culture and what you’ve seen and or heard, like what are you seeing there?
So, just for clarification, I’ve never been to Mongolia, but I’m pretty sure my descendants come from it. I’m Korean. Okay. And I know there’s a direct lineage to Mongolia and Koreans. Mm-hmm. But with that said. I think the challenges of where Mongolia faces is the landlock position, it’s the geographical positioning of it.
Mm-hmm. But that doesn’t mean it’s forever. It used to be the Silk Road, so prior to travel on, in, in waterways, it was the Silk Road path. It now, as time evolves, what can this land be, you know, be utilized for? There’s a lot of natural resources. Mm-hmm. Just to give you perspective, it’s the size of Alaska two texases.
Yes, there’s only three and a half million people there. So imagine the vast opportunities there. And if we look at the natural resources that mongoli provides from the minerals as well as other attributes, their temper climate is actually very, very unique because it’s always cold. So a lot of tech people out here should be able to figure out what can be deployed in Mongolia.
Mm. So. In my position, I would look at rather than looking at physical exportable goods, which is great too. Mm-hmm. But they don’t need to look at Western partners. There’s plenty of partners in their surrounding geographic, mainly China and Russia. Mm-hmm. So to look at the potential of digital assets or what we would consider data centers, it’s a perfect prime place to start looking at the tech side of things.
Let’s get into infrastructure a little bit. No rule here on who wants to answer this question. Infrastructure real estate, no rule other than domingos first. So what any infrastructure projects that you care to highlight or things that are going on? What, what’s going on with the building? So as you may know, Mongolia is actually quite heavily dependent on mineral industry.
So pretty much our 90% of our e is based on minerals. So as an among just stated that government is trying to diversify away from mine sector the tourism to agriculture, just fun fact to say that Mongolia produces about 40% of the raw cashmere of the world. Hmm. So we are in process of getting cash money to be processed in the country to the next stage.
Same goes into the mining. We mine, but we don’t extend it to the level of. Next level of production. So in a mining level, we are in process of bringing in more investment into refineries like copper refineries, gold refineries, so on. We have fourth largest mine copper mine in the world. So on the other side, again, when it comes to mining sector, we have about 2% of the country is in the mining, but the rest of it is still available.
They’re to be explored. And also 95% of our land is state owned. That really is something, the opportunity is quite available there. So having said that, general infrastructure is quite good, but in order to attract international, foreign direct investment to the country, government has established about 14 mega projects.
And the other infrastructure projects up to 150 billion USD investment opportunities there. And our government is open for business. We developed our economic development board that is one stop shop for investors to come and work with government of Mongolia. So we are open ready to welcome you and there is a lot of projects, whether it be infrastructure, social or a business project there is available.
Mm-hmm. Amazing. Any other maybe Na Moon, if you wanna talk a little bit about real estate projects, you got a big one you’re working on. Yes, thank you. As you know as we mentioned that the tourism sector is ever so growing in, we are investing in and building 2000 resorts. And one of the big projects that we are trying to building is the Grand Nature complex.
So it’s a 54 meter high plantation center. If you guys have a, if you guys want more information, that’s a pure code on your tables over there. Just scan and of course there’s a guide to book of Mongolia of which sectors you would need to or have to sign that you want to invest in. Thank you.
And maybe get into a little bit of what you were talking about here, some the railroad and road infrastructure, like development plans, how belt and road projects. Like maybe talk about how some of this you, you think it might actually get done, like as, as this grows. Well, I like to think of a big, big project and then kind of tone it back in reality.
But if I were to look at the perfect positioning for for foreign investment is. Foreign investors need confidence. And, and usually if, if the, if the government is not stable, the confidence level rise, and me as a personal investor, I, I wouldn’t wanna put my risk at somebody’s else’s hand. Mm-hmm. So I kind of pitched an idea of sovereignty.
So sovereign land you have so much land in, in Mongolia. If a massive investment group came in, in, in the north of multi-billion dollar investment mm-hmm. I would consider a 99 year lease on on a sovereign property that is officially governed in terms of absolutes with the Mongolian government, but also certain sovereignty so that a, a community could thrive from there.
And I would start it off with a tech stack. If you, if you create a tech stack from there, all the. Opportunities of building, utilizing the materials, not for just export, but for in use on sovereign land can be established. So I would formulate there rather than trying to create massive logistics.
’cause the land is too big, so where do you start? So it, it’s, it’s kind of almost creating your microcosm of another community there so that foreigners come in and thrive at. It’s a, it’s a kind of free trade though, per se. Mm. May I pick up on that? Lemme just say may. We may be landlocked, but we are very mind unlocked.
Yeah. Let’s put it up. But you know, I think you picked up on a very well on the maybe the. The land is the maybe our asset. Yes. We have a, our immediate neighbors are big and that mm-hmm. Is something that actually we believe could be our opportunity as well. And then renewable energy is one sector that is extremely opportunity based.
Because what we have is that it is a country that has a 265 day sunny. And it doesn’t have earthquake, and it has a weather that is a lot cooler than rest of the world. So if you are looking at a data center that has a cost efficient, efficient, and also powered by green energy, solar, wind, stable, stable wind sources there.
So if you are in a, if we consider as a country in a value chain of. At the next ai or next tech based business environment, then we are in the value chain of, in the early part where we provide the data storages or the green energy generated data storages. So that would be a good area to look at to invest in the country.
And I would like to say that in a way that. Early comers will have the better advantage of actually creating the regulation with the government. Mm-hmm. Because it’s very early stage. The, the regulation is not very, is not there. Let’s say you’re trying to deregulate, we are trying to regulate the other way around.
So, but if you are ethical, you have a mind and the win-win mind in yourself then. Government is willing to cooperate with you to create a regulation that can be beneficial for both parties. Mm. So just picking up on that a little bit further then. So it sounds to me like Mongolia is pretty business friendly to outside investors.
Does that sound accurate or what would you say? Yeah, so that’s the mentality we are putting together. So what I want to say is that the country is a democracy. Freedom of speech is incredibly high in our country. The social media plays pretty much as. Big role in heroes in Mongolia, and by 65% of the population is young, under 35 years old.
So it is a thriving democracy, open for business, ready to work with you, and everybody’s mentality is welcoming to the country and with that government, led by a young prime minister is trying to open to the rest of the world for foreign direct investments. So putting together an environment that welcomes business.
So yes, I’d like to say that we are a, a country that is welcoming investors into the country. We may be in experience, but I think we can work together to create a better environment for business. Mm-hmm. And Tiana with your background in finance, I mean, what do you, how, what do you feel makes Mongolia a uniquely exciting place to invest?
There are many things but Mongolia sets the as said earlier, to be one of the fastest growing Asian economies. It’s projected to be accelerated at 6.6% growth this year as well as an increase from last year to now. So I think it’s from $59.5 billion to, of around $63.1 billion this year. Also, and this is on the backdrop of many industries, mine was mentioned.
Including copper, coal, as well as other rare earth rare earths. There’s also agriculture and livestock, which there’s a revival that’s being seen on cashmere. This is a cashmere scatter. I was gonna ask. I knew, but I was, yeah. So if you wanna see the high quality that there is come find me after.
I had my whole tracksuit too, to bring this. Also there’s the renewable energy. So what’s interesting is, is that by 2030, they are aiming to have 30% of the energy to be renewables. And it’s currently around 10% now. So from 300 megawatts to 3000 megawatts in just a few years there are already contracts that are underway, especially with the Middle East.
You know, I like to compare Mongolia to like a large their legendary open stack. It’s very fast. There’s many areas that are unexplored. Yet there are some risks, right? There are like changes in weathers. There’s political and economic risks, but with that, there’s a lot of potential opportunity.
There’s young, very tech savvy population. There’s also many other opportunities in which. You know, what was mentioned, you can help with the regulations opening up with infrastructure and improving that. As well as, you know, being that sandwich between Russia and China is definitely a strategic location for Ian, trade Hub as well as a logistics area.
And then the third neighbor policy, so aside from Russia and China being very friendly to other neighbors that are around. So for, opportunities for Westerners. This is not the traditional Asian investments that can be seen. Mm-hmm. This is something that is different and I think there’s a vast amount of opportunities that are there.
And it’s really exciting to see what’s to what’s come. Yeah. Maybe elaborate on the third neighbor policy a little bit more. See if you want to jump in on that at all, Dan, and like what you see from it on the specifics. It’s because of the positioning of the physical locations. Mm-hmm. But you, you’re surrounded by all the stands.
Yeah, so there’s more relevance towards Russia, who’s more towards China, but Mongo’s kind of stayed neutral and been an an aggregate for a third neighbor. Yeah. So I think this is where the whole idea of creating a sovereignty was kind of unique because there’s restrictions of Western companies for us to to trade with specifically Russia.
Mm-hmm. And as well as in some respect, China. So therefore, how do we create a kinda a Switzerland of Asia? To provide new trades and new confidence. Again, it’s all about the confidence. If we don’t have the confidence, an investor rates that as a risk, so therefore requires a high return rate of return.
I think that there’s opportunities, again to create the, the technical stack that will now surround ourselves in other trades. But because of when we say landlock, I say that in a, in a gestures, that’s usually an effective exportable goods, but. Why not bring industry to Mongolia, rather think about exporting industry.
So that’s my position on it. Yeah. Alright, so I have one more question I’m gonna ask and the group’s gonna be able to, whoever like to answer it can or all can chime in. And I’m just giving you that warning because then I’m gonna open it up to the crowd and if everybody’s welcome to ask some questions.
Alright, so I don’t wanna go to Mongolia. Rag. Got to go. Where’s Ira? Got to go to Mongolia. What do you do in Mongolia? Like talk to me about the tourism side of things. What’s fun and why should everybody visit Mongolia and Dan? So you can be sold in it too, because you said you haven’t been. I haven’t been either.
Why should we go? Can I start off with this? Yes, please. A couple years back, and it’s been the theme, right? There’s only a few countries in the world. That have go in the name. Yes. And this was a big initiative in marketing for tourism as well as coming into the country. So if you can name all the other countries I know ’em, let me know, but Lia definitely is one of ’em.
So everywhere you can see there’s the go that’s highlighted. And I think that’s very crucial because it’s such a beautiful country, right? When you step off at the airport, I was just so amazed by the air. And it came in summer, which I think is the best time of the year. In the winter are bit too cold for me.
I would have to have more than just but yes, this is a wonderful and beautiful country and there’s many, many things and I’ll let the rest of the panel speak on that. What well might be biased. I might be biased. I’m the minister of ca culture and tourism, good to say about my country. But honestly speaking, Mongolian has an energy that.
Really attracts you and it’s a magnet. Once you’re there, you kind of wanna come back and again, again, again. But literally what you would do in Mongolia would be, if you like adventure tourism, if you like nature, if you like culture, if you like spiritual tourism, you, it’s the country to go. And you know, from adventure tourism perspective, you would like one of those.
People who likes birdwatching, if you like to do hiking, you know, any sort of adventure tourism you like, it’s there. And the fact that we, 95% of the land is owned by state. That means imagine your hotel and that’s your hotel. You don’t have to go book somewhere. You go and that’s where you stay. And the nature is incredible.
And we as a nomad. The culture itself is welcoming to people. Also, the culture itself is one with the nature. We do not will the nature, but we follow the nature. We make sure that we respect the respect the nature. So if you visit Mongolia, you’ll be able to learn something from that kind history.
Something from that culture that will allow you to. Actually be able to live in the future. Something that we all trying to do as a sustainability wise. And then the other side of it, for really spiritual person, the energy center is there, come and experience that. And also if you love culture, if you love history, how Mongolian’s been able to conquer on the force.
The entire Central Asia, that history is hidden in there and there is to be explored. So I think it is a country that at this moment if you come and visit, welcomes you and then also be, you will always want to come back. Amazing. To visit the meditation center? No. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. As Ms has mentioned is a place where you come for good, great energy to learn about new culture.
It’s one of the last tic cultures that you can experience in the world. And definitely come and visit the world’s tallest nest statue in the world. And of course, Voya is you know, known for their cashmeres, a hundred percent poly pure cashmeres that big brands come and buy from like Laura and Ello and, you know, you can.
Shop for cashmere. Much, much cheaper marketing. And am I leaving anything more cashmere? Fantastic. I also wanna add, going off the board if you’re an investor or a tourist, I think being strong and resilient is one thing as an investor, but also being very adaptable Yes. To your environment is one thing.
Patients as well. And, there’s a city side, but also this beautiful country landscape that I think is, is so beautiful and everyone should definitely go to Mongolia. And the last thing I want to say is about the horse, is that once you find your pace, it’s a very exhilarating ride. Alright.
