Building a Sustainable Future: Stan Chen, CEO of RecycleGO & Sinansys, on Innovation in Recycling and Supply Chains

In this inspiring episode of the Leaders Who Care series from The Brand Called You, Stan Chen, CEO of RecycleGO and Sinansys, joins host Mark Sadovnick to explore the intersection of sustainability, technology, and leadership. Stan shares his powerful journey from growing up as a first-generation immigrant in Queens, New York, to driving innovation in the recycling and supply chain sectors through blockchain and quantum computing. The discussion explores Stan's family roots, the profound influence of his father, and his evolution from medical science to creating impact through technology-enabled recycling. It also highlights the critical role of empathy, the importance of integrating people, planet, and profit, and real-world examples of purpose-driven action, including the rapid delivery of vital masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Discover how RecycleGO and Sinansys are working together to create more transparent and resilient supply chains, and how personal values can inspire meaningful global change.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  All right, I'm excited. I've been looking forward to this for a bit. Welcome Stan to the Leaders Who Care series, first of all.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you, Mark. It's such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

• 0:22Speaker 00

  Well, I think people will see really quick why I invited you and it's not because you have a cool name, Stan Chen. That's not the only reason I invited you, because I'm always jealous that you probably don't have to spell your name. It's certainly as much as I have to spell my name.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  No, you're doing some great stuff and I wanted to chat with you about, you know, where I came from or what you're doing and stuff. So best place to start, as always, is if you can tell us who Stan is, like where you're from originally, where you are now. Anything you want to tell about your family or siblings, maybe something you've never told anybody that you want to reveal to the world now. That's always kind of fun. You don't have to, but that's always kind of fun. And then we'll get into the into the business thing, because guys especially, the first thing they usually tell me is their title and what they do. And that's not who they are, type of thing, part of, but not who. So who are you? Share.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. And there I was. I was getting ready to give you my name and my title, Mark. Why did you leave with that?

• 1:27Speaker 00

  I'm not as dumb as I look, Stan.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  Who am I? Wow. I am, I would say, basically, I am a person who is focused around impact and change and making a difference.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  Where are you from originally?

• 1:48Speaker 01

  So I was actually born in Queens, New York, as a first generation immigrant family. My parents came from Taiwan. And look, my dad is, was actually an immigrant, as well as my mom. He grew up very, very poor in Taiwan. And it's fascinating just hearing the stories about how he grew up. And it's, and actually, just the amount of respect I have for my father, who to this day, he passed away 12 years ago at this point.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  But to this day, probably one of the smartest men I have ever met in my life. I like to tell the story of, he was a math genius, just a genius in general. In fact, he used to sneak into school. They were so poor that my dad used to sneak into school at night to study for his exams, to borrow the electricity, the lights to study for his exams. And he managed to work his way into Taiwan University, National Taiwan University, which is the number one school in Taiwan. Got his degree, went on to become a nuclear engineer, immigrated over to the US and built a successful life and business over here in the United States.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  But one of the things I love, one of the stories I love telling about my dad actually is he was so smart that at a certain point, he, he had a successful business and he didn't need to really work that hard anymore and his downtime would be going to casinos and playing blackjack. And you know blackjack, it's the only game in the casino where the odds are slightly stacked in your favor. So he would count cards. And after he got banned from a few casinos,

• 4:00Speaker 01

  he started playing the five dollar tables, because he just wanted to keep his mind sharp. He wanted to have those small little wins, let's call it. And, but, you know, and have a little recreational time.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  I have a feeling, once we get to the influencer part, he's going to be one of them, for sure. Do you have siblings?

• 4:25Speaker 01

  I do have an older sister. She's one year older. She is still living with my mom, but yeah, she and I grew up.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  I am sad to admit that I am not as close as I would like to be with my sister. She, I was the, I was the overachiever and always

• 4:53Speaker 01

  kind of more independent, let's put it that way. But yes, I do have an older sister and she did actually finish her first year of law school. But she is, right now, I'm very grateful for her actually, because my mom is definitely getting older and she is there to really be a companion for my mom.

• 5:16Speaker 00

  Well, there's a reason for everything, I don't really think. So good for her for being that person, because it's hard in general. So when you were a kid then, since we're talking about siblings, were you the computer geek nerd at the time? Or did you have the lemonade stand business or music, dancing, what?

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Well, look, my work right now is, as you know, but the audience might not know, was what I like to call the intersection of sustainability and technology. So the question about whether I was into computers or anything like that, not really. I was definitely a, one of the classic overachieving immigrant households. And straight A's, look, straight A's were the baseline, all right? I played violin, excelled in math and science, all the hallmarks of a traditional Asian upbringing.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  It's, but in terms of computer science, no, but like, you know, was really navigating the two worlds, right? The structured expectations at home and the Western society, which is obviously a lot more free form, more expressive. And, but that kind of duality definitely did shape me in terms of being very analytical, very curious. And I would say, yeah, very entrepreneurial from a young age, absolutely for sure. I definitely did want to build things, explore intellectually curious

• 6:59Speaker 01

  and, and just building, now looking back, definitely building a foundation for trying to figure out how to make the world better, how to make it work better.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  Well, you know, I can relate. I do have a Jewish mother.

• 7:16Speaker 00

  And there's the old joke that on Christmas Day, the Chinese restaurants stay open because Jewish people love going out for Chinese food on Jewish holiday.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  That reminds me of that, you've seen that SNL episode, right?

• 7:30Speaker 00

  I think so, right?

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:34Speaker 00

  But you see, what we just did is actually what's needed more in the world right now, is laughing about this stuff and being okay with it and loving the differences, loving the similarities, and it's a whole other discussion. But it really is important that we're kind of a lot of ways the same, we want the same things and everything, you know?

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Oh, I wholeheartedly agree with you on that one. I do think that it's, you know, society really needs a little more understanding, a little more empathy. I mean, for sure empathy, but the fact is, we are so much more connected than we realize, right? Across political divides, let's, I mean, especially right now, it is absolutely important, crucial, essential for us to understand, there are so many more things connecting us than dividing us. All right, we all want love, we all want connection, we all want to find our own tribe, right?

• 8:39Speaker 01

  And these basic, essential, like fundamental human conditions that, you know, I remember going out out to Ohio and we sat at this diner in the middle of nowhere and started talking to these people. And it's like, he said to me, you know, you're okay for somebody from New York.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  I like when they ask you, so where are you born, but they're expecting like God knows where, somewhere else.

• 9:15Speaker 00

  It was interesting, I don't know if I should even bring this up, but President Trump asked the leader of Liberia recently. He said, I don't know if you saw it, you speak such good English from where you're from. And their language is English. And it was like he's not supposed to be even educated, because he comes from Africa. You know, too much, too much of that, but let me go to education for a minute, because that's important for Chinese families and Jewish families and everybody. What were you envisioning when, I mean, you went to Boston, you bachelored in medical science, if I'm not mistaken, right? What were you envisioning then?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Well, I, yes, as you mentioned, I was in Boston University's seven-year B A M D program, straight out of high school. Um, look, that was a

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Asian family, a huge source of pride for my family, especially for my father, who came from humble beginnings. Um, and for his part, obviously, he worked and sacrificed really hard to give us these kind of opportunities, but um, look, in reality, it was their dream, not mine, right? Um, I definitely did realize during my first year of high, uh, med school that uh, look, it wasn't what I wanted to do. Um, that wasn't the kind of change that I want to make, one patient at a time. And it definitely set me on a different path. Yeah.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, I get it. I was supposed to be a sports broadcaster, but I went into accounting. So you can figure out what the scenario is there.

• 10:54Speaker 00

  Um, with respect to impact and whatnot, you know, we started our firm, Fifth Element, on the premise that leaders and their organizations, whether it's corporates or startups or nonprofits, can do way better financially, economically, when they're doing good at the same time. It's unfortunate it took us years and years and years and years and years to figure this out for some reason, but, but that's what we're based on. Was there an inflection point during the next few years after school to decide to then earn your A L M in info technol- information technology at Harvard?

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Well, there was a few years' gap before I went back to Harvard, so I did travel around, um, in Asia, mostly in Taiwan. Um, and when we talk about inflection points, I'm not sure what an exact inflection point was. Uh, definitely those years of travel, uh, going back to Taiwan, uh, taught English for a bit and then, uh, uh, ended up opening my own English school in Taipei. Um, definitely did give me some real-world entrepreneurial experience, as well as reconnecting with my roots for sure. Um, but going back to A L M, I think the biggest inflection point, uh, um,

• 12:09Speaker 01

  was during that information, uh, information technology program was, that was right, actually, at the time of the dot-com crash. So it was very interesting. I saw the promise of technology, but there was, let's call it a, the void of purpose in that, uh, in that hype, right? Um, and going back to the recycling industry, really picking that mantle up that my father had started, uh, it really allowed me to, uh, explore how technology could serve sustainability. And that really, I would say, the inflection point in that was, uh, developing what Recycle Goal.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  It became the foundation of Recycle Goal for sure.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I want to get to, dig into that, um, in, in a bit too. Was there, was there any other, were there specific initiatives or accomplishments, like the school, that, um, that really stood out for you? Not necessarily business-wise, but just your, your thoughts, your dreams, your goals, you know, your life, basically.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Uh, school accomplishments?

• 13:20Speaker 00

  Well, no, you know, you said you started a school, for example, um, accomplishments during that period that really stood out. Again, you call it an inflection point or what or not, but that really stood out that, um, made you, made you think deeper, made you, made you decide to then go into the recycling, um, that you can recall.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Now, um, I would say my, my period in Taiwan, uh, it was great for me to pursue, uh, just going from going back to earn some money, understand my Taiwanese culture, teaching some English, um, and growing that, building upon that and, uh, and having just this ambition to accomplish something more.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  It's, it, it's hard to say, um, how that has like evolved. Um, my period in Taiwan, one of the things that I've definitely been able to take away from that period is just, um, understanding how powerful a community and culture is, actually. I definitely feel that, um, just through a lot of personal experiences, um, a lot more of a connection with my spiritual side, all right? Um, and the physical world, and let's call it, uh, things that defy definition, right?

• 14:54Speaker 01

  That don't have, um, we can call it, um, you, you know, it's so fascinating what science, uh, has defined right now, right? And what's beyond the realm of science, because we can't define it yet. And the, the whole, the whole concept of quantum, right? Uh, quantum as in the act of observing something changes the properties of an object, right? On the quantum layer, the act that basically, uh, on the quantum level, um, uh, objects can have different states, uh, coexisting at the same time. The, the whole concept of Schrödinger, Schrödinger's, like, you know, cat, right?

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Being alive and dead at the same time, and those are validated through quantum, stuff like that. It's, uh, it's fascinating to me, and I, I think of that as a, as an extension of spirituality. And it's given me a greater purpose, actually.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I, I wonder, doing this, should I ask that, is, and we talked before this a little bit about, maybe a lot of this stuff was even around during ancient civilization, and then so, so much wisdom comes from way back. If, if periods like, like you had and other people, and we allow people to, to let their imagination go a little bit and be more creative, and where are things derived from to get to the point that the next stage we're going through happens more properly, if you will, rather than just being theoretical or numbers or whatever it may be? Because, you know, they talk about how the Fourth Industrial Revolution is clearly A I and technology. But the talk is also the Fifth is about humanity.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  And, um, and how do you, you know, how do you put them together? Like, we've had some chatting on that too, and, um, um, you know, we, in the work we do even, you know, we, we, we, we're focused on talent, but we're focusing on talent using tech and making impact to, to complete the whole circle. So that's why I asked you about, sometimes there's, not necessarily a maturity that happens, or a, or a an opening of our minds that happen when we do things like that before we do what you're doing right now. And, um, and it sounds like that happened a little bit, you know, to, to you too. At, at one point, did you find yourself committed to recycling and more specifically the supply chain world?

• 17:19Speaker 00

  Because in my world, we talk about supply chain being the heart and soul of every company, really. So at what point did that happen?

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Um, so it's very interesting. So recycling, um, a little background on recycling, and my involvement is, um, it was from my father, right? And my father moonlighted as, uh, uh, a driver for Taiwanese scrap buyers, uh, on the weekends.

• 17:46Speaker 00

  Well, your dad was something else. He, he, he trespassed into schools. He moonlighted.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  My dad was a nuclear engineer.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Father, my, my dad worked at a nuclear engineering. He, he designed and built nuclear power plants, um, extremely, like, just brilliant, off-the-charts brilliant.

• 18:12Speaker 00

  He's like Hidden, he's like Hidden Figures. Did you ever see that movie?

• 18:18Speaker 01

  And, but it's just, look, I, I mean, it's, uh, obviously, like, uh, just somebody who I just in, admire. I absolutely admire, just, uh, he built his scrap metal, like, uh, the scrap metal business. And that's my connection to the recycling industry. So this kind of legacy. Um, um, so my commitment to recycling and supply chains, obviously, it comes from this, this, um, not only this, uh, this desire to honor this legacy that it gave me, right? This business, but also to transform it.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Um, and ultimately, I saw recycling is, in essence, a, let's call it a reverse logistic supply chain. Right? We're taking materials that are waste, and we have to figure out the best economic model to, uh, collect it from the environment, build and scale it and, uh, collect it and, uh, turn it back into valuable commodities that can be input materials for, uh, manufacturing, a circular, essentially, manufacturing process, right? And that's where I said, you know what? Let's figure out how we can leverage technology to do that. And that's where the initial company Recycle Goal came into being.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Um, we really dove into how we can use blockchain to provide that verifiable traceability for recyclables, uh, for the emissions across supply chains. And trying to give the brands and the suppliers this kind of data transparency that they need to meet both their compliance and climate goals, right? And now with the new company, Senancis, it's actually the evolution of that, using quantum computing to predict and mitigate, uh, disruptions. Now that we understood supply chains and all the data points using blockchain, now we're starting to use quantum computing to mitigate and predict disruptions from extreme weather, geopolitical shocks,

• 20:20Speaker 01

  and systemic risks, which are happening more often, these kind of like black swan events, um, because of the world we now live in, they're happening more often. Um, let's, uh, we, right now, if we look at this, uh, today is, uh, July 11th of 2025. Last week, we had the flash flooding events that happened in, uh, in Texas, Guadalajara. And this kind of loss of life, this kind, these kinds of climate shocks are what we can bring to the system using a lot of the data and the tech and the knowledge around supply chains.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  So, yes, um, so my commitment to recycling and supply chains has really been an evolution to, um, really, my commitment, um,

• 21:16Speaker 01

  For lack of a better word to serve, to to understand where I fit in in society.

• 21:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's brilliant. I remember Ryder Ryder System used to be riding the trucks way back then was a client of mine. I remember when they were all excited where they just knew where the trucks were, basically. And but you got to start somewhere, right? In in in the in the process and kind of like when I was at Deloitte and the word processing department was all excited about the eraser being in the typewriter.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  And you see where things are derived from and and but you got to start somewhere to to develop them. It seems to me like you got the whole package there of what you were looking for, where a business that can make you money, support your family, but at the same time, impact, impact, impact humans and jobs and stuff and and and and foods, food supply, the coming from different places, and at the same time, help the planet at the same time. You kind of have, you kind of have it all, it seems.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Well, we all have to start somewhere, right, Mark?

• 22:26Speaker 00

  I heard that somewhere, yeah.

• 22:29Speaker 00

  But it's true, you really you really are encompassing people, you know, people, profit, planet, however that goes.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  And and it has, I don't know, I think business models have to incorporate all three. It really does at this point. I, the reason we're in so much trouble in the first place is our economic models don't make any sense, right? Those kind of environmental or societal externalities that should have been factored in when you designed that business, when you built out that business model.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Well, you know, all of that is coming home to roost and we need a better system, we need a more evolved system, a more inclusive system that can take all these kind of externalities and that are integral to any kind of model going forward. And it is about people, planet, and profit. Absolutely.

• 23:23Speaker 00

  Tell me a little bit more about how does RecycleGo and Senancis work together? Tell me a little, tell us a little bit more about about about that.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Well, so, look, RecycleGo obviously is focused around was the was the original product in for helping companies recycle better that evolved to a recycling blockchain. And understanding, once we understood the recycling process, we really understood a reverse logistic supply chain. And when I was rolling that out, the conversations we were having was, here's a blockchain for recycle. And the conversations we had with stakeholders, they were like, yeah, but if my customers aren't asking for it, why should I pay for it?

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Right? And I knew that this, I I knew that this is what the world needs, all right? We need more information in order to have better options to do the right thing. I I think, I think people are inclined to do the right thing if they're presented with the proper choices. Right? So if if you can't measure it, you can't manage it, and blockchain allows you to do that. But as we built this out, we're like, wait a minute, we have a product and process agnostic platform to understand supply chains and the sustainability of supply chains.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  So Senancis evolved into that and also

• 25:05Speaker 01

  partnered up with a quantum, a quantum as a service company, who which is actually one of our investors. And they brought Quantum on board to run all of these essentially quantum models to run multiple simulations, right? Well, you know what? Now that I understand the supply chain, let's start understanding what happens around supply chain disruptions on each point in the supply chain, what's going to happen? And to build more resilient models. All right. And it is about being more proactive versus more reactive. I mean, this is, we're in the point of crisis management right now, right? All of these things.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Well, if we have visibility, we can be more resilient. And a lot of my work not only allows companies to be more resilient on these on these what basically shocks, but also build resilience into communities. We're talking about marginalized communities. We're talking about these, look, the these events are affecting marginalized communities more and more. They're they're the ones that have the most economic impact, and they're the ones that are going to recover the slowest.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  Well, I think certainly your mom is, I'm sure your dad is proud too, because you are actually helping people's well being in a way anyways, versus becoming a doctor, you're helping people's well being anyways in a in a great way. And so kudos on that. And I got, I got, you know, we say in L A, you probably know this, we say on L A, we got to let them leave them wanting more so we can do a sequel. So we may have to do, we may have to do that. But I got one more question in this part for you. And in 2021, one of my clients said to me about 2020, which was the COVID year, obviously. You know, that was the year that flew by slowly, he told me. And I said, yeah, for real. And because even to this day, it sometimes feels like it was yesterday and also years ago at the same time.

• 27:09Speaker 00

  And now we're already in the the last half of 2025. So with all that said, what are you most grateful for and what are you most hopeful for?

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Look, 2020, it's interesting that you bring up 2020, but obviously, the global pandemic

• 27:29Speaker 01

  was game changing for everybody, right? We had such huge supply chain shocks. And at that period, one of the things I actually I'm grateful for, but not really because of the the conditions of the world that needed this solution was during that time, I co-founded a initiative called Mask Force. And this was a rapid response initiative that it was basically leveraging my knowledge of supply chains, global supply chains from all my years of shipping recyclables to Asia. Well, all of a sudden, we needed tens of thousands of N95 masks

• 28:14Speaker 01

  to the frontline workers, especially in the early days of the global pandemic in New York City. So we sourced the masks from China, clear customs, delivered them to hospitals in 10 days. So and this was at a time when every day meant lives. So for me, that was the first real impact use case we had for RecycleGo. So, look, right now, I'm very grateful that this allowed me more clarity in terms of my vision. Right? I'm very grateful that I I hope to see a greater alignment with capital and climate, with innovation and empathy, right? Leaders are beginning to see that, look, resilience isn't just about tech.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Right? It's it's about really caring. And I think that's hopefully a huge, huge shift.

• 29:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, thank you for sharing that. That's, you know, it shows we can do great things beyond imagination and beyond impossible if we just if we just want to and work together. So thanks for sharing that. And hey, I'm grateful that I got a new friend and you are a leader who cares. And that's the same reason I think I'm hopeful too for for that. So thanks for being on the series and really appreciate it.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Thank you, Mark. Thank you for having me.

• 29:36Speaker 02

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• 29:49Speaker 02

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• 29:58Speaker 02

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