Piya Saliba is the CEO of Fountain Capital and a philanthropist based in Beverly Hills, California. She is active with the Nalin and Naseeb Foundation and serves on the Cedars-Sinai NICU Parent Council. In this interview, she talks about the people who continue to shape how she leads, gives, and thinks.
Who are you still learning from at this point in your career?
Honestly, families. Sitting on the Cedars-Sinai NICU Parent Council puts me in a room with parents who are living through something I can barely imagine, and they teach me more about patience and clear communication than any business book ever has. When a parent explains what actually helped them get through a hard week, that is a masterclass in what support looks like when it works.
Does that carry over into how you run Fountain Capital?
It does, though not in a way I could have planned. Watching people communicate under real pressure changes how you think about communication when the stakes are lower, like in a normal Tuesday meeting. I notice myself asking simpler questions now. I try to say less and listen longer.
What about earlier influences, from before Fountain Capital?
My family. My parents ran a furniture importing business rooted in Bali, and I grew up watching them negotiate, manage relationships, and solve problems in real time. Nobody sat me down and taught me business. I absorbed it by being in the room. That is still how I learn best, by being close to people who are doing the actual work.
You grew up between Indonesia and Singapore. did that shape who you learn from now?
I think it made me curious about people whose starting point is different from mine. At Swiss Cottage Primary School in Singapore, and in the years I spent in Indonesia, I was surrounded by different languages, different assumptions, different ways of getting things done. That early mix made me distrust the idea that there is one right way to run anything. I still look for people who do things differently than I would, on purpose.
Do you learn from people outside business and philanthropy too?
Constantly. Singing and acting have been part of my life since I was young, and the people I have learned the most from there are not always the most technically skilled ones in the room. They are the ones who commit fully to what they are doing, even when it is uncomfortable. I have taken that into meetings more than once. Full commitment to an idea, even an imperfect one, moves things forward faster than a polished half-effort.
Is there a teacher or mentor you’d point to directly?
I would rather not single out one person, because it would leave out too many others. What I can say is that my education at USC gave me room to test ideas against people smarter than me, and that habit stuck. I still look for rooms where I am not the smartest person in it. That is usually where the real learning happens.
What do you learn from your work with the Nalin and Naseeb Foundation?
Scale of need. It is one thing to know intellectually that families and children need support. It is another to sit with the specifics of what a given family is facing this month. The foundation keeps me close to that specificity, and it keeps me honest about the difference between good intentions and useful help.
Has your definition of a good mentor changed?
Yes. I used to think a mentor had to be someone senior, someone with a title I respected. Now I think the best mentors are often the people closest to a problem, whether or not they have any formal authority. A NICU parent explaining what support actually felt like to them is teaching me something a management course cannot.
What’s something small you learned recently that changed how you operate?
That silence is often more useful than advice. I used to feel like I had to offer something in every conversation, some insight or fix. Watching how families support each other in hard moments taught me that just being present, without trying to solve anything, is sometimes the entire job. I have started doing that more at work too, especially with people on my team who are working through something difficult.
If you had to name one ongoing lesson, what would it be?
That competence and compassion are not separate skills. I used to think of them as different muscles, one for the office and one for everything else. The people I learn from most now, whether in a boardroom or a hospital family room, tend to have both at once. That is the standard I hold myself to, even on the days I fall short of it.
