Episode Details

In this episode, Subhas Sapkota, CEO of Yeti Airlines and former CEO of eSewa, shares his lived experience leading across fintech, aviation, and education in Nepal.

The conversation moves across three industries where Subash has held senior leadership roles and made long-term decisions inside complex systems.

We begin with fintech. After years of leading eSewa and helping build it into a trusted digital wallet, Subash chose to step away from the CEO role even when everything was working well. In this episode, he explains why he left, what the “what next” moment looked like, and why he chose not to return to the wallet business again.

In aviation, Subash shares his experience as the CEO of Yeti Airlines, where he took charge during a challenging period and led changes that helped move the company from loss to profit. He talks about the realities of running an airline in Nepal, the impact of policy and taxation, and how leadership decisions shape outcomes in a highly regulated industry.

In education, the conversation turns to a problem he observed repeatedly as an employer and the gap between academic degrees and real-world readiness. Drawing from his experience at Yeti Airlines, eSewa, and F1Soft International, Subash explains why finding truly job-ready individuals is difficult. This led him to co-found two colleges in Nepal focused on practical, skill-based learning rather than rote education.

Across all three industries, one pattern becomes clear:
different sectors, different challenges but the same way of thinking behind leadership decisions.

This episode is for anyone interested in:

• leadership inside Nepal’s systems
  
  
• making hard decisions when things are working
  
  
• understanding how thinking transfers across industries
  
  
• building long-term value rather than chasing short-term wins
  
  

🎙️ Watch the full conversation to hear how these experiences connect and what they reveal about leadership in Nepal.

Timestamps 

0:00  Journey of Subash Sapkota

6:20 Why Esewa wont’t become a bank

13:00 Core Leadership Framework used by Subash Sapkota

20:30 Harsh Reality of Airline Business (Yeti Airlines Ceo insight)

32:00 What Mindset Nepalese must have

35:50 Education System in Nepal

42:43 Limitation of Academic Degree

55:00 Reality of Foreign University Affiliated college in Nepal 

57:02 Whose mistake ? Student leaving country 

1:06:46 Master Framework of Subash for Business

1:10:50 Radical Changes required for Nepal

1:33:07 Will he ever come back to eSewa?

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🎧 Listen on audio platforms: 

https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-32f7s-19cc50b

🎤 Host: Anup Ghimire

Founder of Doers Nepal 

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/anup-ghimire-9366aa5a/ 

👥 Guest

 Subash Sapkota

CEO @ Yeti Airlines

 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/subhas-sapkota-42581937/?originalSubdomain=np 

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