The entrepreneur who failed at retirement and turned to waste

After spending much of her career building and running businesses across retail, manufacturing, and exports, Veena Munganahalli (LinkedIn) was set to retire in 2016. Her return to business eventually led her somewhere she never expected: the waste industry. Alongside her co-founder and husband, she launched Sencirc, an Abu Dhabi-based holding company investing in a portfolio that spans energy-from-waste, sustainable aviation fuel, and, soon, compressed biogas — all built around a simple prospect: waste has value, provided you can find a commercially viable way to unlock it.

Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of business questions just for fun. This week, we spoke with Munganahalli about accidentally becoming a waste-to-value entrepreneur. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

EnterpriseAM: Take us back to the beginning. Why go into the waste-to-value business?

Veena Munganahalli (VM): I've been an entrepreneur since I was 12. I had my own dance school, did some television work, and eventually ran a large export and retail business. I exited all of that around 2016 because I thought, ‘I'm done for life.’ I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and do all the things I thought I had missed out on. Turns out, I suck at it. So, I started mentoring women entrepreneurs and investing in impact startups.

Around 2021, my husband and I started thinking about what we wanted to do with the next 20 years of our lives. We had the opportunity to acquire a sustainable energy business in the UK, and we spent about 18 months researching the industry before deciding to do it. That's where Sencirc came from. The idea is to create a future that is circularly sensible.

E: What does that actually mean in practice? What does Sencirc do?

VM: We focus on businesses that convert waste into value. Our first vertical is energy from waste. Our UK business takes municipal solid waste — the waste you and I produce every day — and converts it into electricity through gasification. We process around 250k tons of waste annually and generate roughly 26-28 MW of power.

Our second vertical is sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Aviation has very few options for decarbonization, and the idea is to use waste or carbon that's already circulating rather than extracting more carbon from the ground through fossil fuels. We partnered with Novus Aviation Capital to establish SAF One, and our first project is coming up in Kakinada in southern India. We will use waste oils, including used cooking oil, to produce SAF. The third vertical, which we are preparing to launch, is compressed biogas. It will use agricultural waste, including paddy straw and sugarcane residue, to create gas.

E: What has surprised you most about working in this industry?

VM: It's a heavy industrial business, and there are so many women in leadership and managerial positions. I think women are intrinsically sustainable. We know how to rotate resources. The other thing that has amazed me is how much younger people are buying into the industry. They actively write to us asking for internships and opportunities. You may be doing something today that benefits people hundreds of years from now. There is a huge amount of forethought, and I love that about this industry.

E: What can the UAE do better when it comes to sustainability?

VM: Segregation has to start at the household level. I lived in Switzerland, where the rules around waste were incredibly strict. If your bin wasn't properly closed, you could be fined. The responsibility was on individuals to make sure they were segregating waste properly. We need to start making that part of everyday life. Otherwise, everything goes into the same bin.

E: Tell us about your morning routine. How does your day begin?

VM: I'm very South Indian at heart. I have to have a newspaper and coffee in my hand. I still read at least one newspaper from start to finish while listening to some music. I'm not a morning person, but that's how I start. Because we work across different time zones, my mornings are also for catching up on emails and messages before the day properly begins.

I've never had a to-do list because I think it constrains you. People get stressed because they haven't finished everything on their list, and I hate that feeling. If something is urgent and I'm worried I'll forget it, I send myself a WhatsApp message. That's my to-do list.

E: How does this pace of life compare with your earlier years of running businesses?

VM: My earlier business involved around 40 retail touchpoints. Somebody hadn't opened a store. There was a regulatory problem. A manufacturing issue had come up somewhere. I used to wake up firefighting and go to bed firefighting. Now, we know what we want, we're deliberate about who we hire, and we encourage our teams to make decisions.

E: What is one constant in your day that keeps you grounded?

VM: Apart from the newspaper and coffee, I speak to each of my daughters every single day.

Recently, I've also developed a habit of lighting a lamp every morning. I don't know exactly why I started doing it, but I miss it when I travel. I don't do elaborate routines. I don't meditate or do breathwork because I don't want to create intentions that become stressful to maintain. I like simple things. Maybe I'll buy a random pair of earrings — I collect junk earrings. That's good enough for me.

E: And how do you switch off when work is finally over?

VM: I don't want to go to sleep thinking about the next management book I need to read or some great thing everyone else is doing. I want to sleep in meaninglessness. Give me a comedy, a crime show, or something completely silly. At the end of the day, I have only one thought: I now need to sleep. Fortunately, I sleep like a baby.

Veena's favorites

What she watches: Crime dramas and “brainless” Netflix. Reacher gets a mention.

Best advice she's received: Never start a business alone. Find a co-founder who complements your skills and doesn't simply think exactly like you. A business is a giant. It can eat you up and consume you. You shouldn't be alone on that journey.

And one final rule: Have at least five minutes of fun every day. “We've built a life around things we ‘have to’ do. Dance, do Sudoku, or listen to random music. Just have some fun,” she says.