Raise your hands if you constantly forget to take your daily vitamins and supplements. Fret not because the founders of Moom are here to help us better understand holistic healing and why we should prioritise self-care
How I’m Making It is a weekly series in which Tatler speaks to influential individuals about their unique journeys and what keeps them going.
When Maya Kale was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) when she was just 15, she was at a loss. The tragic diagnosis, which was new for the teen, resulted in years of research, a long battle with birth control pills, countless appointments, and too much money spent on treatments that simply would not help eliminate her symptoms.
At her wit's end with traditional medication, Maya decided to look into holistic healing. It was only then, through a combination of healthy food and herbs, that she started to feel better.
“It worked well for me but I knew it was not a blanket solution for every woman suffering from PCOS. That got me thinking about how important it was for women to get access to tailor-made, natural solutions that would work for them,” Maya shares. “We began talking to more women and realised that many women were in the same boat as I was in and struggling to find solutions to medical issues. This was what made us decide to set out to create expert-backed, natural remedies that would be able to support every stage of womanhood.”
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Today, alongside her sister Mili, the siblings are confidently forging a path in the world of supplements and holistic healing with Moom, an innovative company that provides women with a slew of natural supplements aimed at targeting a variety of common female issues including reproductive health, gut health, sleep, stress and more.
“We might not have started our careers in the wellness industry but in hindsight, Moom was always a part of our lives,” says Mili in an interview with Tatler Singapore. “Our mum was the original green juicer and supplement feeder. In school, supplements were given to us like a side dish. Always neatly placed next to our meal.”
“However, when we went to college, we would forget to take the supplements our mom packed for us in our suitcase, and had to find a new solution. We started making individual, daily bags of supplements and it worked,” Mili continues.
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Despite being very well-informed about the wellness industry from a young age, both sisters initially decided to pursue very different careers. “My first job after I graduated from college was at a food startup called Mealpal in New York City. I was employee number 15 there and my role involved a mixture of marketing, operations, and customer experience,” Maya says. “After working at Mealpal, I came back to Singapore and was the first official hire for Wework Singapore. At Wework, I helped build the founding community here in Singapore, as well as train the community teams for our regional locations. I eventually moved into the marketing team working on regional markets like Jakarta and Manila.”
Mili, on the other hand, decided to go into education and became a fellow for Teach for India where she taught 100 fifth- and sixth-grade girls in a low-income school in New Delhi before pursuing a Master’s degree in Education Policy and Sociology at Columbia University.
