Ry Heng | Restaurant Owner & Social Enterprise Leader

Ry Heng - "The Business Woman Who Had to Lose Everything First"

Ry Heng was born to run a business. She just didn't know it would cost her everything first.

The Blueprint

In 1999, a girl was born in the Cambodian countryside watching her mother do something most women in her village didn't: own a business. Not just work in one own it. Make decisions. Build something from nothing.

Young Ry Heng didn't have business books or entrepreneur podcasts. She had her mom. That was enough.

She was a good student. The kind teachers brag about. In 10th grade, she earned a scholarship from CRST (Cambodia Rural Student Trust) to study at FBI. For a countryside kid, this was the dream education, opportunity, a way out.

But dreams have a funny way of taking you exactly where you don't want to go.

The Collapse

Her mom died when she was young.

The woman who showed her what it meant to build, to hustle, to own something gone. Ry Heng moved in with her auntie in 2000. They loved her like their own daughter. They gave her stability. But they couldn't give her back what she lost.

So she did what good students do: she kept going. Joined social activities. Volunteered everywhere. Her resume looked perfect. Her heart felt empty.

Because here's the thing nobody tells you about grief it doesn't just take people. It takes your sense of direction too.

Ry Heng threw herself into social impact work, thinking this was her purpose. She worked at PEPI with Panhary, doing meaningful work. But something was off. She was more business-minded than social activities could contain. Her heart was stuck in one place while her life pulled her somewhere else.

Then came the relationship.

She met someone. They fell in love. Started planning a wedding the dress, the venue, the guest list. Everything was ready. One month of preparation, everything arranged, just waiting for the day.

Then her grandma passed away.

The wedding got cancelled.

It wasn't just losing her grandma it was losing the moment she was supposed to be happy. Depression hit hard. Trauma from losing her mom years ago came flooding back. At 25, Ry Heng had buried too many people she loved. Social media made it worse everyone else's celebrations playing on loop while she was grieving.

Most people don't come back from that. Ry Heng almost didn't.

The Rebuild

But her now-husband stayed. They didn't give up on each other. They've been together for 10 years now, no kids, just steady partnership through everything life threw at them.

This wasn't just a love story. This was a resurrection story.

She pushed him to study Business Administration at PSU. Started teaching Chinese, even though it's hard and students give up constantly. And slowly, without announcing it, she started pushing herself too.

The turning point came when PEPI lost funding. Most people would see that as a crisis. Ry Heng saw it as permission.

Permission to stop doing what she should do.

Permission to start doing what she was born to do.

She left social impact and launched her own restaurant a vegan social enterprise. Not because vegan is trendy. Not because restaurants are easy. But because she needed to build something. To prove her mom's instincts weren't wrong. To show that the business woman inside her didn't die with everyone else.

The Vision (Still Blurry, Still Building)

Here's what makes Ry Heng different from most entrepreneurs: she'll tell you straight up that her current business isn't her final form. The restaurant isn't her favorite thing. Her vision is still "kinda blur."

But she's okay with that now.

She tries new things even when they fail. She learns from her mistakes instead of hiding them. She's leading mentors at Sokpheak Yohveak Tey project now, building networks like crazy because she learned: connections are the road to success.

Her dream? One day she wants to pitch on Shark Tank. Stand in front of investors and show them what a countryside girl who lost everything built from the ashes.

Not for validation.

For her mom.

For herself.

What She'd Tell You

If you met Ry Heng today, she wouldn't give you motivational speech BS about "everything happens for a reason." She'd tell you the truth:

Some things in life will break you. Your mom might die. Your grandma might pass right before your wedding day. Your plans will collapse. You'll feel lost in your own life.

But somewhere in that wreckage, you'll remember who you were before the world told you who to be.

Ry Heng didn't become a business woman despite losing everything.

She became one because she lost everything.

Sometimes you have to rebuild a few times before you figure out how to really live.