Piya Saliba: Philanthropist, CEO, and Advocate for Family Support

Raised across Indonesia and Singapore, shaped by art and early exposure to entrepreneurship, Piya Saliba has built a career defined not by volume but by intention. From the CEO’s chair at Fountain Capital to the bedside presence required by the Cedars-Sinai NICU Parent Council, she leads with a philosophy grounded in people, not outcomes.

There are rooms where leadership is performed, and there are rooms where it is tested. For Piya Saliba, both exist within the same week. On a Tuesday, she sits in a Beverly Hills office managing investment decisions at Fountain Capital, where she serves as CEO. By Thursday, she is at Cedars-Sinai, listening to parents whose newborns are fighting for stability in the neonatal intensive care unit. The juxtaposition is not accidental. Saliba has structured her life around the belief that business and service are not separate pursuits but parallel expressions of responsibility.

Her path to this dual commitment began far from California. Raised between Indonesia and Singapore, Saliba grew up in households where culture, creativity, and commerce overlapped. Her family operated a furniture importing business connected to Bali, and she watched how art and enterprise moved through the same channels. She was drawn early to performance—singing, acting, the kind of work that required both presence and vulnerability. It was not a career she pursued long-term, but it taught her something that carried forward: how to read a room, how to hold attention, how to make people feel something.

She attended Swiss Cottage Primary School in Singapore before eventually making her way to the University of Southern California. The move to the United States shifted her trajectory. She entered the world of finance, first through roles that involved strategy and investment, including work with NMS Capital. The transition was not seamless. She describes leadership as something she learned not from titles but from observing what happened when people felt heard versus when they felt managed. That distinction became central to her approach.

Structure Without Rigidity

At Fountain Capital, Saliba leads with a style that resists the louder models of executive authority. She has said that leadership is not about being the loudest person in the room. The firm itself operates within the finance and investment sector, and while the specifics of its portfolio remain internal, Saliba’s leadership philosophy is public. She emphasizes long-term thinking over short-term wins, steady growth over rapid expansion. She has also been clear about focus. Not every opportunity is the right one. The discipline of saying no, of narrowing scope to deepen impact, is part of the calculus.

Her time at NMS Capital and her subsequent role at Fountain Capital provided the technical scaffolding for this work. But the emotional scaffolding came from elsewhere. Saliba has described how sitting with families during hard moments changes your perspective. It reminds you what actually matters. That reflection is not rhetorical. It comes from her direct involvement with the Cedars-Sinai NICU Parent Council, where she works alongside families navigating one of the most disorienting experiences imaginable: the fragility of a newborn’s first days or weeks of life.

The Council and the Foundation

Neonatal intensive care units exist in a strange temporal zone. Time slows down and speeds up simultaneously. Parents wait, watch monitors, memorize beeps and patterns, search for meaning in incremental changes. Saliba’s work with the Cedars-Sinai NICU Parent Council involves creating space for that experience to be acknowledged, supported, and less isolating. She does not claim expertise in neonatology. Her role is different: to help build systems of support, to advocate for awareness, to ensure that families know they are not alone.

This commitment extends to her work with the Nalin and Naseeb Foundation, a nonprofit she co-founded. The foundation focuses on family support, particularly around moments of crisis or need. Saliba has said that support does not have to be complicated. Sometimes it is as simple as showing up, listening, or helping a family feel less alone. The foundation’s work is rooted in that simplicity, even as its impact is broad.

Her involvement in these efforts is not an addendum to her business career. She sees them as integrated. Business does not exist in a vacuum. It should connect back to people and community. That principle guides her decision-making at Fountain Capital and her volunteer work alike. She has been involved with school PTAs, community engagement initiatives, and other forms of local investment. The common thread is presence.

Creativity as a Language

Saliba’s early years in performance left a mark. She has described how creativity taught her to connect with people. It was not just about stage presence. It was about empathy, about understanding what a moment required, about sensing when to step forward and when to step back. Those instincts, developed through acting and singing, translated into how she approaches leadership. She listens more than she directs. She asks questions before offering solutions. She makes space for other voices.

Her background also shaped her worldview. Growing up between Indonesia and Singapore exposed her to different cultural rhythms, different models of family and community, different ways of organizing life and work. She absorbed those lessons quietly. When she talks about leadership, it is rarely in the language of disruption or innovation. It is in the language of responsibility. She has said that leadership is not control. It is a responsibility for people, not just outcomes.

That responsibility extends to how she thinks about recognition. Fountain Capital was named Best Marketing Company by the Los Angeles Business Journal, an accolade that speaks to the firm’s visibility and strategic positioning. But Saliba does not lead with awards. She leads with consistency, with the slow accumulation of trust that comes from showing up, day after day, in rooms where decisions are made and in rooms where families are waiting for news.

The Work That Lasts

Saliba’s career is still unfolding. She is based in Beverly Hills, leading a firm that operates in a competitive, high-stakes sector. She is also building a body of philanthropic work that will outlast any single quarter’s performance. The two are not in tension. They are in conversation. She has said that business taught her how to stay focused and build something that lasts. Focus, in her case, is not about narrowness. It is about knowing what matters and being willing to build toward it slowly.

Her involvement with the Cedars-Sinai NICU Parent Council and the Nalin and Naseeb Foundation reflects that same patience. Change in these spaces does not come quickly. Awareness builds slowly. Support systems take time to root. Families remember not the grand gestures but the small ones: a phone call, a listening ear, a moment when someone understood without needing explanation.

Saliba’s work is not flashy. It is deliberate. It is the kind of work that compounds over years, that builds infrastructure rather than spectacle. She has no interest in being the loudest voice. She is more interested in making sure the right voices are heard.

What Piya Saliba Knows Now

If there is a throughline in Saliba’s life, it is the belief that leadership is a practice, not a position. It requires discipline, yes, but also flexibility. It requires confidence, but also humility. It requires vision, but also the ability to adjust when circumstances change. She has carried those lessons from Singapore to Los Angeles, from stage performances to investment strategy, from corporate boardrooms to hospital waiting rooms.

She continues to lead Fountain Capital with a steady hand, continues to show up for the families supported by the Nalin and Naseeb Foundation, continues to advocate for better systems of care through the Cedars-Sinai NICU Parent Council. The work is ongoing. The challenges are real. But Saliba has built her career on the premise that leadership, at its best, is not about control. It is about presence, about responsibility, about the quiet architecture of purpose that holds everything else together.