How has your life experience made you the leader you are today?
I started my career at Bank Negara Malaysia, which gave me a front-row seat to the ins and outs of the finance industry in Malaysia. During my stint at Bank Negara, I was responsible for implementing effective supervision of a Malaysian regional bank and contributed towards the development of key policies for ensuring safety and soundness of the financial system.
The daily challenges which include navigating the complexities of financial systems has moulded me into a leader who values structure and discipline, which are now the cornerstone of my leadership style.
Then came the transition to Wise, which felt like a whole new adventure on its own. In my current role, I lead new market entry expansions across several markets in Asia Pacific including Malaysia, and manage financial partnerships and regulator relationships.
The fast-paced environment of fintech has played a pivotal role in shaping me into a resilient and adaptable leader, pushing me to continually stay on the cutting edge of innovation. It has also sharpened my decision-making skills, and instilled a collaborative mindset that is essential for navigating diverse teams at Wise, a global company with more than 5,000 employees representing 125 nationalities across 11 global key locations around the world.
In short, my career journey from the foundational years at Bank Negara to the dynamic environment at Wise has been a fulfilling one that continually shapes and reshapes the leader I am today, honing the leadership qualities crucial for success in this ever-evolving industry.
What traits do you look for in your talent or how do you decide who is right for a job?
I value adaptability, creativity, and a strong work ethic when evaluating potential candidates. It is important to me that candidates resonate with our company’s values, as it fosters a positive and productive work environment.
At Wise, we have a mission-driven culture underpinned by four core values which guide how work is done, how we interact with each other, and how we engage our customers to drive our mission forward.
I want to build a cohesive team that not only collaborates well, but also enjoys working together to drive Wise’s growth in Malaysia.
How do you think the industry you are in will evolve in the future?
The financial industry is constantly growing and changing, and is poised for digital transformation. Customers are expecting faster, more affordable, increasingly convenient, and above all — transparent experiences. This expectation will extend across all facets of financial services, both for domestic and international payments.
Consumers and businesses have become used to their domestic payments arriving instantly, and they now want cross-border payments to do the same. They also want to know what and how much they’re paying for without hidden fees due to inflated exchange rate mark-ups.
Partnerships is an area where we can expect to gain momentum. Rather than trying to build something from scratch or acquire another player, we’re seeing more partnerships among banks, payment firms and corporations.
Doing so allows industry players to tap into each other’s strengths, enabling players to scale their services and enhance customer experience.
For instance, we built the Wise Platform a few years ago – the infrastructure offering for banks and larger enterprises – to leverage on Wise’s technology and embed the best way to send, receive and manage money internationally. By partnering with the Wise Platform, banks and businesses can now offer their customers fast, cheaper and transparent ways to manage their money across borders seamlessly, from the convenience of their existing app or platform.
In a few short years, we have seen Wise Platform’s continued and expand, and today we have over 70 partners globally which include some of the world’s largest banks, neobanks and business tool providers such as Monzo, Shinhan Bank, Google Pay, Bank Mandiri, Brex and Ramp.
As customers demand for faster, low-cost, convenient and more transparent international payments, we can expect the industry to look towards partnerships to solve the problem of international payments.
What do you want to accomplish in the next five years?
At Wise, our mission has never changed. We want to build the best way to move and manage the world’s money, making it faster, cheaper, easier and more transparent for people and businesses. Looking ahead, we will continue to expand and invest in our underlying infrastructure to drive down price, increase speed, and ultimately build a network for the world’s money.
This also applies to my aspiration for Malaysia and across the Apac region. Wise in Malaysia is relatively new, and we’re striving to bring more of Wise’s products and services to Malaysia, and make Wise increasingly convenient and useful for people and businesses.
Whether it’s expanding our product suite through our Wise Account, catering to businesses through Wise Business, the one account for international businesses to go global without high fees, or building on our partnerships to bring Wise Platform to more banks and enterprises, we have a lot more to do in reaching our mission. We look forward to growing further from here.
