Innovate Finance
00:13:10 · Pranav Sood
[00:13:10] S1: I think it's a really interesting question, particularly given the environment that we're in now from a macroeconomic and a funding perspective. Absolutely. So if I look back at Airwallex's evolution and growth, one of the things that I think Jack and the founding team did brilliantly was have a really clear view of the blueprint that they were building towards from an infrastructure perspective. And we were and are very lucky to have very supportive investors who gave us the time and the space to build out that infrastructure from the get go and not to have to worry about trying to monetize everything on day one, you know, or even in the first couple of years. I don't know that that's a luxury that startups these days are gonna be given. I don't know if they're gonna be allowed to have three or four years where they just build out the infra before they start to actually monetize and and and and grow revenue. So I don't know if that lesson necessarily, you know, is one that can be repeated for for for people listening or for for aspiring founders. What I do think people can continue to do is two things. One is be incredibly clear about what your superpower actually is. And, you know, as you mentioned, we compete with a lot of people, but, actually, we don't necessarily believe that we have to win in every single base. We just know the bases where our product is differentiated, where we can serve, you know, ambitious global growing businesses. And I I would urge people who are founding businesses to be very clear about the same thing. What is your superpower? Who is your target customer? The other thing is more of an internal one, which is building a coherent company culture across borders is just so hard. And I don't know that there's a recipe or a formula that you can just apply. But what I can say is that what we've done, which I think works really well, is begin to define what the Airwallex global culture looks like and feels like, but also recognize that things are quite different in the different parts of the world where we have offices and and people. And so striking that balance between an identity, a culture that applies to the company as a whole, and recognizing what makes it special to work for a company in London or in Lithuania or in Australia.
00:15:18 · Pranav Sood, Veronica Glab
It's a really hard thing to do, but I think if you can be mindful of it as you're starting out on the journey, your chances of being successful are way higher. [00:15:27] S0: So out of curiosity, what would distinguish the company culture between London or Lithuania? [00:15:35] S1: I think there are a couple of things. So one is in London, we have probably a much wider range of different functions. So here we have everything, the commercial side of things, you know, finance, many of the supporting functions are here as well. In Lithuania, it's much more of an operational hub for us. And so the people that we have there are focused much more around KYC, onboarding, you know, the operational nitty gritty that makes our business work. And so as a consequence of that, there are some differences in the way that the teams like to interact. You know, if you have more salespeople in a a in a team, they tend to like to come into the office more often, and they tend to be more, you know, extroverted and more, you know, interested in those kinds of things. Whereas the team in Lithuania, they prefer to work in different ways. They're much more flexible. They don't necessarily always come into the office every time. And I think we're okay with that because what matters is they're delivering amazing output, and they're doing it in a way that works for them and and also works for us as an employer. [00:16:35] S0: Alright. Fair enough. And I'm going to guess that everyone probably drinks as much coffee or peppermint tea as you do.
00:16:35 · Veronica Glab, Pranav Sood
[00:16:35] S0: Alright. Fair enough. And I'm going to guess that everyone probably drinks as much coffee or peppermint tea as you do. [00:16:41] S1: I wouldn't like to guess, but we do we do go through a fair amount of it on our weekly grocery order. [00:16:47] S0: Good to know. And I guess one final question from me. Looking a little bit more into the future, what is next for Airwallex globally and regionally?
00:16:58 · Pranav Sood
[00:16:58] S1: Wow. That's a that's a big question. I think globally, we're gonna continue to expand our product suite. So, you know, when I talked a bit earlier about the set of problems that we can solve for for customers, I only really talked about the global money movement side of things. I didn't talk about things like expense management, online payments, card issuing, you know, billing, all those kinds of things, which are also really core parts of our value proposition and product. We're gonna continue to expand that offering, adding, you know, more software, more services that help global businesses to solve the complexities and problems that come with moving money across borders. Clearly, we're gonna continue to look to grow internationally, to expand into new markets, and to increase our footprint from a licensing point of view. And I think also, as we expand, we'll continue to look at opportunities to extend our infrastructure into other domains. So whether it's credit, for example, or or other, you know, themes like that, we'll certainly be interested in in looking selectively to to do so. I think regionally, my focus areas are quite clear. The UK business is already in great shape. I think we grew nearly 10 next last year, which is fantastic. I've got a fantastic group of people here. And so it's doubled down on the things that are working. It's find the opportunities to expand into The EU and and more widely, you know, places like Israel, as I mentioned. And it's continued to try and build a a great team and try and build an environment where people are excited about coming in and and solving businesses' problems.
00:18:29 · Veronica Glab
[00:18:29] S0: That's a really positive note to end this conversation on. So thank you Pranav, and that is all for this episode. Thank you everyone for tuning in. Please keep an eye out for upcoming episodes. All of our previous episodes are available on our website. So please take a look at our catalog for many more insights on FinTech and financial innovation. And once again, thank you to our guest today, Pranav Sudh, the General Manager of EMEA at Airwallix. And thank you all at home for listening. Join us next time for a coffee with Innovate Finance. Bye for now.