Lessons and wisdom from Airwallex’s new chief revenue officer and APAC general manager

Before joining Airwallex in 2018, Kai Wu had a front row seat to some of the most important businesses in Greater China and the rest of Asia.

During stints at consulting firms Boston Consulting Group and Roland Berger, as well as venture capital fund BAI Capital, Wu found himself elbow-deep in the nitty-gritty of the private investing world, working on solutions across media, telecommunications, and technology.

Kai Wu, Airwallex’s chief revenue officer and APAC general manager / Photo credit: Airwallex

Amid this varied career, Wu heard the siren call of the fintech industry for the first time.

“My skillset and experience were very attuned to the approach of growth companies that operate in a fast-paced, solutions-driven environment,” he says. “This is what ultimately prompted me to consider a career pivot to fintech.”

With this new trajectory in mind, Wu landed on Airwallex, a global fintech platform that provides faster, simpler, and more cost-effective cross-border financial services for businesses compared to traditional banking platforms – these services include payments, fund management, and digital wallets.

A meeting of the minds

Wu had been watching Airwallex for a while and found its approach to solving clients’ cross-border pain points “compelling.”

Though the firm was still in its early days in 2018, he saw an opportunity to grow with the business. That same year, a chance introduction with Jack Zhang, Airwallex’s chief executive and co-founder, sealed the deal.

Jack Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Airwallex / Photo credit: Airwallex

“Two things stood out to me: his passion for the industry and his ambition to build Airwallex into a global platform,” Wu recalls. “I also felt there was good chemistry between us – we have similar personalities and views on how we approach our work and career.”

During his first years, Wu worked his way through Airwallex’s ranks across a number of key roles including CFO and CEO of the company’s Greater China headquarters.

Wu shares that cultivating long-standing, mutually beneficial relationships with the firm’s clients and partners became a key priority – doing so helped him identify the right people to work with, form strong partnerships, and build an ecosystem for successful collaboration.

Such relationships are important because they go beyond just making friends – in the B2C space, repeat customers or clients are 60% to 70% more likely to repurchase from a company. They have a big impact on overall revenue too, given that 80% of it tends to come from just 20% of a firm’s customers.

This same benefit can apply to B2B firms like Airwallex, encouraging long-lasting partnerships and business with its clients.

“Forging strong relationships takes time and personal commitment, but I’ve constantly been inspired and humbled to partner with innovative, forward-thinking businesses that have grown alongside us over the years,” Wu adds.

“Many of our key partners and customers share the same vision and ambition as us: to innovate and find solutions to pain points that impact entire industries.”

A “pivotal” moment of growth

Like many other businesses, Airwallex experienced an initial slowdown in the Covid-19 pandemic’s early days. This difficult period served as a “pivotal moment” for the whole company, says Wu.

“We had to pause and reflect on how we were doing things. We realized that we needed to balance between expanding and growing, as well as addressing the challenges we faced in real time,” he says.

This moment also forced Wu to do some soul-searching with his management and leadership styles. In one instance, the unexpected departure of a capable colleague created a gap in the team that the firm struggled to fill.

Photo credit: theshots / 123RF

Such events have a far-reaching impact that goes beyond personal relations. Employee morale gets affected, and reports showed that replacing a former worker could cost as much as 33% of their annual salary.

As such, every person leaving had to be taken seriously.

“When that colleague left, I had the opportunity to think about how to constantly improve our company culture,” he says. “People bring our vision to life – they can be our biggest asset but also our biggest challenge. They will come and go, but we can only do our best to build a great team that is passionate about what it does and loves solving problems.”

Rooting down in APAC

In late 2022, the company announced the appointment of Wu as chief revenue officer, a newly created role. Wu is responsible for overseeing all business-related activities impacting Airwallex’s revenue streams.

The role also requires him to better align the company’s functions to support a more scalable and sustainable growth approach.

“I’m very optimistic about the B2B ecommerce market’s growth across the region, and we have great ambitions in 2023 to continue building out a truly global payments and financial platform to support businesses,” he says.

Photo credit: Fancy Crave

With that global mindset, Airwallex also named Wu as general manager of the company’s Asia Pacific operations.

“Airwallex was founded in Melbourne, Australia – our roots are in Asia Pacific and it continues to be one of the key regions for us to scale and grow,” says Wu.

In 2021, Asia Pacific’s payments revenue reached US$1.1 trillion, representing more than half of the global figure. Of that amount, 6.5% came from cross-border transactions. Considering how intertwined and closely linked economies are in this region, this small percentage indicates that plenty of potential is still left on the table.

“Cross-border transactions are a very natural occurrence among businesses in the region, as many operate beyond just where they are based,” explains the general manager.

Old lessons for the future

As Wu takes on his expanded roles at Airwallex, he shares the company’s focus toward building the world’s best global financial infrastructure. To enable this, Wu and the firm have chosen to focus on several key areas: infrastructure and platform, product and customer experiences, partner ecosystem, system automation and security, and workforce.

“Our aspiration is to be the number one player in Asia Pacific,” he says. “We want to cultivate a winning culture and mindset among our teams, and seize the opportunity to drive innovation and change.”

Establishing a good culture is critical now more than ever due to shifts in employee mindsets and a phenomenon known as the Great Resignation. Companies with a solid culture can enjoy up to 72% higher employee engagement than firms with a misaligned culture, recent studies showed.

To achieve these future goals, Wu constantly returns to the lessons gleaned from his first years at Airwallex.

“It’s important to be inspired to make incremental changes day by day, and that mentality has helped create an inspiring work environment for the people I work with,” he shares.

Spanning 20 international offices across Asia Pacific, EMEA, and North America, Airwallex aims to support modern businesses to grow beyond borders. If you’re one such business, find out more about how Airwallex can fulfill your cross-border ambitions.

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This content was produced by Tech in Asia Studios, which connects brands with Asia’s tech community. Learn more about partnering with Tech in Asia Studios.