Emerging Markets Growth Leaders

This week, I am delighted to welcome Alan Wong, the Chief Technology Officer at Indonesian start up Ula. On this show we explore Alan's stellar background at Amazon and Booking.com, his fascinating journey into the very current and fast growing world of B2B SME marketplaces and how customer obsessions is at the heart of everything that Ula do. We hear how this incredibly fast growing start up managed to grow throughout the covid pandemic and hear what is in store in the near future. Please find below the episode summary: 01:23 - welcome & backstory 07:23 - How Ula Started 10.18 - Learnings from Amazon - Customer Centricity & engaging around a mission 14:08 - Solving customer challenges 16:33 - Ula.app - Problem Statement 23.09 - On raising Series A 26.29 - On rapid scaling 31.38 - What's next for Ula 36.13 - Challenges of growing a tech team in Asia 41.30 - On managing distributed teams and opinions on the future of workspaces 50.27 - Alan's top tips on growing a business & closing thoughts 55.28 - Quickfire question round

This week, True Partner and MENA lead, Nathalie Spree and I are delighted to welcome Yi Wei Ang, the Chief Product Officer at Talabat to the show. During this incredibly informative deep dive into Product management we cover what product management actually is, how to get into product management, how to hire product managers and what a lot of businesses get wrong when hiring product managers. Please find below the episode summary: 01:15 - Welcome 2:44 - Yi Wei's journey into Product Management 11:45 - What is Product Management 18:05 - What are the key skills needed in Product Management 23:09 - How to get into Product Management 27:53 - Considerations on Hiring a Product Management Leader 40:28 - How PMs can gain buy in & build trust 42:24 - Yi Wei's key considerations, advice & predictions 49:00 - What needs to change in Product Management 50:45 - The future of Product Management 52:16 - Overview of the state of eCommerce in MENA 57:29 - Quickfire question round with both Yi Wei & Nathalie Reading List - Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love | Marty Cagan

This week on Emerging Markets Growth leaders I am thrilled to welcome CEO & Cofounder of Lucy, Debbie Watkins. Debbie joins me to share her experiences in the early days of micro finance and social enterprise in SE Asia. We discuss how Microfinance is impacting developing societies, some of the dangers for users and also talk through the underrepresentation and lack of support for female entrepreneurs in financial services. We then discuss how Lucy will go about addressing this gap, before finishing with the quick fire question round. Please find below the episode summary: 1:24 - Welcome 3:12 - Debbies first trip to SE Asia 6:29 - Setting up social enterprises in Cambodia 13:59 - The evolution of microfinance in SE Asia 16:41 - The dark side of microfinance & digital loan sharks 22:00 - The role of responsible businesses 23:32 - About the creation of Lucy 29:10 - Research into female owned businesses & access to finance 31:28 - What will Lucy do and how can it help? 50:15 - Quickfire Questions

This week, we are delighted to welcome Akshay Chopra, Head of Innovation & Product Design at Visa, CEMEA. Based in Dubai, Akshay covers the CEMEA Region, which comprises over 90 distinct markets in Central Europe, Middle East & Africa. Akshay joins us to share his unique and fascinating insights of payments and innovation across these regions, with a focus on the Middle East. Please find below the episode summary: 1:16 - Welcome & how have you been? 3:36 - Akshay's role at Visa 9:10 - Design thinking principles & innovation labs 13:30 - Initial Impressions of the Middle East 17:33 - Exciting advances in the Middle East 22:56 - Russia, Central Europe & Africa - leaders in innovation 21:43 - Visa Innovation Department 32:28 - Fintech in the Middle East 36:03 - What we can look forward to? 40.48 - Quickfire question round

This week, we have an end of year bumper special with Ditesh Gathani, Head of Engineering from Grab. Ditesh joined Grab as one of the first few engineers back when it was called MyTeksi. He has grown with the business into a member of the senior leadership team and has run hundreds of technical staff across the core business lines of Grab, more recently heading up the Grab Financials engineering business. Ditesh generously shares a wealth of learnings, insights and some brilliant anecdotes in how they solved market first scale problems whilst growing one of Asia's most successful technology companies. He also gives his views on the exciting future that technology will help bring about during a fun and very informative quick fire question round. Please find below the episode summary: 01:41 - Welcome - year in review & coping with COVID 09:51 - The early days & getting into computer science 11.16 - Applying data management principles to organisation management 19:21 - AirAsia 25:07 - Ditesh's journey with Grab 31.56 - Grabs amazing growth 38:17 - How to maintain the vision & mission through growth 44:20 - Advice on growing and scaling a large organisation 48:51 - Building a great team and hiring team players 53:57 - Technical challenges of growth at Grab 1.04:52 - Best Practice vs Best Fit - Opinion vs Data 1.11:16 - Future of Grab & the Digibank 1.17:06 - Quick Fire Question Round

This week, in a special international collaborative episode of Southeast Asias growth leaders we welcome Joydeep Sarkar, the Chief Analytics officer of the Singapore & US headquartered mental health research and technology company Holmusk. Joydeep brings his wealth of experience in analytics in healthcare to share with us insights on the groundbreaking advances that Holmusk are making in this field. We discuss how research coupled with the latest technology and data availability is bringing to light new understanding of mental health. We also discuss the incredibly exciting future of healthcare and how the use of technologies such as NLP and Computer vision will revolutionise the industry. In this special edition I am equally delighted to welcome True Partner and Co-lead of the global healthcare practice Jacob Sack who joins the show as a Co Host.

This week we welcome Lana Duong, a VP of SE Asia headquartered early stage VC investor Openspace Ventures and holder of the prestigious accolade of Forbes 30 under 30 for Vietnam. Lana shares her fascinating journey from Investment banking into the VC world, we take a deep dive on what investors look for in a startup, and provide advice to founders on what the venture community really look for in early stage companies. We also take a whistle stop tour around SE Asia before discussing her attainment of the forbes award and the exciting market that is her home country of Vietnam.

This week we welcome Sam Hall, APAC CEO of Venture Builder Rainmaking. With a strong background in startups, growth and venture building in the corporate world, including founding and working with a number of startups and playing the role of Managing Director for the accelerator Startup bootcamp, Sam joins us to discuss the role that Venture builders like Rainmaking play in the corporate world, the challenges that large companies face in innovating, and the role that corporates can play in disrupting the startup world.

This week we welcome Hal Bosher to the show. Hal is the Chairman of Board of Wave Money in Myanmar, an Advisor to the Board of Yoma Bank and a Board Director of Delta Capital Myanmar, the countries largest private equity fund. Hal was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Yoma Bank until September 2019 where he led Yoma Bank's transformation for seven years after moving to Yangon in 2012. While at Yoma Bank Hal co-founded Wave Money, Myanmar's largest mobile money provider, which, in the spring of 2020, welcomed Ant Financial into its shareholding in a deal worth 73.5m USD. A Canadian national, with a decade across various organisations within the World bank, Hal joins me for a fascinating deep dive into the financial services ecosystem of Myanmar and the role that cars full of cash play in the Myanmar domestic remittance business. He also shares his insights on the importance of culturally sensitivity, listening and the key attributes required to be successful moving into a new market.

This week we welcome Adrian Gunadi to the show. Adrian is the CEO of Indonesian fintech startup Investree and is also the Chairman for the Fintech Lending Association of Indonesia. After an 18 year career in foreign and local banking, with organisations including Citi, Standard Chartered and PT Bank Muamalat Indonesia, he embarked on his entrepreneurial journey and launched Investree. During this insightful session we detail his journey of growth with Investree, covering the social impact that Investree have had on the Indonesian market. We continue to explore SE Asia regional fintech story, the role of the regulators and the future of the region. We discuss the similarities between launching a business and running a marathon, and finish with the now world famous Quickfire question round.

This week we welcome Norman Sason to the show. Norman is the CTO of Mobile Payments platform Dana Indonesia. Norman brings 20 years of experience from boot strapping a startup, to working in one of the worlds largest technology companies, to now running the huge technical organization powering Dana.id. During this session we detail his journey from his background in Physics & Mathematics through to a dive into the technical challenges of growing a business to 40m users whilst also growing the technical team from 100-350 people. We cover regulations, security, leadership, grit, resilience and the StarFleet academy in this fascinating view into one of the worlds fastest growing countries and sectors.

This week we welcome Sathya Kalyanasundaram to the show. Sathya is the India Country Head and Managing Director for Experian, the world's leading global information services company. He joins us for a special episode taking a deep dive into the current themes surrounding fintech in India, from the regulators to the banks and through to the early stage disruptors. Sathya brings with him over 20 years of experience from Consulting, Finance and FinTech leadership roles. In his current role, he is responsible for driving growth of the overall India operations of Experian by leveraging their global strength in creating industry leading solutions around Decision Analytics, Credit Services, Data Quality and Consumer Services. Sathya was conferred the ‘Business Excellence by a CEO' in 2017. He is an inductee of the CFO Institute's League of Excellence, and is a multi-year winner of the CFO Institute's CFO of the Year. A frequent contributor to business publications magazines; Sathya is a regular speaker at conferences, educational institutions and discussions in India and abroad.

We welcome Axel Winter to the show. Axel is the CTO of Thai giant Central Group, where he has been responsible for the growth and development of their global industry leading eCommerce and Omnichannel offerings. He has extensive experience in SE Asia and Europe in consulting, banking and eCommerce, having worked for Deloitte, Accenture, GE and Standard Chartered Bank. Now leading a 250 person organisation, which he grew from scratch as employee #1, Axel joins us for a fun and insightful session on his journey to joining the Central group and the future of retail in a world of eCommerce.

In part 2 of this 2 episode, we welcome back our guests Ollie Wood (Head of Talent, Golden Gate Ventures), Christiaan Ballard (Talent Acquistion Manager, B Capital Group) and Rachel Ng (Chief of Staff, Wavemaker Partners). In Part 1 we discussed the common themes encountered by businesses going through growth, including struggles of hiring the right people. Part 2 builds on this to cover incorporating diversity into the DNA of a business and gives some key summaries of what founders should really take seriously from a talent perspective from day 1. Ollie Wood | Golden Gate Ventures Ollie is Head of Talent at Golden Gate Ventures and supports GGV's portfolio Founders and Companies across the South East Asia region. He identifies, networks and advises some of the best talent across the globe on their behalf, before making senior level introductions. Christiaan Ballard | B Capital Group Christiaan is a Talent Acquisition Manager at B Capital Group, based in Singapore. She partners with APAC & India portfolio companies to drive strategic talent and hiring initiatives as they scale. Prior to joining B Capital, Christiaan led HubSpot's APAC Recruiting team. During her time there HubSpot grew from early stages through IPO and she understands the critical role that talent acquisition plays in the success of a business. Rachel Ng | Wavemaker Partners Rachel is Chief of Staff at Wavemaker Partners. Wavemaker Partners is Southeast Asia's leading early-stage venture capital firm investing in enterprise and deep tech companies. Dual-headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore, Wavemaker is the regional partner for Southern California and Southeast Asia of the Draper Venture Network (DVN), the world's leading VC collective comprising 10 firms across 5 continents.

Across this 2 episode bumper edition on SE Asia Growth leaders with True we welcome 3 leading lights in the VC talent & organisation space: Ollie Wood (Head of Talent, Golden Gate Ventures), Christiaan Ballard (Talent Acquistion Manager, B Capital Group) and Rachel Ng (Chief of Staff, Wavemaker Partners). In Part 1 we discuss the common themes encountered by businesses going through growth, including struggles of hiring the right people. Part 2 covers how to build diversity into the DNA of a business and gives some key summaries of what founders should really take seriously from a talent perspective from day 1. Ollie Wood | Golden Gate Ventures Ollie is Head of Talent at Golden Gate Ventures and supports GGV's portfolio Founders and Companies across the South East Asia region. He identifies, networks and advises some of the best talent across the globe on their behalf, before making senior level introductions. Christiaan Ballard | B Capital Group Christiaan is a Talent Acquisition Manager at B Capital Group, based in Singapore. She partners with APAC & India portfolio companies to drive strategic talent and hiring initiatives as they scale. Prior to joining B Capital, Christiaan led HubSpot's APAC Recruiting team. During her time there HubSpot grew from early stages through IPO and she understands the critical role that talent acquisition plays in the success of a business. Rachel Ng | Wavemaker Partners Rachel is Chief of Staff at Wavemaker Partners. Wavemaker Partners is Southeast Asia's leading early-stage venture capital firm investing in enterprise and deep tech companies. Dual-headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore, Wavemaker is the regional partner for Southern California and Southeast Asia of the Draper Venture Network (DVN), the world's leading VC collective comprising 10 firms across 5 continents.

We welcome Michele Ferrario, CEO and Cofounder of Singapore based Robo-Advisory Stashaway. In this episode we talk about his fascinating journey from top 3 management consultancy, through PE into Consumer internet businesses. Michele is responsible for the launch and growth of such businesses as Rocket Internet in Italy, Pakistan eCommerce giant Daraz, SEA Fashion e-retailer Zalora and his most recent venture: Stashaway. We cover the importance of people, setting the right culture early on, setting a clear vision for a company at the earliest stages and the stresses of fundraising.

We welcome Sudh Ahuja from enterprise recruitment disruptor Impress.ai. In this episode we cover challenges and experiences of growing a tech start up in Singapore, plus gain some fascinating insights into the use of AI in the enterprise recruitment and onboarding space. We get Sudh's views on the importance of leadership values, as well as talk about how to make the onboarding process more objective and competency based.