Jack Zhang: Co-Founder & CEO, Airwallex

Jack Zhang is the Co-founder and CEO of Airwallex, last valued at $5.6B. Airwallex is a leading global financial platform for modern businesses, offering trusted solutions to manage everything from payments, treasury, and spend management to embedded finance, serving over 100,000 companies around the world.

Jack is responsible for devising and implementing the overall strategic vision of the company. Under his leadership, Airwallex has raised over US$900 million in funding, supported by top-tier investors including Lone Pine Capital, Greenoaks Capital, Salesforce Ventures and DST Global, Sequoia, Tencent and SquarePeg. Prior to starting Airwallex, Jack had over a decade of experience in foreign exchange trading and investment banking across London, Melbourne and Hong Kong, including start various entrepreneurial pursuits including import and export businesses, cafes and more.

Jack was born in Shandong, China and then moved to Melbourne, Australia when he was 15. He now spends his time mostly between New York and London.

It’s now time to explore your curiosity.

Our guest this week is Jack Zhang, in this episode 157.

Jack Zhang is the Co-founder and CEO of Airwallex, last valued at $5.6B. Airwallex is a leading global financial platform for modern businesses, offering trusted solutions to manage everything from payments, treasury, and spend management to embedded finance, serving over 100,000 companies around the world.

Jack is responsible for devising and implementing the overall strategic vision of the company. Under his leadership, Airwallex has raised over US$900 million in funding, supported by top-tier investors including Lone Pine Capital, Greenoaks Capital, Salesforce Ventures and DST Global, Sequoia, Tencent and SquarePeg. Prior to starting Airwallex, Jack had over a decade of experience in foreign exchange trading and investment banking across London, Melbourne and Hong Kong, including start various entrepreneurial pursuits including import and export businesses, cafes and more.

Jack was born in Shandong, China and then moved to Melbourne, Australia when he was 15. He now spends his time mostly between New York and London.

In this conversation, learn about Jack’s sunrise in China, a very different country to what it is today and the influences of the environment and family — both his parents working in the banking sector with his dad being “sort of successful” as Jack describes and very middle class. Jack candidly reflects on moving to Melbourne, Australia when he was only 15 with next to no English skills, how he figured out life in a new culture working in bars and petrol stations to then starting over 10 different businesses which made him more money than his full time jobs post university at well known corporates.

Fascinating aspects our host, Vidit Agarwal enjoyed unpacking with Jack include:

• When did he know he could go all in to building Airwallex and the connection to a retail franchise coffee idea
• Balancing his introvert and extrovertness
• We talk about Building a Retail franchise and inspiration from Asia, and how raising VC funding in China and Asia is highly profitable
• Story behind birth of Airwallex in 2015, and what specifically gave him the belief he could build this vision into a company
• The desire to make his daughter proud and how that drives him
• We unpack various aspects of the Airwallex story not started before including: The disasters of the first 12 to 18 months building Airwallex and Re-inventing the product 3 times
• Team building and people leadership: How to know when you’ve hired the wrong person, questions he asks senior leaders who join Airwallex
  

Vidit asked Jack about how he de-stresses as a founder, experiencing panic attacks, learnings from other successful founders he’s met, Airwallex’s recent partnership with the F1 team McLaren, why he choose to fund international student scholarships and starting his fund, capital 49.

Listen through to the end to hear about Taylor Swift, Golf and more.

It’s now time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy!

06:12 Jack's Journey from China to Australia

12:18 Studying Computer Science and Engineering at University

13:02 Struggles with English and adjusting to a new culture

16:02 Starting 10 businesses before Airwallex

17:22 Building a Retail franchise and inspiration from Asia

18:57 Story behind birth of Airwallex in 2015

23:00 The disasters of the first 12 to 18 months building Airwallex

28:28 Building a Global Payments Platform

31:30 The Importance of Hiring the Right Team

33:41 Recognising and Learning from Hiring Mistakes

35:24 The Art of Interviewing Potential Team Members

39:25 Ensuring the team evolves with a company’s growth path

41:56 Dealing with stress and anxiety as a founder

46:30 - Parenting and Asian culture

49:02 Learnings from other successful founders

50:30 How should investors work with founders?

51:02 Building Brand through Strategic Partnerships

52:40 Investing in the Future: Capital 49 and student scholarships

53:24 - Final Sprint rapid fire questions

The High Flyers Podcast is a "meticulously researched audio biography" that uncovers the untold stories of remarkable people and companies—redefining what it means to be a high flyer. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the global top ten for past two years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200 episodes released. A flagship product of the Curiosity Center, it has been featured in Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW, offering raw, relatable insights from childhood to career, helping listeners become 1% better every day.

200+ guests have joined Vidit Agarwal on the show from 15+ countries, including The CEO's of multi-billion dollar companies like Bunnings, Australia Post, Woolworths; Board Members at Macquarie Bank, ANZ, Reserve Bank; Former Prime Minister of Australia; Globally renowned tech leaders from Google, Microsoft, Xero; Successful Venture Capital and Family Office Investors; CIO's at the world's biggest superannuation funds; Leading Entertainers; Olympic Gold Medal Winning Athletes and interesting minds you wouldn't have heard of that are changing the world.

Our parent company, Curiosity Centre is your on-demand intelligence hub for knowledge, connections and growth to achieve your potential, everyday. Join 200,000+ Investors, Founders, Functional Leaders, CEOs and Emerging Leaders. Learn with the world's best and be 1% better everyday at https://curiositycentre.com