Raising the stakes in finance | Jed Rose, Airwallex

Searching for Mana with Lloyd Wahed

The future of finance is here as Airwallex’ Jed Rose sits down with Lloyd to discuss how he plans to expand the UK operations of this $2.6B valued fintech unicorn.

After starting his career in product at Microsoft in the 2000s, Jed moved into finance leading Paymentsense, and into the venture capital sphere with Antler. Since 2020, he joined Airwallex as EMEA GM with huge ambitions to grow the company’s London presence this year - aiming to double the headcount in just a few months and grow the team by over 500% by the end of the year. Following the recent $100M at its Series D funding round, raising a total of $500M in capital from investors including Seqouia Capital, Salesforce Ventures, and Horizons Ventures, Airwallex is now valued at $2.6B. In 2018, it has knocked back $1B offer from Stripe.

In this in-depth conversation, Jed tells us all insights and experience Jed has gained as an investor and former CEO, currently serving as a Venture Partner for Antler, and how this has provided him with key insights into startup lessons, failures and how to approach growth; what are the challenges of building Airwallex’s infrastructure in a market at a different stage of growth compared to its presence in Australia and China, and what lessons can be learnt from this.

Plus, Jed lets us in on how is it to study the BA major at Stanford, which produced the likes of Reid Hoffman, Marissa Mayer or Mike Krieger, and training for improv theatre that led to performing at the Fringe Edinburgh Festival.

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Books recommended by Jed:

Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation: AmazonSmile: Halpern: Books

Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up eBook: Madson, Patricia Ryan: AmazonSmile: Kindle Store

Episode Highlights:

02:10: Airwallex raising $100m reaching a $2.6B valuation

13:45: How to leverage the global team and remote hiring

19:00: Techie at heart, and experience at Stanford University BA Symbolic Systems

25:00: How to apply agile thinking mindset in other processes?

28:00: Product at Microsoft in the mid-2000, and Bill Gates’ writing team experience

30:50: Cambridge University and fintech experience

33:25: Venture Capitalist experience and career with impact

36:16: Improv theatre as 🧠 muscle training

39:00: What the future of finance looks like as lockdown measures start to ease and why the market is more prime than ever for disruption

42:25: Jed’s mana