In the fifth episode of Gen.T's Crazy Smart Asia podcast, Airwallex co-founder Lucy Liu talks sticking to your vision and why people still don’t believe she’s a tech founder
Like most successful startup stories, Lucy Liu’s fintech company Airwallex was created to solve a problem.
In this case, Lucy’s friends and eventual co-founders, Jack Zhang and Max Li, realised that high foreign exchange rates were damaging the profit margins of a small café they ran in Melbourne back in 2015.
The idea was simple enough—to use technology to make B2B cross-border payments simpler and cheaper. The execution? Not so straightforward.
But they made it happen. And in just a few years, the team went from café owners to the founders of a fintech giant with the potential to disrupt the global financial system.
See also: 5 Women Entrepreneurs You Need To Know In China
Airwallex's meteoric ascent has put Liu firmly in the spotlight, with the startup reaching unicorn status when she was just 28. The media are keen to paint her as a "female" fintech founder or a "young" unicorn founder. And while she admits that she's a "rare species", Liu eschews this characterisation, focusing on her work while quietly disproving the stereotypes .
In this fifth episode of Crazy Smart Asia, which chronicles the unexpected stories of Asia's disruptors, Liu talks to Gen.T editor Lee Williamson about vision, prejudice and values.
Here are a few excerpts from the conversation. Click the audio player below to listen to the episode or subscribe via Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.
On age as a perceived barrier
"Jack [Zhang] used to tell me I need to look more mature. I'm like, ‘Jack, this is just how I look. I can put on make-up, I can dress more formally, but I'm still going to look like I'm in my mid-20s.'"