The business has grown on the back of massive fundraising + the opportunities in China which have been well-captured but it has reached an inflection point.
To scale, to capture and grow talent and to list successfully - all of these are challenges that are the biggest for the business & the current leadership team are not fit to address.
A good way to summarize the sentiment above is that majority of the senior leaders/managers would not qualify or be successful in similar roles in other fast-growing companies.
As such, these senior individuals are neither capable of building teams and functions to deliver on their goals - you'll see that high turnover is a recurring theme because Airwallex turns strong performers into questionable hires.
To my original point (lipstick on a pig), the senior management team are aggressively hiring expensive and renowned talent from Tier 1 tech organizations, MBB consulting and very shiny schools - to provide the credibility and sheen required to push the business into the next phase. But it is clear that based on the foundation the business is built on, no number of MBAs or FAANG hires can change Airwallex's DNA.
Worth noting that it's the lipstick hires who are getting plenty of resourcing and visibility so if you'll be a lipstick hire - make the most of it.
Be wary though, stay long enough and the lipstick will become part of the pig.
