Leadership in the Age of Purpose QANTAS_AGSM_FINAL | Page 4

BROUGHT TO YOU BY AGSM @ UNSW BUSINESS SCHOOL
NEW LEADERSHIP IN ACTION
The MBA delivered. “Having only ever worked in mature
organisations, one of the most eye-opening parts of the MBA for
me was understanding the organisational life cycle. It was really
useful to gain insight into building a neobank from scratch.
Going into a space of uncertainty is something I wouldn’t have
known how to approach without the structured thinking and
frameworks I got from my MBA.”
Van Le
In 2016, she co-founded Xinja Bank, a neobank operating
executive board director,
with a restricted banking licence with prepaid debit cards as it
co-founder and chief
works towards its full licence for bank accounts and lending
strategy, design and
services. “Banking has become very transactional,” says Le of
innovation officer,
the problem addressed with Xinja Bank’s app. “The local bank
Xinja Bank
manager was once a pillar of the community and yet that’s been
lost; we want to leverage technology to bring that humanity
back to banking.”
As well as being convenient and useful on a daily basis, Xinja
Bank also aims to be educational. “We looked at research into
financial literacy and capability across Australia and saw, for
example, that a third of families couldn’t find $500 in an
n the first decade of her career, Van Le garnered more
emergency. We spent a lot of time talking to customers about
experience than many manage in a lifetime. With degrees
money and we heard stories like a single mother having to
in law and economics, she started with the Australian
choose between paying the car insurance and being able to
Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). “Superannuation
afford dresses for her girls for the school disco that week.”
reform was coming through so it was a fantastic introduction
Le and the Xinja Bank team aim to boost
to what it looks like to change things at an
the banking experience with data to inform
industry-wide level,” she says. “I got great
customer decisions, “showing them what their
insight into how the public service works
“One of the most
financial future looks like in X years if they
in a very regulated environment.”
keep spending and saving in the way that they
Stints at Vodafone and Optus “gave me
eye-opening
are today,” she explains. “Are they okay with
exposure to different functional disciplines
parts of the
that or would they like some alternative
and consumer segments, retail products and
MBA for me was
pathways? We’ll give customers the ability to
services and B2B. I then went into
understanding
explore choose-your-own-adventure stories
organisational change and transformation
the organisational
for different financial futures, should they
roles in other companies, looking at what
life cycle. It was
want to make changes.”
it takes to turn an organisation inside out
really useful
Xinja Bank is “being designed hand in
and to prepare it for the future.”
to gain insight
hand with our customers and we are both for
Along the way, “I started my MBA, had my
into building a
profit and for purpose,” says Le. “Our product
daughter and then my son and then finished
neobank from
road map is about being responsive to the
my MBA. I’m easily bored or a sucker for
scratch.”
unmet and future needs of customers, to
punishment, whichever way you’d like to
create the most value.”
look at it,” jokes Le.
Le’s AGSM MBA underpins her fundamental
The drive to do the MBA at AGSM – she
approach to her mission. “The real challenge is around
graduated with distinction in 2012 – was threefold. “I wanted
balancing what’s right for customers, what’s right for
new connections – I was finding it difficult to meet other
shareholders and what’s right for communities,” she says. “In the
people professionally who were interested in changing the
long term, all of these interests converge but they don’t when a
world and doing things differently. I knew that at some point
short-term view is taken. We’re too often caught in the short
I would love to run a business or a business unit and there
term. In politics, the dominant time frame is the term of office.
were information gaps for me there so I wanted to get a
In fashion and culture, it’s the season. For fund managers and
more strategic view of how to consider any business.”
corporates, it’s quarterly earnings. On the internet, it’s minutes
and in the financial markets, it’s milliseconds. As you start to
look from quarters to years to decades and beyond lifetimes,
agsm.edu.au/mba
interests converge. Part of the leadership challenge is to create
the narrative across all these time frames.” For Le, it’s also
about empowering customers to create their own narratives
between current and future financial needs.
Building a human-
centred neobank
I