Transcription
[Music] Welcome back to our podcast, Inspirational Journeys of the Best Minds. I'm your host, Ria, and in this episode, we're delighted to have Cat Russ joining us. She's not only a seasoned expert in harnessing the power of technology to catalyze transformative change, but also a vocal champion for women in the tech industry. With a remarkable career spanning the launch of eight digital companies and her previous role as the global head of Technology at Standard Chartered Bank, Cat currently holds the position of Chief Revenue Officer at Screening Eagle Technologies and strategic adviser at Valentic. Her contributions have earned her the recognition to be one of the top 100 women in fintech and one of the top 25 women leaders in the Hong Kong fintech scene. Today, we're set to explore Cat's unique insights into enterprise transformation, talking about her experiences in entrepreneurship as well as being a seasoned corporate leader. Cat's career is a testament to the belief that taking risks in a rapidly changing world definitely pays off. Welcome to the podcast, Cat. It's a pleasure to be speaking to you today.
Hi Ria, great thanks for inviting me along. It's it's flattering to be considered a good mind. Um, so I'd like to start from the very beginning, Cat. So in terms of your childhood, could you walk us through what that was like? And I believe you have a pretty long-standing relationship with Hong Kong and how you grew up, so if you want to shed some light on that.
Yeah, sure. Um, I um I was born in Hong Kong, um and in fact, as was my husband, and my kids were all born there as well. Um, so Hong Kong is very much has always been home. Um, having said that, I was I say banished um to boarding school, um just because my parents felt at the time that they they wanted to give me some exposure to the UK. So I went to the UK for um a few years for boarding school, um and then um off to university in Scotland, and then um working from there. Uh, but growing up in Hong Kong was just an amazing experience. I mean, as you know, it's it's just an incredibly vibrant city. Uh, anything's possible, people have a very gung-ho attitude, it's incredibly international, um and I think that that colored a lot of who I am. Um, you know, there's a great story about um uh a person being interviewed and uh he he was asked um, you know, why did you choose to be a lawyer? And he said, well, with my—and his father was a criminal—and he said, with my father, what choice did I have? Um, then they spoke to his brother who was a convict, and he said, with my father, what choice did I have? And I feel with Hong Kong, it's one of those—it's a similar sort of situation in terms of I feel having grown up on a little island, um being international—well, what choice did I have? But having said that, there are a number of people in Hong Kong who think very, very local, and you can see it in a lot of the businesses that are grown locally. Well, what choice did I have but to be local because we're an island? Whereas I felt that the world was your oyster because you weren't constrained by, you know, there are 300 million people, and and the world is here, you know. Um, I'll never explore the the areas. I think that Hong Kong gave you that—gave me that attitude. What choice did I have? And what was it like, you know, what did you want to be growing up? Is did you have a profession in mind that you know, or how did you get into banking? Was that always something that you wanted to do, or in technology?
No, no, no, not at all. Um, I actually wanted to be a scientist. I—oh wow—wanted a white coat, working in a lab. And in retrospect, I have no idea why I thought that was a good idea because it's not my personality at all to be sitting in in a lab um and working on things. So when I got to about 14 or something like that, I was incredibly unsure about which direction I wanted to go, and so my parents actually got someone, you know, they did one of these personality tests or career tests, and um said you should be in business, and I was like, no way, totally wrong. Um, so I did Sciences—um, you know, maths, economics, biology, and chemistry at A-level. I'm totally messed it up, completely fluffed it, and so had to retake, which actually was uh a very good thing, uh because it forced me to decide is that what I wanted to do? Because in fact, by then I'd met some—um somebody over dinner who had said, look, I've—and he ran a very large real estate company—and he's like, you know, if you want to come and do real estate, I've got a job for you today. You don't—your A-levels are irrelevant. And I—so it forced me to sit down and think, well, what did I want? And I decided actually, no, that was the direction I wanted to go in and actually proved to myself I wasn't as dim as I—my A-levels might have indicated. Um, so um retook those and then um uh was still thinking, you know, still not sure. In fact, you know, in the UK they do this thing called the milk round, which is where the big companies go and visit the universities—that you know, the top universities—and I by chance have been lucky enough to to get into um St Andrews, had a great time, wonderful university, um and so they would visit, and so I, you know, applied for BP, Shell, ICI, Unilever, PNG. Anyway, was very lucky and got a lot of offers, um and in fact, with one of them they offered me both an accounting job and a marketing job because I didn't know—I still didn't know which one I wanted to take. Um, and so I think it for me it's really been more about taking opportunities as they arise as opposed to um having a career plan. And I know it's it's funny, I've been on stage with people before who've gone sort of junior, medium, senior, medium, junior, senior, senior, um and it's that's their thing, and and they've known what they want—what their children will be called from the age of about 14, um what age they're going to get married, things like that—and that's very not my style. And my style is very much more about what's the opportunity in front of me, what will I learn out of it, what will I get out of it, does it make sense, can I really deliver value in the way that they hope, um and and give it a go. So that's that's sort of been more my career, so it has shifted uh many times. So the first job um I took was with a chemical company as a junior product manager. Um, after nine months I was moved to a business publicity manager, um and then thought I don't think this is really my thing, so I was offered a job in Hong Kong as a head hunter, um and very soon after I arrived I met um the guy who would be my next boss, and he was setting up a fast food company in China, and I thought it just sounded amazing. So he sent me off to do process engineering in the states, and then when I came back I um helped set up his uh first factory, um and then set up um his some of his other factories. I then ran the amusement park division, so I was setting up amusement parks in five different cities in China, um so it was 17 restaurants, a warehouse, and um a factory per city. Um, then I ran the company, um and then decided it was time to move back to Hong Kong. Um, so moved back to Hong Kong, and then somebody said, well, actually we're looking for someone to set up the operations of an internet company. It was one of the top five internet consulting firms, and again I knew nothing about the internet at the time. I moved back to Hong Kong, in China we had—you would press—it would take a minute to load a page, so of course you press the wrong page, you had to go back, um and it was it was a nightmare, it was so slow. So, um, but I thought, what the hell, why not? Um, so went in and was the uh COO um for them. Um, so we had to get 200 people in the first six months. Um, I then decided to have—I had my first child, and when I went back they wanted me to work longer hours, take the same role, and I had agreed before—before I left—I would take a more junior role so that I could, you know, manage the two, so it seemed the right time to try my my own company. So I set up my first company, which was a a consulting—an internet consulting firm. Um, then I uh grew that quite nicely, and then um had three more children, um set up seven more companies: an ad network in China, email marketing company, mobile magazine—a magazine on mobile—a developer network with over 30,000 mobile developers, um a matching platform for investors and startups, uh SaaS platform for Fortune 500s to manage 500 mobile applications at a time, and things like that. So again, these came out of conversations or things that were happening. My husband's also very, very visionary, so a lot of the ideas came from him. Um, and then um Stefan actually joined me um full-time to work together, um which was a a an interesting experience. Um, it was very good sort of in the middle years um because we taught each other so much because our view of the world was so different, but then we realized we overlapped so much, so it wasn't um that good, and it wasn't—it wasn't fun working with my husband. So when I left to set up my next company, um uh I was talking to various people as potential clients, and they um some of them offered me jobs, right? And that's how I actually got into banking. Um, I thought Amy was very impressive. She runs Asia for UBS, and she had um a vision that she wanted to really—just to really change the bank with technology, but not—she didn't have a clear prescriptive way of doing it, so I knew there would be a lot of um space in order to actually uh to to develop what needed to happen for the bank, and um she gave a huge amount of air cover. We were able to just go where we found traction and ignore where we didn't. Um, so that was that was amazing. Um, and then so that was a wonderful three years, and then Covid hit, and things got much, much slower, and then I was offered the job as Global head of Tech for Standard Chartered—again, completely not something I'd done. I mean, I had to be licensed in in my um insecurities and corporate finance, and uh you know, everyone else in the room is about 25, Asian, wearing their Harvard sweatshirts, and they're looking at me like, think you're in the wrong place, lady. So, but anyway, so that was much more on the sort of investment banking um side. Um, and then for personal reasons decided to leave Hong Kong, and uh then was offered a job with uh a company using AI, AR, GPR, penetrating radar, etc., to check structural health of buildings, tunnels, dams, things like that. So anyway, as you can see, it's a very sort of nonlinear U-route, um and each time it's been a case of what's the—what's—why would I do it, what's the upside, what's the downside, what's the—what's the risk? And many times the risk is just you don't like the job, and you got to move on.
And so what a trend—like what a career journey across all different spheres you can think of—industries, regions.
Yes, different industries, different regions. Yeah, because a lot of those companies weren't in Hong Kong, they were actually in the US or in Europe, which again, each time you're setting something up, you think you sort of know how to set up a company, and then you move country and you're like, oh no, it's not the same, you know, from the accounting and the tax or the—yeah, hiring people, people and contracts. So having been in a corporate, you know, working style compared to entrepreneurship, what are the learnings? What do you prefer? What do you—what was it, you know, what—what have you learned from the different working environments?
Um, I think that the key thing for me is always—that there are two things I look for: one is uh do I like the people, right? It's a real one of those sort of no-asshole rule, um and uh if I like that—you spend so much time with these people—if you don't like them, there's really no point um spending your time there. Um, and the second one is can you make an impact, right? So if if um, you know, recently I was uh offered a a job that um the the the guy in charge is is incredibly visionary and etc., but he's a real uh micromanager, um and I just did not want to go there, right? Because it's like you don't—you don't hire me um if you're going to micromanage me, right? Um, so again, I think those are the things is really—knowing—knowing what you want and and those are your your key tenants. So I think making an impact and being part of a great team I think are huge. And having been in different roles, different positions, you know, I'm sure leadership, you know, has come—been an integral part. So what type of people have you looked up to throughout your journey, and how—what do you consider as your leadership style when you um lead your team?
I think that um when I think back to the bosses I've had, which haven't been very many because obviously I've worked for myself for so long, but from each of them I've really been incredibly lucky. Um, so my first boss was a guy called Julian, and he had a great sense of humor, right? And so even when things were were not looking at their best, he he always had a great sense of humor, he was very fair, um and very straightforward, um and would always also have—have you back. I did something really stupid in my first—my first job. Uh, we had to send—at the time—telexes, right? So you had to send—we had two big clients um that were major competitors of each other, and we were selling a product called sodium perborate, which was basically washing powder, and each of them wanted to know for each of their um sites how much we were shipping to each one um on a on a monthly basis or weekly, I whatever, on a regular basis. So every however long I would send a telex to one company and then send the telex to the other. Of course, what did I do? I sent the wrong telex to the wrong company and panicked. So I was like, send it back, delete it, delete it, can you delete it, can you delete it? So I sent like 20 emails trying to get them to stop it, which of course made them know that they had their competitor's data, right? And so um when the sales guy went in—so I had to tell my boss—and he told the sales guy who had insisted I was fired—um, you know, immediately had to be out—and he told—covered my ass, made sure that no, this is just—it's a stupid mistake, you know, um and it does mean I'm very careful when I send emails nowadays. To this day, I think it's burned in my brain as one of the most humiliating experiences. So I actually missed your question. I I didn't answer your question fully on the large company versus the startup and which I prefer. Um, I think tying it back to what I'd said before about the team, um if you're in a good company um you—the team has the ability to impact, so it doesn't really matter if you're a large company or a small company. The question is whether your team has the power and the the authority to actually drive change. Um, bureaucracy, you know, because obviously if if in in some companies what their big thing is to say, look, if we automate things and we really created—is a very simple thing—people know exactly how to do it, right? And then people just become a cog in the machine, which is quite an old-fashioned view of of management, um and while it works for many reasons—so for governance reasons, control reasons, efficiency reasons—it isn't always the best way to do things. It's just the way that's accepted. Um, and my view is always you should break those things. In fact, at UBS was trying to get a new way of doing it, which is if you change jobs, when you arrive to your new job, your first job for the two of you for months should be how to break the old job, right? So that you really work on how could we do this better, right? So in addition to teaching you, it would really be trying to to disrupt that because people just get very bogged down in, well, this is how we do it—well, who cares, right? Why is—is there a better way? Um, so I think if you have the authority and and a fun team, then go for it. Um, so I think in UBS I had uh the authority to really make uh change, so that was why UBS was a lot of fun uh because because Amy let me do that. Um, and uh but also in your own startup, again, it's great fun, it's a lot of stress um running your own startup, and I think a lot of people don't really understand um what a startup is. It's very funny when you've done both and somebody in a big company says, oh, it's so stressful, or oh, it's—I work so hard. It's like, look, if you've been in a startup, you understand actually how hard people in startups have to work. Um, and I'm talking about startups, you know, because a lot of people when they talk about entrepreneurs they'll say, you know, the lawyer who works on their own or the consultant who works on their own. Obviously there's stress of of hunting and killing—you know, hunting and farming—your two different types of—you know, you've got to find clients and then you've got to actually execute the projects or whatever. However you are—it's a skill you know very well—it's where you are in your happy place, you are in your comfort zone, so that is what is easier about it. Was when you're in an—in a—what typically in a tech startup or things like that—you are totally inventing um a whole new area. Um, you're trying to get massive investment because you've got to invest in order to to run this company. You won't be making profit on day one, which you would as a consultant. So I look at those two as very, very different types of companies. So when I talk about the startup, I'm really talking about companies that are building things from scratch um and and reinventing a market um and disrupting—those are the ones that I think it's incredibly hard but incredibly rewarding, and every day if you like problem-solving, it's a wonderful career because you—you know, every day there's something I've either—I haven't done this before, or it hasn't been done before. Um, so how could it be solved? And jumping back to my previous question as well on um what's your leadership style like—how do you like to lead or drive teams and people around you?
Okay, so so Julian was number one. Number two was was a guy called Mike Denoma, who um was the one setting up this fast food company in um China. Um, he would hire very young, very passionate, very interested people, and then just let them go with it, right? So, for example, I was probably about 26, um and I was already running the Beijing operations—26, 27—and I was running the Beijing company, and um I was having to build um a factory for KFC. Now, we had the outer walls, but we had to build a factory to do all of the coal slaw um for China, and um we had 60 days to complete the factory to a level we could actually produce to their their quality standards, etc. And anyway, so Mike said, well, you can do that, Cat. I know—no problem—you can get it done, etc. So okay, I can get it done. So um I'd done the plan, talking to the engineer, got everything sorted. Anyway, he came to visit about halfway through and went, are you going to get it done? And without me now—um, you know, you've—you've always—always had the belief in me that I can do it, so I still believe I can do it, but don't start doubting me. And so he said, okay, you got this, um and we delivered in 57 days. Even KFC didn't think we could do it, so in fact they weren't ready for us when we turned the factory on, even at the 60 days as we'd agreed, they were then 10 days late. Um, but it—it was him having that kind of faith, having giving you stuff to do and just letting you get on with it, and you would raise if you had issues. So I said, in terms of my style, I think both of those are um very much—my, you know, from Julian, from Mike—I would say sense of humor is very important to me in in leading a team, um because it can diffuse stress, but also, you know, sometimes difficult truths can be told with a—you know, with a black humor. Um, I think also being authentic, um you know, you don't know at all, and I think it's potentially a slightly more feminine um leadership style in terms of uh being more collaborative. So I don't know how to solve this problem—how can we solve this problem? I think often from—and this is huge stereo—you know, generalization—but I think a lot of men feel that they have to know the answer um for their team, whereas I feel that often when you share a problem with a team—and that's a good startup team—actually, it doesn't matter if it's male or female, it—it's um solving the problem together. Um, and I think that collaborative approach is—is one I—I use. Um, and the other one is is bad news—share it, um and share it upfront, um and that could be bad news about somebody's performance, uh because then they have some—they can do something about it. Um, and I think also about if things are not going well in the company, um being able to share that with teams, then people—there are no surprises, um and they can, you know, people can help you. You know, if you try and hide your finances, for example, um and somebody keeps coming saying, I need a new chair, my chair's broken, my chair's broken—new chair—suddenly you're looking at a bill for a couple of grand or whatever if it's a really fabulous chair, whereas if you say, look, we really can't afford it, here are the numbers, right? Suddenly you find your team goes out and they'll go and at the weekend they'll have been down at the secondhand store down in, you know, Chai Wan or something, and then they'll find a chair for 100 bucks, um and uh you know, they'll solve the problem. And so I think again, making sure that people have that um uh the authority to do—to do that also makes a huge difference. Um, so I think it's be authentic, be upfront, uh you know, be truthful, um and with a sense of humor, and um you know, some of these things I didn't do myself um earlier in my career, and so it's something I aspire to do more and more as I get older.
And my next question would be, you know, with how our generation—the workforce generation—is so multi-dimensional right now, with different um age brackets into the workforce, what advice would you have for people who are just entering the professional space, uh just starting out their corporate careers?
I think that it's very um tempting, uh you know, particularly if you've got a big company that's offering you a job, to stay and think that's your career. I think that's incredibly dangerous, and I think for a young person today it's the dumbest thing you can do. Um, I think that for a for anybody today, regardless of age—and and I I have to say I I I'm stuck in my mind somewhere in my 20s—um and so when I'm dealing with people, I'm dealing with everybody as a peer. It doesn't matter if they're very young um or older than me or my whatever. So it's more a case of diversity of thought, right? So when I seek a team and I seem to bring—want to bring in people, I want to think—how—know how people think differently. I want them to challenge my thinking, and I want them to show me better ways of doing things. Um, and I'm happy to teach them if, you know, if if they need uh adv on other ways of doing things. And in order to do that, you have to know there are other ways possible. So you know, I've worked with bankers over you know the last few years where they have never worked anywhere else, and they proudly tell me I've been 35 years with the same company, and I'm like, why would you tell somebody that? To me, it shows you have no ambition, you have no—you're so in your comfort zone, um and obviously paid well, so you have no need to leave, but in terms of what you can add to um changing things, it's almost negligible because you only believe there's one way of doing things, whether it's filing an expense form, whatever—you cannot conceive of what other options are available. So when um even for my own teams um in Standard Chartered, I insist they had worked for three companies um before they joined, uh because they had to be able to see, okay, so there are other ways—this is just another way of doing things, right? Which one's best? And so they could offer solutions that I might not know. But otherwise, if it's—there's only one way—that's it, you know. Um, you're wrong—I—you can't deal with that. So it's having that—that's one thing—so really having that open mind. Um, so I would encourage people to get to about probably about five years—they should be thinking about changing their job—um and especially in the first three jobs because five years shows you—people like you and will work with you. Um, you know, if you change every year, it begins to get a bit choppy, so I would have said a minimum of two years, um right, but probably probably more like four or five, um and it may—it may reduce um because again, you know, it used to be that the big companies were big companies forever, they—you know, the average age I think of a company in 1970 was something like 70 years, whereas in 2017 I think the average age was 20—was 17 years. Um, so companies turn over much faster. But I think also, you know, when people ask me if they should do an MBA—again, MBA—a war is a bit groupthink, um and you know, you want diversity—you need multiple brains working on things from different perspectives. So if you're teaching people to come in—and I think that's a problem often with when you're looking at Google, right? And why they switch to Alphabet, they could have more smaller companies because often a lot of companies bring in this MBA layer when they're more established, and that can often block the brilliance of these weird, wacky ideas from lower down the company to get up to these geniuses who've—who've done the company in the—in, you know, found it in the first place. So I think they've worked out that actually running MBAs along the side is where you bring the power because again it gives that—that diversity—it's another way of thinking, but not in a team, right? To create that blog. And often getting them to work at a more junior level is tough because they've got big bills to pay back for the MBA. So often when people have asked me should I do an MBA, um I've suggested they go and work for a startup instead for two years, um because they will learn a lot more from a startup, um and it's funny, I've had people say, oh, but you know, the salaries are so low, and it's like, you're just about to put down X1,000 on an MBA, um what are you talking about, right? It's—it's an—it's an investment in yourself. So I think again, big company, small company, and um I would probably do—if I was starting again, I would probably do big company for two to five years, and then I would still go for small company again. Some people they do it the other way around, but but that would be my preference. Um, the other thing is if you do start in a big company, I've seen a lot of young people—they start and they have a nice big salary, very excited about that, and they live to the salary, and that's a disaster because of course then you're trapped. So what I usually tell them to do is find out where your average friend gets paid and live to that—save and invest the rest. So if I was to start again, I would have been much smarter about money than I was um when I was younger. So stock investments, crypto investments, um you know, getting on into that—in terms of property—less so because I I think sometimes uh if you have a flat and everything is going into that, you are less mobile, and I think nowadays people need to be ready to be international, and they feel, oh, I can't move because I've got my house set up and things like that. So as an investment, yes—as a—as a—as a home, you know, you got to be willing to leave or put flatmates in it or or something. Yeah. Uh, so so I think those would be my um my things: is work different kinds of companies, um and live to a a lower salary, um so you have the flexibility before you have family and and extra uh commitments.
And my final question—I always end on this note—is that if you were to win a lottery and money isn't a factor, what would you do with your time?
Slightly embarrassing, um I've actually for years and years and years wanted to have a chat show, really. So I think as I get older, I think okay, it would be probably more likely to be a podcast, um and it would be empowerment—it would be about um uh how how to empower either young people going into the workforce or women going back into uh work after having taken a career break. Um, and I think it would be—I think there would be a technology angle, um so how to—how to increase your productivity so you can actually get multiple things done using technology in order to uh create the lifestyle that you want.
That's pretty cool. I look forward to it whenever you decide to launch this.
Okay. All right. Good. Um, thank you so much, Cat, for this wonderful conversation and sharing your insights into how you've dabbled in entrepreneurship, corporate—all the different uh challenges in your career. Uh, thank you so much for taking out the time.
Oh, my pleasure, Ria. Always great talking to you.