In this week’s Success: The Insight Story, SunBiz meets Funding Societies Malaysia co-founder and CEO Wong Kah Meng (pix).
How has your life experience made you the leader you are today?
I’ve always had a bias for action and find comfort in helping others, and I think that has naturally led me to the servant leadership model.
What traits do you look for in your talent or how do you decide who is right for a job?
We emphasise a lot on culture internally and it forms a key area of our assessment when we recruit and reward talent. At Funding Societies Malaysia, we are guided by our GET FS values which reflect who we are, who we want to be and our highest ideals. GET FS include:
• Grow relentlessly;
• Enable teamwork, disable politics;
• Test, measure, act;
• Focus on impact;
• Serve with obsession.
How do you think the industry you are in will evolve?
Fintech has definitely come a long way from being seen as a disruptive threat to now an enabling partner. The thinking of many incumbent financial institutions has changed as they are now more receptive to teaming up with fintech players like us to expand to new markers, or to achieve greater efficiencies.
This contributes to the evolution of digital financing solutions, which in turn helps transform banking solutions and processes via digitalisation. What this entails in the future is the transformation of the way individuals and businesses engage with financial services and the tailored solutions we’re able to offer in meeting the diverse needs of industries and societies, thereby fuelling economic growth.
What advice can you offer those looking to start their career/own business?
• Take time to understand your strengths and weaknesses, and play towards them.
• Bias towards action and be ready to adapt as the situation evolves.
• Keep an open mind to new opportunities and challenges; you’ll never know how the dots connect.
• Start building your professional network early on as trust and relationships take time to nurture
We all know about the industrial revolution, are we in for a technological revolution? Your thoughts?
Covid-19 has demonstrated the importance of digital readiness, which allows commerce and everyday life to continue and thrive. Technologies or trends like e-commerce, digital payments, remote work and distance learning are just some examples that have experienced a step change in their adoption and relevance since the pandemic took hold.
How has mentorship made a difference in your professional life?
It’s made a big difference in supporting my growth and learning over the years and I have found it most impactful to have mentors from different backgrounds, suited to the areas in which I am looking for guidance.
What do you want to accomplish in the next five years?
Whilst we have come a long way, we are still at day one of our journey in enabling access to digital financial services to MSME across Southeast Asia. We started our journey by enabling access to digital financing for MSME and will continue to expand the suite of digital financial services solutions including payments and neobanking in the near future to MSME across the region.
How do you stay abreast of issues affecting your industry?
As most people, my main source of information is through the news and there are a plethora of tools out there which helps you to screen for what’s relevant for you. More importantly, though, is to spend time digesting the different pieces of news to identify trends and form your own hypotheses based on activity in the industry and the implications for your business.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced, and what did you learn from it?
Every season has had its own set of challenges, whether it was when we were first starting out, scaling up, managing through a pandemic or now as we return to growth. Through it all and looking forward, the key lesson has been to keep level-headed and look for the silver lining and opportunities in the challenges we face.
What are the top three factors you would attribute your success to?
Successful or not, what has worked for me are grit, humility and respect.