S1E2 | Building Nium Into A Unicorn | Pratik Gandhi, COO, Nium

Starting with a little office in a dilapidated old building to joining the rarefied ranks of unicorns in Southeast Asia, Nium has come a long way. But what did it take to keep it going even when the chips were down and fresh funding was hard to come by? What set them apart from their competition and what were some of the bets they had to make? And what were some of the Hard Truths they learned on the way?

Discussion Topics: Building Nium Into a Unicorn

• Joining Nium
• Relationship with CEO Prajit Nanu
• Partnering with banks
• Difficult moments
• A big bold bet – acquiring Ixaris
• Hard Truths
• Catching the Startup bug
• Culture at Nium

Transcript: Building Nium Into a Unicorn

Elise Tan: Hi, I’m Elise Tan, and I’m your host for this episode of Hard Truths by Vertex. I’m pleased to be speaking with Pratik Gandhi, Co-Founder, and COO at Nium. Nium is a global B2B money movement service that operates across 190 countries and more. It has climbed to its unicorn status after raising $200 million US dollars in 2021. Vertex Venture Southeast Asia led Series A in Nium, which was actually called Instarem back in 2016. Pratik I believe that 2016 is also when you join Nium. So tell us about the journey that it has been for you since you joined.

Pratik Gandhi: The journey has been fantastic because I still recall that way back in 2016 when I had joined, the day I joined was the day that Prajit picked up an office. He earlier used to work out of the Vertex office. And the office that we had picked up was a dilapidated part of town, it was tanjong pagar, but the 28th floor of a building, which doesn’t exist anymore, and where the lift would only go to the 27th floor, and we had a few rickety chairs and an office which consisted of maybe a couple of tables. So that was our start. And from there to where we are now, you know, where I consider ourselves to be one of the prime FinTechs of Singapore, I think it’s been a fantastic journey.

Elise Tan: Wow, I’m so amazed by our Vertex Founders, because a lot of them start with a very humble beginning, and look where you are now from 2016 to 2021, climbing to unicorn status. And since then, really a lot has changed, and a lot is going on. So tell us more about what you do as CEO at Nium.

Pratik Gandhi: That’s one of the difficult questions to answer because I think what happens is, whatever other people can’t do ends up on my plate. So I actually started in the company as the Chief Business Officer, then I became the Head of Consumer. And one of the things that have always been constant with me has been the finance function. It’s always been with me, and when I became the COO, the part about the operations, and Customer Success, Customer Services, also came to me. And then over a period of time, I got compliance and human resources also. So I have like these four big, mega items that I now handle.

Elise Tan: Yes, and there’s a lot and I imagine Nium has grown so much, and now even operating in more than 190 countries around the world I can’t imagine the kind of importance of your role. I think has a lot to do with what you did before Nium. So I’m really curious about your background. So I noticed that you spent the last 15 years in banking, and 10 years prior in large corporates such as Xerox, PepsiCo, and Telstra. So I want to ask you why start-ups? How did you end up in Nium?

Pratik Gandhi: That’s a great question. Well, many of the companies that I joined earlier, even though they were big companies, actually joined them at a very initial stage. So for instance, my first job was with Arthur Andersen. I was amongst probably the first 15 or 20 people to join the Delhi office. From then on, the company that you mentioned – PepsiCo, I was amongst probably the first 50 people to join. And then by the time I left in five years, it had become a 5,000-people outfit. The entity I joined in Citi was not even a part of Citi at that point in time, it was actually another company, which eventually got acquired by Citibank. And again, I was among the first few. So I’m kind of used to the madness that comes and all the excitement for all the small successes that you get in a start-up. So for me being a part of a start-up was never difficult. So, when I joined Instarem, it was never really too difficult for me to gel into the culture.

Elise Tan: How did the whole conversation with Prajit come about?

Pratik Gandhi: So it’s a very interesting conversation the way it started because we were introduced by Fullerton which used to be my earlier company. And the background is I used to work out of the Bombay office of Fullerton. And my family was based here in Singapore. And this whole thing about coming and going from Mumbai to Singapore wasn’t really working out. So I told these guys, I said, I need something in Singapore. So they said look, we have a very small office here, but we have just invested in another, like a small entity here in Singapore, and we can introduce you to the CEO, and see things if they work out. So they introduced me to Prajit, and as Prajit says that for the first 10 to 15 minutes, I was the one who was trying to tell him about my background. And for the next 45 minutes, he was trying to convince me to join him. And I think, if you look at it in terms of our complementary skill sets, I think it’s worked out well because Prajit is a very outgoing person, he is very salesy. And on the other hand, I have done a lot of this backend stuff as well. And I understand business. So I think that partnership has done pretty well.

Elise Tan: And you mentioned how Prajit is a different kind of character and obviously, he does well in his role. But do you feel like sometimes, you had to rein him in perhaps, I don’t know how do you balance it.

Pratik Gandhi: If you ask me indirectly, whether we fight, we fight all the time. There is always that indirect thing. He’s got his views, I got my views. But listen, at the end of the day, I think we all have to understand the fact that there is only one captain of the ship. So, one of the things that I respect about Prajit, is that, if you reason out something with him, then he wouldn’t unnecessarily say, listen, I’ve taken a stance, and I’m not going to change that stance. That doesn’t happen. There are many occasions when he comes back and says, I think you’re right, I think we should go back to what you were saying. But many times, it’s his word, and that’s fine. And like I said, there’s only one captain of the ship and that’s completely okay with me. But there’s never been an instance where we say, for instance, and that actually happened in one of the banks that I used to work for, where somebody said, you should make a report, which actually gave wrong information, and because the bank had this structure where I could talk to my business, as well as my main finance role head. I complained, and that guy had to back off, those kinds of issues have never happened.

Elise Tan: So it’s an issue of integrity, right?

Pratik Gandhi: So Prajit he is holier than thou, in this respect. And in that respect, he and I both understand that listen, we are both very integrally invested in this company, not just financially, but even in terms of reputation. It’s a very highly regulated entity, so there’s nothing that we would do, which would put that whole question mark on the company’s future.

Elise Tan: Really glad to hear. It’s not easy. It’s really not easy. I mean, in the world of business, a lot of people think about whatever it takes for growth, whatever it takes, but the truth is that to run a company for the long term, to be able to stand strong, and really be able to stand against any criticism is important that we hold integrity. And tell us more about it, so I understand that Nium is able to move money because you have bank accounts opened across the world. So how do banks partner with Nium?

Pratik Gandhi: So, our go-to strategy or the most ideal scenario is that we have one bank that gives us most bank accounts in most countries, but that is not going to happen, because if there was such a bank, then nobody would need us. We are the ones who are giving 190 countries real-time access, etc. So what we do is we go to every country and see which is the best bank or bank in that location that can give that connectivity that we are looking for. We’ve got the API for instance, which are friendly for us to use. And then we partner with them and our biggest moat is the fact that we’ve got licenses in many countries and relationships with the banks in those countries to give us that real-time access where possible, and if not real-time, then at least on a backup basis, so that the money can get paid for the beneficiary at the quickest pace. So one of the bigger moats is the fact that the licensing activity that we do, actually it used to take us one year earlier. But I think for some reason, it’s taking more and more time.

Elise Tan: Why is that?

Pratik Gandhi: Why? Because I think regulators are becoming a little more cautious in many cases. So I’ll tell you about one of the, you know, I don’t want to name the country. But in one case, I thought we had taken a long time when the regulators took us one year, that was one of the first ones we did, and the second one, in a similar geographical location took two years. And we thought that was a lot. Then we went to another country, which was a developed country, and that took over three years. And not just three years, they wanted some local representative to be set up over there, a very expensive location. So we were paying, maybe some 15, 20,000 US dollars for that one person to do nothing in a day, but just be there to talk in their local language, and just be available to answer any questions.

So, these are all things that take a lot of time. And then of course, the kind of our licences also got differentiated, rather than simple money transfer licences, we started getting EMI, which actually allows us to hold funds like a bank. And then it became such that we could also issue cards so it became even more advanced than that. So I think licensing is one thing, which is really key for us. Connectivity. So any entity for instance today, which wants worldwide connectivity, and they want not just a payout, but also an issuing business, they have nowhere to go, but to come to us. I think if I were to be not too modest about it, I would say that I think we are the only ones which have the length and the breadth as far as the product and the geography is concerned.

Elise Tan: Yes, I think it is so amazing that Nium, over the years, you have built such a strong foundation, whether it’s in terms of the licences or the products or navigating the different landscapes across the world. I think that is really impressive. And I just want to understand in the future, do you see banks coexisting with FinTech? Or would it be a different future altogether?

Pratik Gandhi: No, I think it’s a matter of imperative, I think that both will have to work together. I mean, we in most cases cannot work without banks. Unfortunately, banks consider us to be competition in many of the cases. So rather than working with us to try and see how we can work in a partnership, they try and see us as competition and try and block our ways. But the ones who partner with us actually realise the true potential.

Elise Tan: I also wonder what has been the hard truths about being in banking. So, of course, you mentioned you were in large corporations, but can you tell us because you’ve been banking for a long time.

Pratik Gandhi: Banks, at least I can talk about the ones that I have worked with are very organised. They have processes that work, etc., etc. But if you’re really looking for the hard truths, one of the hard truths is they are super siloed. So, like, I was part of Consumer Bank, they would never talk to the corporate bank or investment bank or anyone else for that matter. They’d be completely siloed and just completely get cut off. The other big thing about banking and especially these days, is that small changes, which are happening in the banking sector today by nimble FinTechs, like us, are slowly but surely taking away the business of the banking industry, and they’re like deer in headlights, they’re not able to see the changes.

And I think they’ll end up losing a lot of their businesses unless like, there are some who are willing to partner with FinTechs like us as well and see how best to work in best of both worlds. And I remember the CEOs of one of the most successful banks in Singapore, talking once that banks are the ones who have got the customers, FinTechs don’t have customers when they start. But what the banks don’t have is the agility, the technology in many cases so how do you marry the two in such a way that banks and the FinTechs both work well. So I think that will be the key thing. So the hard truth is the banks really have to transform pretty quickly.

Elise Tan: And I wonder right, because as a COO, you must have gone through a lot of different incidents so where it was very memorable. Can you tell us something memorable at Nium?

Pratik Gandhi: Look, there have been instances, for instance, and those are indelible memories, where for instance, we almost ran out of funds a few times. Those are times when, as a team, you come closer together, because you’ve gone through that hardship. So there’s one instance when, for instance, there were three VCs lined up, and one by one, all three of them disappeared.

Elise Tan: And when was that? That was the first time?

Pratik Gandhi: No, this was not the first time this was 2017, perhaps. So one year after I joined, I told Prajit, I said, listen, if you want to cut my salary, it’s okay. And please understand one thing, when I joined the company, I was already at 50% of what I was earning in my corporate job. So I told him, listen if you want to cut the salaries that’s fine, he said it’s okay we’ll see. And then, by the way, Genping was the one who introduced us to one of his friends in GSR, and that meeting took off very well. And then we just went to Beijing and did the presentation to the wider team Investment Committee. And within a couple of weeks, we had the money. But that whole period when we were thinking will won’t be last is pretty indelible and very difficult to forget.

Elise Tan: And I think it is a period of uncertainty. Yeah, yeah I think that’s unforgettable. And for our audience’ benefit, Genping is my colleague and also a partner at Vertex Ventures South East Asia.

Pratik Gandhi: And what we also say is that he’s, uh, the part-time co-founder!

Elise Tan: Yeah. So he led the deal in Nium when they were raising Series A.

Pratik Gandhi: Yes, exactly.

Elise Tan: So, when you mentioned how Nium ran out of money, I remember that recently Prajit published about the three times when Nium ran out of money. And I think 2017 was the first time and then secondly, it was the pandemic in 2020. So I think that was when you truly took a pay cut. And how did that feel? And how long was the pickup for, how was the whole journey leading up to the point that you finally raised 20 million, and propelled Nium to unicorn status?

Pratik Gandhi: So those were difficult times as well. I mean, the background is the fact that COVID had hit, we had no clue how to manage it, and we didn’t know what the impact on the business is going to be, but we were almost certain that what the rest of the world is saying is that it’s going to be deleterious to the health of our industry. But we were also seeing that the volumes were going up. So we didn’t understand. Maybe it’s just temporary or whatever else. And the prelude to all this was the fact that one of the larger rounds that we were negotiating at that point in time had fallen through, so it was a large round that we were looking for at that point in time. And one of the larger entities of the world was the one who was leading that round. So here we were, a short runway. And what we were sure about is that we want to be the last one standing. And one thing that we don’t like to do is to lay off people, especially in times when the rest of the world is in a bad shape, then if you just let people off, then what do they do?

They’ve got families to support. So we said the most equitable solution is to get an equal pay cut, which we decided was 30%. Prajit, himself took a 50% cut to be the one to take the maximum. And the one good thing that we did, of course, was that we told everyone that whatever it is that you’re losing by way of your 30% we will compensate for that by giving you two times of that as ESOPs. But within a few months, we saw that it was doing pretty well. I mean, business is doing well, there is nothing that is negative. So why do we have to worry? So we normalised within about, I think, six, seven months. And people who earned the ESOPs at that point in time, which didn’t include seniors like me. I mean, they earned good money because not only did they get double the amount that they lost, but the valuation of the company itself.

Elise Tan: What is the hard truth about being a COO here?

Pratik Gandhi: I think the hard truth, really, is the fact that sometimes you take stances that could be not very popular in the short term. So, one of the things that we are trying to do, for instance, right now is to see how we can turn to profitability, and that means being super careful about what kind of expenses we do, what kind of people we hire, how many people we hire, it is not always an easy decision to put across to somebody who feels that they need the people right now. And then we have to go back and try and check that, hey, listen, all over the world, people are firing people. So why are you so intent on getting someone to such an expensive resort to be hired right now. So there are these instances, which always happen, but on the whole, I think because of the fact that I’ve been there in the business also for so long people do understand and appreciate, if there is a stance, which is taken, and I think generally there is nothing so hard that I have to worry about it when I go back home.

Elise Tan: Nium has grown so much over the years. And during the pandemic, I realised that when I was doing research, you guys have made some acquisitions, and one acquisition was actually the company XRS. And there was a time when travel was all doom and gloom. So what led to this decision?

Pratik Gandhi: That’s another indelible memory, which is part of our psyche here. So again, I told you what the background was right? COVID had hit us, funding had failed, and people had got their salaries cut. But one thing that we were sure about is that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You know, there is an adage about never ever wasting a crisis. And what we could see was that the travel industry is in pretty bad shape. But if you look at the law of averages, it will eventually come back to where it used to be. And except that when you’re in the middle of a crisis, you’ll never realise that you can actually come out of it.

So we started talking to people in the market saying, we’re available in case people want to sell us something, at that point in time to remind you once again, we were running short of money ourselves. So for us whether we can buy another company was a very should I say courageous, in very simple terms. And, as luck would have it, we had these two opportunities, which were both in the travel sector, and as you said, travel was a very bad four-letter word in COVID. And this company had negative revenues. So this means that they were returning more of customer funds, and earlier bookings, than they were doing more fresh bookings. But we said, we’ll be very interested in the company, and we bid for the company and they asked for a fairly large, one-time non-refundable fee, which we ended up giving.

And I can tell you, we didn’t have a lot more money lying in the bank account after that, but the good part was, it was not a foolhardy decision, because I know that Vertex had already come back and said, listen, if you really want money we can give you support. We were already talking to a few large VCs at that point in time. And this will just pre the unicorn status in any case. And even in the worst of times, we’ve been confident about our survivability. We never thought that we would not survive. Yes, we had those moments where you’d be worried about where the next salary is going to come from, but never about the survivability of the business as such.

So, the business did come back the way that we had anticipated and it came back earlier than we had thought, because of the COVID effects I mean, people underestimated the human tendency to try and become as normal as possible. So people wanted to travel, and travel came back with a bang. So both of these two companies today are not only cashy creative, but they’ve also given us some very strong positioning within the markets in which they are based out of. So for instance, in Europe, we were not very great, but because we acquired XRS, we became pretty strong in Europe, and India, also we didn’t have a licence, but when we acquired the Wirecard entity there, we became pretty powerful. And along with that came some very good teams, by the way, and those teams are doing pretty well in our company at this stage as well. So, all in all, I think it was a well-thought-out strategy. People may go back and say, listen, was it foolhardy? I don’t think it was, I think it was well thought out, but it also helps that it worked out well at the end.

Elise Tan: And when you’re sharing, I’m just so impressed by the courage that both of you and the management team have taken, and preparing the company even before you know what’s going to happen next. And in my mind, I just see this jigsaw puzzle, like how you are seeing the gaps in your puzzle, and really gathering the pieces and then putting them together so that there is a more complete piece.

Pratik Gandhi: Absolutely, and remember that what we acquired was not a newbie company, it was at its peak, they were doing some good revenues, and very stable processes, good people. And that was the one thing that we learned out of the due diligence that we did, that the company is pretty solid, it’s just going through a bad economic time. And from my time in the investments also, if you look for companies, which are temporarily in some kind of disorder, then eventually they’ll end up giving you a lot of benefit in the end.

Elise Tan: Great and I think, as Nium makes more and more acquisitions and I believe that your role as a COO would lead to the kind of integration of these new businesses. So what is the hard truth about that looking to acquire businesses?

Pratik Gandhi: So I’ll tell you my hard truth comes from my being part of a company which was acquired, which was, you know, the entity I told you about when Citibank, and one of the fantastic things that I learned from that experience is because Citibank had been fed a lot of stories that hey, listen, these company, these people, we don’t know what they’re doing, we don’t know how they’re making so much money, they must be doing something wrong. But when the first level of interactions happened, between the most senior people in Citi, India, and us, they realised that actually, there is no truth in the fact that it’s all bad management, they actually liked us. So what they did, very wisely, is they put a wall around us, and they said, these guys are not to be disturbed. And that period was the most golden period for the company as part of Citibank, we also blossomed very well. So, that was a big learning for me as well. And this is what we did.

So, acquisitions fail, because the company which is acquiring tends to put its strength behind it and say you guys are wrong, we guys are right, because we are the ones who have acquired you, and not take them on merit. We were absolutely certain that we didn’t want that to happen. So for the first one year, we did not interfere at all with the businesses which we acquired. And the evidence was overwhelming because they were doing so fantastically well without any integration of compliance policies, and anything, you know, they had their own financial systems, for instance, which were not as great as us, but hey, listen, they had been in existence for 18 years, and they’ve done very well. Thank you

So, I think that’s been the great hard truth that you let companies be, don’t impose your will. And when the timing is right let them feel comfortable, let you be comfortable then you come together and see how you can work for a better company together. So the same thing we did with Wirecard. That continues to be almost a standalone entity right now. But not to say that we don’t look at the numbers or, you know, we are confident about them like Citi was confident about the company that they had acquired. We were confident about the backend systems and the people. And that’s how we gave them the independence to run.

Elise Tan: And when I was speaking to many founders, I realised that there are some similar trends as going through all of you. I think one is about really recognizing strengths, and also empowering people. And I think that’s what you are showing through the actions of working with the two entities that you have acquired. And when we empower people, when we put people in the right place, you definitely see them blossoming. And it’s a wonderful thing.

Pratik Gandhi: And I think those people have also done well, in the larger Nium context. So the person who used to be the Chairman for XRS is now the head of the entire combined entity for Europe. The person who was the Chief Operating Officer for XRS is doing a sterling job with us as the Head of the Global cards business for Nium and XRS. And these are people they’ve really done, they’ve given us a lot of value addition to the rest of our business as well. So, I think we are really pleased with how it worked out.

Elise Tan: So what do you think is the hard truth about running your own start up?

Pratik Gandhi: You mean, besides travelling, the lowest cost airline, and staying in the cheapest hotels, I think you understand the value of money a lot more like you’re used to. I’ll tell you when I was in the biggest corporate jobs, travelling business class was never an issue.

Elise Tan: It is like taking it for granted.

Pratik Gandhi: Taken for granted. And we argued in one of the companies that even domestic travel in India, whether it’s for one hour or two hours should be business. And these excesses tend to happen in any bigger companies. So I think you learn the value of your work because you know that you’re the most critical part of the entire structure, especially if it’s your own outfit. So what you do, you will be able to get the benefit and see the result of it pretty quickly. And, of course, the fact that you know, the results can be very outsized, whenever they do happen in the right way. And then, of course, the fact that you have to be super careful about expenses. I think there are a lot of positives in trying out and trying to be an entrepreneur, by yourself.

Elise Tan: Yes. So Pratik, you mentioned you catching the entrepreneur bug twice. So I was just wondering, what do you mean by that, like, how did it happen? How do you feel?

Pratik Gandhi: So there’s a bit of a personal story behind this. My dad was quite entrepreneurial. So he used to work for a large newspaper back in Delhi, and he was doing well. But he always felt that he wasn’t earning enough to support a good life for all of us. So he had these side hustles that he used to keep doing. And one of them was something that I found interesting when I was a kid. So what he said is that any company which wants to bid for tenders with the government, right, in the pre-internet days, there wasn’t a central repository for it.

So for instance, anybody based out of Mumbai, like a manufacturer, if they had to bid for a tender, they could do it with the help of some advertisement for a tender, which would get published in a Mumbai paper, but wouldn’t know if there was anything that was happening in their industry, for instance, in the south of India. So since he was in the newspaper industry, he had this idea. He said I’m going to get newspapers from all over India. So he used to get some 40, 50 papers a day. And he used to cut the tenders and I used to help him and I used to put them in categories of different industries. Then we used to paste them on a piece of paper, and then we used to do something called cyclostyle. I don’t know if you even know what that means.

But it used to take a long time for it to be printed. And then we used to fold it and put it into envelopes. And I used to put the stamp of under the postal certificate and then I used to take my bike and put them in bulk like cold mail, real mail into many of these companies who might be interested in giving us a subscription service. So when kids were of my age were playing football and cricket I was helping my father then. And it’s not as if I was missing out on my place, I used to like, help him do all that. And then what I saw is that maybe a week, 10 days after we had done the first batch of the posting, the first cheque came in. And the joy that it gave to everyone in the household was amazing that you know, the first time where you could see the result of whatever you worked hard on, came out, and then over the next few days, a whole stream of these cheques came out. So that showed that if you work hard enough, you can get the right results. And that put the seeds of being an entrepreneur in me.

Elise Tan: And if I were to ask you to describe the culture in Nium, how would you describe it?

Pratik Gandhi: I’ll tell you that it’s an evolving story I’ll tell you why because we were a couple of 100 people till a couple of years ago, and then, not only did we expand, but we also acquired these companies, which brought in a lot of people, we got a lot of senior people replaced also, and we got newer and newer people. So, what’s the culture? How do you describe it? So I’ll tell you what it is that we feel and these are not things that I have said, but if you ask somebody who’s been in the system for about six months, I think what they will say about the culture is A is extremely open. So it’s not like a bank, where there are hierarchies and you need permission to speak to some senior person, anyone can approach Prajit, me and any other senior in the company. Even if it’s an intern, we’re happy to talk to them. There are never errs around us. So we are happy to listen to their ideas, and we welcome these ideas.

So that’s the one part of the thing which is the positive aspect of the culture. The negative aspect, if I may call it that it’s not negative, so the madness, which is a part of any start up, so the fact that we will always try to punch above our weight. And we will try and juggle several balls at the same time, it’s not something that is the cup of tea for everyone. Some people are very structured, they’ll say, I am going to do this today and I will only do that and nothing else. I’m sorry, that doesn’t work in a company like ours. So I think these are two things besides that, we have value systems. So we have what we call simply better together, which is a very catchy frame, which simply means how do you make things simple, rather than make them complex. Better stands for which processes you can work on to make things more efficient. And together means because we are in so many different time zones, different cultures, different races, different countries how do you bring everyone together so they all work together for the same objective, so simply better together.

Elise Tan: I love this simply better together. Thank you so much for spending your time with us. And I want to go back to you know, you mentioned people being too structured, but I love what you’re bringing to the table because I’m sure you are a structured and organised person but at the same time being able to handle the chaos that’s happening all around you. And even when I speak to you, I’m sure entrepreneurs mind something you’re thinking about work or operations, but you just have this calm persona that you exhude during the interview, and I think that is impressive.

Pratik Gandhi: Thank you very much. You are right, I am thinking about it which was going on in the backdrop.

Elise Tan: Yeah, so thank you again, Pratik. It is so nice to have you on our podcast.

Pratik Gandhi: It was superb to be here. Thank you so much, Elise.

Elise Tan: Thank you.

Our Guest: Pratik Gandhi

Pratik Gandhi is the COO and co-Founder of Nium (formerly InstaReM), a leading embedded fintech company that provides banks, payment providers, and businesses of any size with access to global payment services. He leads the global finance, operations, and customer service teams, with responsibility for driving focus on Nium’s financial activities and helping the company deliver exceptional experiences.

Prior to Nium, he worked for companies such as Arthur Andersen, Xerox, PepsiCo and Telstra before specialising in banking, an industry where he held senior roles at Fullerton India Credit, Standard Chartered Bank, and Citibank.