This week on the Business Beyond Borders podcast, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Skander Malcolm, Managing Director and CEO of global foreign exchange company OFX.

OFX was born in a garage at Sydney’s northern beaches, and has grown to a global foreign exchange powerhouse, present on several continents around the world. They have a focus on helping small businesses to manage their overseas transfers and streamline their operations.

Skander joined OFX in 2017 and is leading the company’s continued global expansion, as it navigates the ever-changing world of fintech.

Tune in to my interview with Skander to find out about:

• How his experience managing large international teams across more than 80 countries shaped his journey to becoming the CEO of OFX,
• The story of how OFX grew from a garage startup from Sydney’s northern beaches to a where it is today as a publicly-listed company,
• The value of learning to listen to deal with complexity and develop as a leader,
• The customer-centric approach that drives OFX’s corporate strategy and entry into new international markets,
• His thoughts on where the foreign exchange industry is moving in the future and vision for growing the company internationally,
• The strategies that OFX uses to target and enter new markets, and the challenges they have faced in doing so,
• Some of the differences that OFX sees between Australian, North American, European and Asian foreign exchange customers,
• His thoughts on what defines a great corporate culture for an international company, and
• Skander’s advice to small and medium companies that are thinking of going global.

Skander also shared some of the books and resources that he has found inspirational in his career and business journey:

• The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
• The Content Trap: A Strategist’s Guide to Digital Change by Bharat Anand

It was great to hear from Skander in his role as the person steering OFX into its next phase of international growth and development. Although he isn’t the Founder of OFX, Skander has the same passion for finance as Matt Gilmore, who created OFX (and was a friend of Skander’s at university), a laser focus on the customer and a highly strategic perspective to boot. I believe that this combination of factors makes him the kind of CEO that companies need as they grow beyond their original incarnation and beyond the original inspiration of the founder, into something much grander.

I also really appreciated Skander’s thoughts on maintaining perspective as a way of dealing with tough times – tune in near the end of the show for those.