- Leadership, especially the CEO. The CEO makes the final decision on EVERYTHING from Product, HR, Brand. There is no push back from the executives, the CEO overrides every decision without trusting the experts that have been hired.
- The company operates out of Hong Kong and China. There is a ‘rest of the world’ vs HK/CN dynamic that is causing a lot of friction and frustration.
- There is no culture at Airwallex. Some teams have created their own culture to ‘survive’. The further you are from the top dogs the more you’ll enjoy working there. However, you will feel the pressures coming down from higher up through seeing your colleagues and managers stressed and burnt out.
- Internal politics is very toxic. This comes down to who Airwallex target when hiring, which the CEO makes the final decision on, even for junior roles. Often these people have an elite education and career background that are ambitious and want a fancy title and will do anything to get what they want. It’s very cut throat.
- ‘Bro’s club’ environment. The CEO has a handful of men he leans on to help make critical decisions. These men are often making decisions that are outside of their expertise. This continuously undermines the experts that have been hired to make these decisions. These people are the ones that are continuously getting promoted.
- Onboarding is terrible. Long standing employees should be there to support and complete a handover however, at Airwallex most long standing employees have given up, hate work, and are just there to hold on to their equity.
- Lack of support for the HR and Talent teams. Emphasising this again - the CEO makes all the decisions this includes; hiring, compensation, involuntary terminations. To emphasis the impact the CEO has on the company and particularly the HR and Talent team; the Global Head of HR left after a month and the Director of Talent left within 6 months. The Global HR and Talent team is a revolving door, most leave within probation.
The horrible ‘stories’ you hear about Airwallex are true. I would highly recommend you don’t join this company until there are serious changes I.e. new CEO and Execs and a proper Global HR set up. Don’t be fooled by the recent article Airwallex published called ‘How do we attract and retain the best talent’ its all fluff and note that the CEO didn’t write the article he has a brand and communications team that is constantly trying to clean up the CEO’s actions and save the companies brand.
