Wealthsimple: CFO Leen Li

What is your name and what do you do? 

My name is Leen Li and I am the Chief Financial Officer at Wealthsimple. Wealthsimple is the online investment manager that offers a digital investment experience and humanizes financial advice to our clients.

How did you get involved with Wealthsimple?

I worked at another startup, Influitive, two years ago and was there for five years. I wanted to take on another challenge with the B2C side of things, which I had never been involved with before with a technology perspective. One of my friends connected me with Mike Katchen, CEO and co-founder of Wealthsimple, who was seeking someone from industry and had finance experience. 

So I met with him, and I was really really impressed. Then I met with the rest of the team over a two to three month timeframe. They got me really excited, told me that I was the best candidate for the role, and that's it! I joined in September 2016.

What is a typical week like as the CFO of Wealthsimple?

I tend to plan out my schedule in a week based on my calendar. 

First, I block out one and a half days to do things for myself. These include working on the key project I'm leading, reflecting on Wealthsimple’s long-term vision, and thinking about how the finance team can add value to the long-term growth of the company. I also use this time to meet external stakeholders and people in my network.

Then, I spend another day and a half packed with meetings. Some are ones-on-ones, others are team meetings. Sometimes I’ll coach my team to get them up to speed on certain things, and other times I’ll work with other teams on other projects to get involved with different parts of the business. 

So that gives about 3 days. On the fourth day, I do more “random” meetings with Wealthsimple people I don't set regular one-on-ones with. And on the last day, I do more hands-on projects as an individual contributor, such as working on spreadsheets or analyzing financial statements.

What is your favourite day?

My favourite day is Thursday. On Thursdays, I normally schedule a random coffee chat at 8AM, and that time slot is always open for people to recommend great candidates.

At 9:30AM I have a quick one-on-one with our COO and Co-Founder Brent. He's great. Every time I talk to him, I always feel so much more energized afterwards.

From 10AM to 3:30PM, I use that time as my project time, and I work on my short and long-term projects and get to move things forward.

As you know, most startup communities host events on Thursday nights, so at night I make sure I'll go to different events to get myself out of the day-to-day work.

Let’s rewind to the beginning of your story. What was your childhood like growing up in China?

I grew up in rural China, right at North-East China in a city called Bai Shan. The city is right on the border between China and North Korea. If you go to different parts of the city, you can see the North Koreans very close — you can actually see their faces. If you scream at them, they can hear you and will talk back to you. So it was a very interesting experience. 

Growing up, life was very difficult. The China today is very different from the China in the past, especially in the North-East area. It was very underdeveloped. So life was pretty tough. But I still grew up feeling very positive, because I've seen the changes to the country and I was luckier than my sisters. 

I come from a very big family — I’ve got four older sisters, and only two of them had a formal education. The other two dropped out in high school because they had to make money and support the family. They never had the opportunity to get proper a education and as a result, they did not have great jobs until the latter part of their careers. You can just see the difference education makes. I was the luckiest one out of all my sisters, because I was able to go to university [Leen received her MBA from Saint Mary’s University in Canada]. 

What motivated you to come to Canada? 

I was motivated to immigrate to Canada for two reasons: travel and business. 

First, I love to travel! When I worked in China, I always wanted to visit Europe, North America, or Africa. In those days, it was really hard to get a visa with a Chinese passport. I knew that if I went abroad, if I stayed somewhere I really liked, I could get their local passport and use that to travel instead. 

Second, I was curious about North American business management principles. When I worked at a Chinese bank, the bank changed senior management and they hired someone with a MBA from the United States. This person implemented a bunch of new management strategies and made huge changes in the bank. Some people agreed while others disagreed with his decisions. In watching these changes, I wanted to come to North America to learn these management strategies myself, just to see how I could do it differently. So those are my two primary reasons for moving to Canada.

What are some of the biggest differences between Canadian and Chinese lifestyle? Do you have any interesting observations to comment on?

Life in Canada is much easier than life in China. Here, you can have a fairly decent life without working too hard. In China, it's very competitive. To give you an example — when I was in high school, you had to write an entrance exam, gao kao, in order to get into university.

In my year, only one of the 17 students in my province could go to university. So for the 16 of the 17 students, they either had to retake the entrance exam the next year, or they had to go do manual work. So it was tough. 

In China, every single step in your life is competitive. You compete for almost everything. Opportunities, food, water — whatever is possible. So people become very competitive. It's just very different. I remember when I went to Halifax for school, people worked only a few hours a day and they could afford a house or a car. In China, that doesn't happen. So that’s one big difference.

The second difference is in technology. It’s truly fascinating to see how fast technology has grown to change China and the entire community. Every time I visit home, I'm just so impressed with how advanced China’s technology is when it comes to mobile. 

In terms of technology growth, China skipped the entire laptop generation. By the time I immigrated, the laptop trend started, but never hit it off. Everything now is on mobile or iPad. In looking at these apps, they're just so much more advanced than North America.

For any other technology, North America is more far advanced than China. But from the mobile app side, China is two to three years more advanced than us, which is really really exciting.

What do you think we should borrow from China’s mobile industry and implement in North America?

One thing that’s really important is to think about the next generation. What is the path that the user wants to have? The reason why China is so advanced in mobile technology is because everyone in China uses mobile apps. They’re not using laptops or desktop computers — they’re using mobile phones. 

So for anyone in North America who is thinking about the next generation of hardware, we need to develop applications in technology that incorporate what people will communicate and live their lives on. I definitely don’t think mobile phones will be gone in the next decade, but we still have a long way to go. If you look at many technology companies today, they’re not mobile first. They do desktop and mobile together, and sometimes it doesn’t work that way.

One of Facebook’s biggest switches was thinking really, totally, mobile. There’s no desktop designers. Every single developer is developing native apps on mobile, right. So that’s how they turned it around. It took — and don’t quote me on this — Facebook about two to three years to get it right. So that’s something I think about. 

In general, you have to be willing to make a big bet, maintain a long-term vision, and then take that time to get there. These things don’t happen overnight. 

So you think the next new innovative technology is going to be mobile focused?

Yeah. And I also think it should be platformed as well, like WeChat. It’s pretty crazy how people use WeChat in China. Right now in Canada, you have to download all these different apps on your phone when you need things. If you have to get a ride, you have to individually open the Uber app. 

But in WeChat, they developed a true platform, so all the mobile apps plug into that platform. As a user, all you have to do is log into WeChat and you can do all sorts of activities within the app itself [WeChat allows users to instant message, make video calls, send money, shop online, order food, call Ubers, and even dissolve marriage agreements]. It’s a true platform that has dominated an entire industry. 

If you go to China, just observe how people use WeChat. It’s mind-blowing. WeChat impacts every single second of people’s lives. From when they get up to when they go to bed — they’re using WeChat and logging onto the app a hundred times a day. 

Do you think Wealthsimple could adopt any of these features that WeChat has? Such as being mobile first, user friendly, etc. 

We can definitely borrow some ideas from WeChat. For us, we have both a desktop and mobile app. Our mobile app is actually a native app, so we have an entirely separate team for it. 

Our vision for Wealthsimple is to be an investment platform. And in order to have a platform, we have to be doing more than what we’re doing right now. In the long-term, we want to be the company in North America that’s a one-stop shop for regular consumers to do their financial planning or the go-to app for anything touching money. 

What is Wealthsimple's 5-year plan then?

I’ll give you a bit of background on where we are right now. Currently, we operate in five countries, with Canada being our main base. We launched in the United States and United Kingdom just last year in 2017. We first started in Canada with our B2C platform, and in the last year we’ve expanded our offerings to B2B to serve financial advisers as well. 

In five years, our vision is to build our international brand reputation in the US and UK and focus heavily on our B2C and B2B products. And we want to go beyond just Wealth Management. We are going to launch a second product early this year and with that success, or with the learnings from that, we're hoping to launch more than two products to our clients.

What advice do you have for young graduates today who want to work in tech? 

I’m sure everyone’s already heard this one before, but just stop thinking about it. Just go ahead and do it. The reason why I say this is because a lot of young people have asked me about evaluating opportunities, you know, should they go to a big company or join a startup company with higher risk.

Honestly, if you are a student or a new graduate, you’re young. You most likely don’t have a mortgage or any other big liabilities. So there’s literally nothing holding you back. If you have a high risk and high reward offer, you should just go ahead and take the position. Take the job with the highest risk and the highest return! Give it a try. If it works out, you’ve hit the jackpot. If you doesn’t, you can always learning something along the way and take that to your next experience. You can always go back to traditional industry. 

I find that people tend to evaluate opportunities by making a pros and cons list to compare different qualities. But life changes all the time, you never know what’s going to happen next. So if you’re young without liability, just take the bigger risk. Because you can’t do that when you’re 35, have two kids, and a mortgage. 

So my advice isn’t anything that dramatic. Just stop thinking and do it. 

If someone decides to go into tech, how should they pick the right company for them? 

Nowadays, there’s tons of startup companies in Toronto and Silicon Valley. So here is my perspective as the finance person. I’m not a product person, I’m not a designer, I’m in finance. A lot of people will tell you that you have to pick a company that you’re truly passionate about, that you share the vision, etc etc. For certain professions that is true, like if you're in product or design. 

But if you’re more general, say software engineering or finance, I think what’s most important is actually the culture of the company, the team that you learn from, and the caliber of the senior management team. The reason why I say this is because when it comes to culture, if you’re at a small startup with a great culture, you will have the opportunity to be involved in lots of different projects. A company with a great culture will also value employees equally. 

So for young graduates who want to excel and work at a faster pace, a smaller company with a great culture will be a better fit, as an already established company will have a less engaging culture. It’s so important for you to start early and find the best people in the industry that you can work with. If you work with a group of very smart people, you can learn from them. Then one year at a small startup could equal two to three years at another startup in terms of experience. That gives you a lot of advantage in your later career. 

Furthermore, from a C-executive perspective, if you work at an established company with a strict hierarchy, you will not have access, or easy access, to senior leadership. That gives you less opportunity to learn from the strategy side of business. As an example — if you are a product manager, you will work both with the software development team and the marketing team. But it’s also equally as important to hear division and learn the strategy from the senior leadership, so you can know what sets this company apart.

And that’s knowledge you’ll never learn from school. In business school you can study strategy, but until the day you spring into action, it’s hard to crystallize that knowledge. I think these three things — culture, team, and senior leadership — are extremely important for young graduates assessing different opportunities. 

But all in all, you know what, just do it. If it doesn't work, you always have chance to go somewhere else.

That’s really great advice, and the “corporate or startup?” conversation is definitely one I’ve heard many times.

Yeah. Both have pros and cons right. But at the end of the day, just do whatever you want to do and whatever your risk tolerance can handle. In a way, it’s very similar to investing. 

Here’s an example:

Pretend that you and your friend both make $100 a week. Because of your personality, goals, and risk tolerance, you might spend $60 a week and save $40 a week. However, your friend might spend $90 a week and spend $10 a week. And then a third friend might spend $110 a week, and borrow $10 a week. 

Do you see what I mean? The opportunities are the same person to person, but because of the individual situations and risk tolerance, you will choose differently and thus the outcome will be different. 

So for me, I don’t really think too much in the granular. I’m just like, let’s do it, and, can I afford to do it? If I can, great. Can I afford to fail? Sure. What's the worst thing that can happen? What’s the case scenario if this thing didn’t work. Can I afford to live with that worst case scenario? If I can, I just go ahead and do it.

I love that. For me personally, I believe that every decision is the right decision. In the sense that, if you have to choose between A over B, you can’t say later on that B was better, because you never lived out B. So you don’t know if B was truly better. The past is in the past so it’s just about going forward and doing what you want to do. 

Yeah, I 100% agree with you. One more thing I’d add is that regardless if you choose A or B, make sure you give 200% of yourself. Once you choose A over B, don't go back to think about B.

I agree! You can’t say that A is better because you don’t know with certainty that it is — you have no idea, because you never did it. 

That’s definitely the right way to think about it — at least for me it's right way to think about it. For me I’ll make a choice and then put 120% of myself into it to make it happen. And if it doesn’t, I make sure I make a switch later.