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In Conversation with Lee Hatton - The leadership lessons behind Block, Afterpay and Xero · What the Flux

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This is what the Flux I'm v and It's Friday,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the seventh of November. Today will be the first episode
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: in the two part interview with Lee hatton financial operations
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: lead at Block, the company behind Square after Pay, title
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: music platform, and much more. In part one, bretton Justin
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: We'll be talking to Lee about her path to leadership,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: lessons from around the world, as well as the contrast
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: between banks and FinTechs. But before that, here are the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: top three business news stories from Australia and around the world.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: TPG has bought seventy percent of Kinetic, Australia's largest bus
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  Speaker 1: operator and owner of the Melbourne Skybus Airport Shuttle, in
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: a private equity deal with over four billion dollars. In
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: other news, pet Circle's recent financials showed revenue fell by
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: two point nine percent last financial year and their losses
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: grew from ten point five million to thirty six point
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: nine million. Pet Circle said the revenue drop was due
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: to four wing prices and heavy investment in their digitization
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: and expansion strategy. And finally, OpenAI has signed a seven year,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: thirty eight billion US dollar deal to buy cloud services
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: on Amazon. This deal gives open Aye access to hundreds
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  Speaker 1: of thousands of in video chips to train and run
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  Speaker 1: its artificial intelligence models. That's it from me today. I'll
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  Speaker 1: pass it over to Brettan Justin for the insightful conversation with.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Lee Hatton today on What the Flux in Conversation. We're
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: excited to welcome Lee Hatton. Lee is Block's financial operations lead.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Block being the forty five billion US dollar global fintech giant,
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  Speaker 2: the company behind cash app, Square, music platform, Title, and
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  Speaker 2: of course after Pay as well. And Lee's responsible for
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  Speaker 2: overseeing the partnerships and payments that keep Block's global ecosystem
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  Speaker 2: running smoothly. But her part to that role hasn't been
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  Speaker 2: exactly linear. She started her career in financial services across
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the US before becoming
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: CEO of U Bank. Then she led sun Corpse Banking
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  Speaker 2: and Welfare, served on the Zero Board, and joined after
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  Speaker 2: Pay just before it became part of Block in twenty
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  Speaker 2: twenty two. Lee, I hope I got everything in there correctly,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: but welcome to What the Flux in conversation.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Jeez, whooo that sound impress and I'm like that sounds great.
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  Speaker 4: Thank you for as much.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Nice you can take that intro. If you want to
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  Speaker 2: explain yourself in the.
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  Speaker 4: Future, great idea, great idea.
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  Speaker 5: Abslutely, I'd love to start when you were starting out,
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  Speaker 5: did you always picture yourself in senior leadership or is
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  Speaker 5: that ambition something that actually grew over time.
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  Speaker 4: That's that's a.
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  Speaker 3: Cool question, Brett, because I don't know if you've seen
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: this more recently, but there's quite a trend going on
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  Speaker 3: of people like.
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  Speaker 4: Looking back in their past to kind of understand their
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: kind of future.
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  Speaker 3: And it's so easy to overdo these things and overanalyze it.
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  Speaker 3: Like I grew up in a small town in New Zealand.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: It's called agekim Good dairy farming country, And I think
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: as it relates to like where was I going, I
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: guess like I was fortunate. Like my childhood I could
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  Speaker 3: line a pandock and look up at the sky and
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  Speaker 3: just kind of go, look what is out there?
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  Speaker 4: Like it's huge.
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  Speaker 3: And my family really always encouraged me to really think big.
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  Speaker 3: So I was pretty lucky in that respect. And then
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  Speaker 3: when I started I was a UNI and I was
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: a grad student working with wispet and my dad, like
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  Speaker 3: I would be working really late at night because of
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: course like the harder you work, the luckier year. And
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: I'd be working late at night and I'd call my.
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  Speaker 4: Dad and I'd say, yeah, it's all good, and he
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  Speaker 4: would say, are you the manager yet? And I'd be like,
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  Speaker 4: but what you know? And I think just subtly, those.
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  Speaker 3: Messages around leadership became something that you know, maybe if
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  Speaker 3: someone psychoanalyzed me, it's pretty mad, but I just really
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  Speaker 3: I wanted to achieve, right Like I was like, one
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  Speaker 3: day he's going to call me and he's going to
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  Speaker 3: say you're the manager yet, and I'm going to go, yep.
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  Speaker 3: And so that was kind of that kind of see
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  Speaker 3: me on a path, And so I think, yeah, there
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  Speaker 3: was probably a nate part of me that wanted to
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  Speaker 3: be a leader. There was definitely an ambition and a
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  Speaker 3: drive from growing up in a small town to want
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  Speaker 3: to know what.
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  Speaker 4: Is out in the big wide world.
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  Speaker 3: And then I think there was just it was always subtle.
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  Speaker 3: It was almost quite beautiful, because I think in leadership,
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  Speaker 3: having people that believe in you is something that kind
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  Speaker 3: of ignites your spirit and makes you want to hit.
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  Speaker 2: That way, Yeah, you touched on the big wide world
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  Speaker 2: and it sounds like from at least a professional career
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  Speaker 2: and I'm sure personal experience as well. We've worked across
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  Speaker 2: a number of different countries New Zealand, Australia, the UK, US.
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  Speaker 2: Do you feel like a lot of those international stints
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  Speaker 2: have shaped the way you are as a leader and
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  Speaker 2: also as a professional or do you think that having
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: just been in Australia you might have had the same
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  Speaker 2: leadership experience.
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  Speaker 3: For sure, you have to get out of your own way,
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  Speaker 3: and you have to really face your fears of the unknown,
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  Speaker 3: and sometimes I think I did it totally naively. So
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  Speaker 3: a really good example, I remember I was working at
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  Speaker 3: Bank New Zealand and I had this opportunity to go
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  Speaker 3: and be the executive vice president of sales for great
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  Speaker 3: Western Bank in South Dakota. Now I kind of recall
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: having these conversations with my then of well he's still
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  Speaker 3: my husband.
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  Speaker 4: I was going to say, was he my husband then?
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  Speaker 3: But yeah, he was my husband then, and saying, you know,
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  Speaker 3: with banks, you can a you can be almost anything
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  Speaker 3: you want to be, but be you can work almost
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  Speaker 3: anywhere in the world you want to. And we got
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: out this map of where National Australia Bank had branches, right,
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  Speaker 3: and a branch is like not just a retail branch
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: that you can imagine. It's also like you might have
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: a treasury team over in the year ears, so you
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: might have a group of traders over in London. And
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  Speaker 3: I remember we looked at this big map and it
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  Speaker 3: was like he was like, yeah, you'd want to go
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: anywhere except there, which was like South Dakota. And so
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  Speaker 3: when this opportunity came up, I ran him and you know,
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: conveniently my mother in law was with him at the time,
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  Speaker 3: and I said, oh, hey, any great news, We're going
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  Speaker 3: to South Dakota.
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  Speaker 4: I can't wait. I'll tell you about it later. And
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  Speaker 4: I quickly hung up the phone.
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  Speaker 3: Because I thought I'll just like wrap the band aid
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  Speaker 3: off and see where this goes. Like you know how
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: they say, you know, seek forgiveness, not permission works in.
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  Speaker 4: Marriage is on top and so I uh.
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  Speaker 3: I then received a barrage of tix like do you
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  Speaker 3: remember where that is on the map, like do you
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  Speaker 3: know what that And then I was able to counter
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  Speaker 3: that with things like yeah, but Warren Buffett's and omaha,
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  Speaker 3: like we'll be able to go to the bookshare happily.
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  Speaker 3: Hm and like I was lucky enough over the year
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  Speaker 3: we had like a little private plane that I could
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  Speaker 3: cruise around and it was like the pros away the cons.
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  Speaker 4: But I think from a career perspective, you need to
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  Speaker 4: keep opening your mind.
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  Speaker 3: And I think curiosity and like taking these risks reasonably calculated,
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  Speaker 3: but you don't know all the details is like absolutely
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  Speaker 3: critical to your like your personal growth and your like leadership.
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  Speaker 3: Like I turned up there and I must have looked
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: like something out of a like legally Blonde movie. Like
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  Speaker 3: I turned off and it was like dark snowing, and
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  Speaker 3: they had lived me like a truck to drive to
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  Speaker 3: my new place. And the truck had like a smash
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  Speaker 3: windscreen because a deer had like flown on it, and.
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  Speaker 4: Like it was just it was crazy.
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  Speaker 3: And then you wake up to go to work and
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  Speaker 3: you're like, my eyes are rich, like I can hardly see.
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  Speaker 4: But let's go.
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  Speaker 3: And yeah, it's just those kind of experiences And I've
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  Speaker 3: been lucky to have a lot of them, and I've
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  Speaker 3: been lucky to be backed into a lot of them.
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  Speaker 3: They really shape and give you a perspective and you
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  Speaker 3: culturally really start to learn about just how different people
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: are and America is great. You can speak the same
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  Speaker 3: language and be in totally different.
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  Speaker 5: Spaces and Lee, You've had such a broad range of
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  Speaker 5: experiences within financial services over the years. How is leading
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  Speaker 5: a traditional bank different compared to leading a company like Block.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so well in so many ways, very different. But like,
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  Speaker 3: the one thing that I would connect them on is
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  Speaker 3: like they are both customer obsessed, right, Like, I think
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  Speaker 3: that's the thing that passion for customers is totally.
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  Speaker 4: Grounded on both sides of that equation. But the ability
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  Speaker 4: to like literally.
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  Speaker 3: Move fast and move with almost an innocence really exists
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  Speaker 3: in fintech, whereas in traditional banking you are bound by history,
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  Speaker 3: hundreds of years of history that can really hold you back.
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  Speaker 3: And so I think with that you get to really
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  Speaker 3: think afresh from a leadership perspective. I think recognizing it's
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  Speaker 3: like you you don't take away things like the mantras
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  Speaker 3: are kind of like let's move fast and break things.
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  Speaker 3: It applies in both, right, Like everyone wants to move
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  Speaker 3: fast and break things. It's just the consequence of breaking
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  Speaker 3: things can look quite different. Should we constantly be curious
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  Speaker 3: about what the next innovation in tech is and start
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  Speaker 3: to apply that to our everyday work exists in both places.
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  Speaker 3: Is the culture about capturing hearts and minds totally the
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  Speaker 3: same in both places? But I think what you get is,
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  Speaker 3: and I mean this really nicely, you get a different
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  Speaker 3: level of maturity that you see in the big banks
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  Speaker 3: than you do in fintech. And you get probably a
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  Speaker 3: level of sophistication of financial services knowledge in the big
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  Speaker 3: banks that you don't get in the FinTechs, which totally
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: enables the creative thinking to occur.
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  Speaker 2: Yeay, interesting, And so we touched briefly on Block now,
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  Speaker 2: but you report to Jack Dorsey, who's obviously founder of
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Block and formally founder of Twitter as well. How has
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  Speaker 2: that experience been as part of Block?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah? No, I actually report through to O and Jennings
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: who runs business. But we said on this whole leadership
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  Speaker 3: team together, which is called Core, and we have lots
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: of attractions every week, right, and it is totally different.
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  Speaker 3: Like I've worked with so many founders now, I feel
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: really really privileged to have had those experiences. So I
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: first start worked with Rodgery for zero and being on
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: that board was like being part of the executive team. Right.
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  Speaker 3: It's probably the hardest working board I'd ever ever experienced.
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  Speaker 3: And then of course with Neck and Anted after Pay
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  Speaker 3: and now with Jack and the team like Brian Gracedonia,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: who effectively was the founder of cash app. They are
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: just amazing minds, like super creative, amazing minds leading these
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: insane businesses. But the one thing that really connects it
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: is around this real vision of economic empowerment and just
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: a real belief. Like when you're dealing with the scale
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: of America and you wake up in the morning thinking globally,
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: your whole perspective on how to affect changes different because
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: you can make a tweak to a product, or you
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: can launch a product and have millions of users, right,
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: millions of users within like days or weeks versus as
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: you know, when we would do that in Australia or
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: New Zealand or even the UK. You just don't get
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: the scale, so you're not being able to test and.
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  Speaker 4: Think and look at things differently.
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  Speaker 3: So I think with Jack and what I've seen with Brian,
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: and what I've seen with like Nick and and Rod,
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  Speaker 3: it's just this unwavering vision, right, and the ability to
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  Speaker 3: just move mountains and engage people to want to move
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: those mountains with them. And I think it Block like
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  Speaker 3: one of the things that really connects the passion there
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: is economic empowerment and the ability to really look out
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: for the little guy like those that it just don't
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: have access to economic security the way that you know
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: a lot of us in Australia, you know, rest of
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: the world. You know, we wake up and we have
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: the privilege, but there is certainly millions and millions of
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: people out there that just don't have those same privileges.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: And of course it started with square and simple problems.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: So you know, can I take a payment with a
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: card on a tiny little reader.
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: That actually looks beautiful? You know, Rod wanted to do
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: beautiful accounting software, Like.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: I think there is an esthetic as well as any
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: visionary business model. Like, don't get me wrong, all of
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: them have economic outcomes, but there's definitely also an aesthetic
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: that goes with that to achieve it.
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: It sounds like your role is extremely broad and it's
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: also interesting, what do you see is your role beyond
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: just running your function? You're part of the wider block business.
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a really really cool role.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: So Block is totally remote, right, and so everybody is
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: remote and Block, can we really encourage it, Like we
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: have awesome policies that let people work anywhere in the
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: world for three months pretty much anywhere in the world.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: You know, there's obviously some caveats there about if you're
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: in the big bank sanction screening, but anyway, so like
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: there are places in spaces, and so with that, really
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: your role becomes like a total enabler because you're not
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: having the water cooler chat, you're not having I don't know,
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: you're not necessarily physical all the time, but you have
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: to create the combat sport without that occurring. So I
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: kind of find like collaboration is probably the number one
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: skill in our organization. Anyone will tell you that, and
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: it works across Either you're in a big bank with
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know, tens of thousands of people or you're
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: in a fintech with ten thousand people or one hundred people, right,
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: collaboration becomes your number one skill and your ability to
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: like listen, learn, process and adapt. It's like this constant
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: cycle that's going on. And so I think, although my
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: role is really broad, probably the additional things I can
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: bring is I guess they call it like systems thinking.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: It's like, how does there's impact this, that impacts that
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: because we have to see right you know, I get
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: to see right through the system of like money movement.
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: You know how does money move?
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: Oh, I can see it right from the outset, before
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: the card is even in your hand. I know where
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: the money is moving from. So there's those kind of things.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: I think the other pieces always with leaders like you, especially.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: When you're remote, you need like energy and empathy and
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: care because you can feel isolated really quickly. Like I
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: even have those days where I'm just like, well, like
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: where is everybody?
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: A bit of call and annoise someone, which I'm sure
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: is really good fun for them.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: But you know, we have tools like slack and stuff
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: that we use to be able to do like a hangout,
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: and I think those kind of things just you know,
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: like you've got to keep using your intuition to know
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: like is there someone I haven't heard from in a while,
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: or is there somewhere that I didn't see in a
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: meeting and picking up those signals.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: I think also too, like Jack and the team, they.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: Just really encourage constant call out of blockers the road,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: what's in the road of moving things, And so I
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: think having spidery senses on blockers. No one can see
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: around corners, but you know, like constant thinking about like
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: what are the blockers is another really cool kind of skill,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: and I think because too internationally. We're almost a twenty
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: four to seven business around here, you know, so it's
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: pretty awesome.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: We're always on the go. There's always someone on the go.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, blockers, no paint intending, I C.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, no, no, my time.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Part two of the podcast with Lee
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Hutton will be released on Monday, the tenth of November.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: We'll see you then.