Airwallex hires influencers to praise CEO’s ‘thought leadership’

1 month ago 13

Australian-founded payments start-up Airwallex is offering to pay influencers to praise its billionaire chief executive’s “thought leadership” as the company seeks to scrub negative media coverage ahead of a mooted stockmarket listing this year.

In a callout on influencer marketing platform Partnar seen by this masthead, the $US8 billion ($12 billion) fintech said it was seeking out influencers to post clips from a podcast featuring co-founder Jack Zhang on LinkedIn or X that portrayed him as an “aspirational operator”.

Airwallex chief executive Jack Zhang has hit the podcast circuit to share what he has learnt building a multibillion-dollar company.

“We’re spotlighting his [Zhang’s] mindset as a founder: decisive, calm and deeply strategic. You’ll share a podcast clip that resonated with you, something that made you think, ‘This is how serious founders operate’,” the post from Airwallex said.

In their posts, content creators were urged to ensure that “Airwallex should appear as context, not the hero” and they were encouraged to “mention it [Airwallex] casually as the company Jack built”.

It is not uncommon for start-ups to enlist influencers for social media campaigns designed to raise awareness of their brand and key personnel.

The campaign comes after Airwallex hired prominent law firm Mark O’Brien Legal to threaten litigation against media companies if they refused to remove critical articles about the start-up that quoted leaked internal documents, including some concerning its work culture.

Last week, the firm wrote to this masthead and The Australian Financial Review demanding that nine articles written over a five-year period be taken down, alleging that they were unlawful breaches of confidentiality.

On the social media influencer platform, Airwallex asked users to post clips of Zhang from a podcast, along with suggested copy praising his thoughts. The post told them that original text would require approval from Airwallex. The company also told creators to ensure that their material did not look like promotional content by avoiding “obvious ‘ad energy’.”

“Your post should feel like a thoughtful takeaway on leadership, not an ad,” the post said.

An Airwallex spokesperson declined to comment.

Airwallex, which was founded by Zhang and four university friends in a Melbourne coffee shop 10 years ago, but is now based overseas, provides a simplified platform for businesses to send money abroad. It has since evolved into one of Australia’s most valuable start-ups, backed by major venture capital firms including Airtree Ventures and Square Peg Capital, as well as prominent Chinese conglomerate Tencent.

But Airwallex has also faced significant media scrutiny of its internal workplace culture. In 2021, this masthead revealed that most of Airwallex’s compliance and legal employees told a staff survey that they would not recommend the company to others. It has faced negative reviews on workplace ratings forums.

Zhang later told this masthead that issues around staff satisfaction and internal culture were teething problems that stemmed from the company’s fast growth. In a separate interview with US broadcaster CNBC this week, Zhang said that the term “burnout” was not in his dictionary.

“I never understand that terminology, to be honest. I’ve worked 100 hours a week from [the] age of 16 for 20-plus years,” Zhang said.

He said working long hours had been necessary to make ends meet while he was studying in Australia after he moved from China as a teenager.

Airwallex is reportedly eyeing up an initial public offering in the latter half of this year, with the company likely to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange rather than in Australia. Recently, Zhang has been increasing his media appearances and posting frequently on LinkedIn.

But he has also come under fire online. In a series of X posts last month, leading Silicon Valley venture capitalist Keith Rabois accused Airwallex of exposing sensitive American data to the Chinese government, alleging that Airwallex’s operations in the US would “create legal obligations to assist with CCP [Chinese Communist Party] espionage upon request”.

In response, Zhang accused Rabois of “circulating inaccurate claims” to benefit one of his firm’s portfolio companies, and maintained that no US data was sent to China. Within days of the pair’s spat, Airwallex announced that it had raised $330 million in a Series G funding round, which took its valuation to $US8 billion.

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