When we think of companies listed in the USA, we rarely see locals from Southeast Asia leading them.

Co-Founder of Moneylion, Foong Chee Mun, is a rare exception and trailblazer. He was the first Malaysian Founder to make it to the New York Stock Exchange in September 2021. Yes, they listed before Grab, which went public a few months later in December 2021.

MoneyLion is the go-to destination for personalised financial management, content, offerings and advice. Their main users are in the USA.

They are part of a consortium with AEON and AEON Financial Services that received a digital banking license from the Ministry of Finance in Malaysia.

As of today, Moneylion has 4.9 million customers. In their recent earnings call, they shared that their total net revenues increased 129 per cent to US$87.3 million for the second quarter of 2022 compared to Q2 2021.

What really impressed me the most about my interaction with Chee Mun was his immense courage to be vulnerable. He was open and willing to talk about mistakes and discuss topics like mental health and imposter syndrome.

This really sets a shining example for men who often struggle to talk about their challenges and their emotions due to outdated societal expectations of what masculinity is.

Among other things, we discussed a wide range of topics, including his founding story, how Moneylion is coping with the tech winter, how his leadership style changed as the company grew, a super useful process to make objective decisions and learned that we’re on opposing camps of the right way to eat Rainbow lapis sagu!

Here are three key takeaways:

Toughest challenges that leaders deal with

Chee Mun said that while things like “scaling, hiring top talent and fundraising” are hard. They are not the hardest problems. In his view, the hardest challenge is caring for one’s mental health.

Also Read: 3 lessons I learned from Halodoc’s Co-Founder, Doddy Lukito

Some of the toughest things leaders have to deal with include making difficult decisions impacting those around them. Examples he cited include letting go of someone who has trusted and followed you for three-five years but did not grow along with the company.

There also is a lot of pressure which comes from being a leader as “the moment you stop contributing, the engine stops”.

To guard oneself against what he describes as a “mental valley”, social support such as close friends, having a great Co-Founder and even leaning on coaches and therapists are key.

Making objective decisions

Since leaders have to deal with making hard decisions regularly, one needs to master the ability to make decisions without letting ego or emotions influence them too much.

Having a good process is important to him as he believes that when a company grows, it is easy for leaders to “fall into the trap of being haphazard of decision making.”

“You can use emotions to drive judgement, but just don’t let it cloud your judgement,” he explains.

I asked Chee Mun for actionable steps, and he shared a useful framework we can all use to make good objective decisions.

Firstly, making hard decisions start with listing the “inputs” and “principles behind the decisions” and using them as a basis for making a choice between the multiple options.

For instance, if one is trying to decide on which cloud provider to pick, one could decide based on security and scalability as principles.

The next critical step is also to journal the thought process behind his choices. The benefits of doing so are twofold. It allows him to refer back to them and also share them with his team so that everyone is aligned on the same page.

The importance of adaptability and humility

The key point that Chee Mun emphasised was that “Humility is extremely important throughout the process.”

Also Read: How mental health startup Intellect’s founder catalysed his personal battle with anxiety

He shared how learning about lending was a humbling experience for him and his team. Initially, they thought, “How hard could this get?” but realised they underestimated the difficulty of it.

Like Co-Founder of Halodoc, Doddy Lukito, he shared how important it was to learn from people of all levels, even from them fresh out of university.

He advocated the importance of learning not just about the industry but broader emerging world trends, citing the gig economy as one of the examples.

Overall, I enjoyed the conversation with Chee Mun. Whether you are leading a team, thinking about getting into a leadership role or looking to better balance work and your mental health, I am sure you would have a lot to learn from his story and lessons in leading a company from startup to IPO.

Watch the full interview here.

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