Adele Lim is Partner Relationship Manager at 10x, having previously worked at companies including Marqeta, ION Group and Capco across APAC and Europe. As Adele comes up to six months in the role, we took the opportunity to have a chat with her about life at 10x and beyond.
So, I started off my career as a consultant in Hong Kong working with financial institutions across APAC before moving into the technology partnership space several years ago. Funnily enough, an early project I was involved in was actually on core banking transformation.
In the past, I think organizations have been very hesitant about change and core banking transformation is always seen as a monumental task, but they’ve become more open to it over time. I believe covid accelerated things – as recent history shows, a plethora of new fintech always emerges during economic downturns. Fintechs kept solving for new pain points and banks are getting left behind if they don’t change.
Technology has also become so much more embedded in everyone’s day-to-day life in the last decade. It feels that banks now know it’s inevitable that they will have to make those changes away from legacy systems.
It was the role itself. I was really attracted to the breadth of role, with end-to-end relationship management across a wide ecosystem of global partners including consulting firms, strategic technology providers such as cloud service providers and ISVs (Independent software vendors). It’s an exciting opportunity to work across a lot of different verticals with multiple stakeholders globally.
With that breadth of responsibilities, no two days are the same. A day might include calls with different partners to move the needle on our joint motion, account planning, marketing activities, sales enablement sessions, training partners to be 10x Banking certified and pipeline calls. And, of course, a lot of time spent identifying opportunities where 10x or a partner could be a good solution or fit. I always explain my role to my friends and family as being the quarterback (but with much less athleticism!) – where you strategise, plan and execute activities to bring in referrals or co-sell with a partner.
Alongside the versatility of my role, it’s the people. Often, I have to get up to speed on a technical aspect of our product or the partner’s product capability ahead of a call. Headless SaaS can be complex! Everyone is incredibly supportive and more than happy to take the time to share their expertise and answer any questions I have. I love that I get to learn something new every day. I also really love that it’s a scale up; it means I get to have impactful responsibilities and an active say in shaping new processes.
Since joining, I’ve also really appreciated the dedication of 10x to corporate social responsibility. It does more than talk the talk, there’s a lot of actions to match what it says. I really enjoyed using my volunteering day with my team at the Children’s Book Project. Who knew sorting and wrapping books can be so therapeutic? The charity provides books to children that may otherwise not have them. I also really enjoyed speaking to other volunteers there – it helps give a new perspective on life. I also found out on the day that they have an amazing initiative where parents in prisons can pick books for their children and send them a letter with it as a way to connect with them. It’s a great and meaningful cause.
I’ve gotten really into Lagree which is a version of reformer Pilates. I would always dread going to class as it’s such a tough workout but I’d feel amazing afterwards and I’d book my next one. I’ve also recently taken up golf, playing at a few different courses around London at weekends. I’m enjoying the lessons and the sport psychology behind it too.
My favorite kind of books are nonfiction exposé on different topics or events. I’m reading this great one about the cryptocurrency bubble at the moment, Number Go Up by Zeke Faux. It’s written by an investigative journalist exploring the boundaries of law and economic rationality, almost reminiscent of the tulip mania. There’s been this kind of sense of the wild west in the cryptocurrency world, I think the book really highlights the importance of understanding financial instruments before investing and what amazing marketing can do!
Thanks Adele! You can find out more about life at 10x on our careers page.