What she said to me was actually reframe how you think about the word no and go into these
conversations looking for the word no.
I had an idea that it would be kind of cool to bring the Barclays Premiership League trophy
out to Australia.
I had wildly underestimated how popular the trophy would be.
We had to get the police.
Hi, I'm Sally Patton, editor of BOSS from the Australian Financial Review.
And welcome to 15 Minutes with the BOSS, a podcast about success and failure and everything
And along the way, we're hoping to get some really great advice from our leaders.
My guest today is Cynthia Scott, the chief executive of Zip.
Lovely to be here.
And you're the boss of Zip, a buy now, pay later and consumer finance company that has
about a thousand employees spread across Australia, the US and New Zealand.
You have six million active customers who are able to buy goods at around 79,000 merchants
And last year, your customers spent about $10 billion using your payment services.
That sounds like enough to get on with.
Yes, there's a lot there.
And there's a lot to get through today.
We only have 15 minutes.
Let's start the clock now.
What does your morning routine look like?
What time do you get up?
So I do wake at five and I'm typically at the gym by 5.30.
So three mornings a week, I do weights training, which I think is really important for bone
density and muscle development.
And then the other mornings, I tend to either do Pilates or bar or reformer class, because
as we'll discuss, I'm sure later on, I used to be a ballerina.
And so I do still like to stay fit with Pilates and bar and so forth.
Then after the gym, I'll come home and feed my menagerie of cats and dogs.
How many cats and dogs are we talking about?
Well, this is a bit of a confessional.
I have two dogs, they're King Charles Cavaliers, and I have three cats.
Yes, I'm a bit of a bleeding heart when it comes to animals.
So I do rescue animals, but I feed the dogs and cats and then have breakfast.
And then typically, I either go into the office if I've got meetings, like at the moment where
I spend a lot of time in meetings at the moment, but I'll also sometimes just work from home.
So what time do you first look at your device?
Ah, probably as soon as I wake up.
Because we've got such a big US business, I do tend to have a quick look at anything
that might have happened overnight in the markets or anything that might have happened
overnight in relation to the business.
And then I won't really look at devices again until I get back and probably having breakfast.
And so to get up at five o'clock, what time do you go to bed the night before?
Yeah, I'm not a party animal.
I do tend to fade in the evening.
So I'm typically in bed by 10.
So late nights are not really me.
I'm not surprised.
You do get up very early.
OK, Cynthia, my next question.
What is a pivotal moment in your career?
Say a project that you worked on that really changed the trajectory of what you were doing.
Yeah, it's interesting, Sally.
I think my life and my career have had a couple of quite big pivotal moments.
But probably the one that really changed the trajectory of my career was actually I had
been an investment banker for a little bit more than 20 years.
And I was the CEO of Barclays for Australia and New Zealand, a role that I loved.
And I'd been at Barclays for 10 years.
But I was still relatively young and I knew that I wanted to do something that challenged
me. And I was I was enjoying being a banker, but I wanted really to be out of my comfort
zone. And I actually I went to Oxford and I did a strategic leadership course, which
And it made me realise I wanted to change industries and I really wanted to see if I
could take the skills that I'd learned as a banker and move them elsewhere.
So I left being the CEO, where I was an absolute subject matter expert.
And I took a role at Telstra reporting to the CFO in an industry that I had never covered.
But I realised pretty quickly that putting yourself out of your comfort zone is the best
way to grow. And I think then subsequently the opportunities that I had over the sort
of five and a half years I spent at Telstra across different industries, businesses,
geographies. I just I would never have got that level of experience and opportunity had
I not made such a big change to my career at that point in my life.
So what was the key thing that you learned going from investment banking to
telecommunications?
I mean, I genuinely had had no exposure to telecommunications and technology, really,
because as a banker, my specialisations were real estate and financial institutions.
So I realised once I've moved into Telstra that actually the experience and the skill
that I had was transferable.
But what was really important was to actually understand the language that people were
speaking. So when I sat in meetings and I felt like I didn't really follow what was
going on, a lot of it was actually to do with the vernacular that they used or the
acronyms that they used.
And so I was not particularly confident when I first started because I thought I just
didn't understand the business.
And then I realised, no, I didn't understand the language.
So how long do you think it took you before you understood the language?
About six months.
So that's not like a huge amount of time, like it's doable, right?
It felt like a long time. It didn't feel like a long time.
But the way that I addressed that was I actually got myself a buddy who I was able to
contact to help me understand what's this acronym, what's this part of the business,
how do I learn and get up to speed on what's happening from a telecommunications
And actually getting a buddy to explain things to you is a really good way of gaining
confidence in a new industry.
It is because you realise quite quickly, as I said before, it's actually not that you
don't understand the business.
It's probably that you don't really speak the language.
Yeah, that's good advice.
OK, my next question is, what is the best piece of career advice you've ever been
So the best piece of career advice I've ever received was actually from a CW member.
And it happened at a time where I had been at Barclays for a number of years and I was
asked to take the CEO role in an interim capacity.
And I had been the interim CEO for about six months, but I'd also been fortunate to
join CW and CW is chief executive women.
And one particular member came to me and said, why are you interim?
Why are you not putting yourself forward to take the role?
And I said, well, I have not put myself forward because I don't think that I have
the skills and capabilities and experience that they're looking for.
And she said to me, what are you really worried about?
And when we actually broke it down, she identified that actually what I was really
worried about and what often many people are worried about in terms of putting
themselves forward for a promotion or indeed seeking feedback on anything, is
that you'll hear the word no.
And so what she said to me was actually reframe how you think about the word no
and go into these conversations looking for the word no.
And the minute you hear no, actually think that's great.
Now I'm actually able to open the door to the single best question that you can
actually ask anyone.
And so in my situation, the way that I framed that was to say, I prepared myself
to hear a no in asking for this particular role.
And I was ready to then ask why, what is it about my candidacy or my experience or
my background that doesn't give you confidence to say yes, or flipping that on
What would I need to do that would give you the confidence to say yes?
And all of a sudden you've put yourself in a situation where you've turned what
could be a bit of a scary no into an opportunity to get some incredibly
actionable and valuable feedback.
So did that then give you the confidence to actually go and apply for it on a
Because you thought I'm either going to get the job or I'm going to learn a lot
from the conversation.
And interestingly, when I did go and put myself forward, my chairman's reaction
was, well, why haven't you asked beforehand?
Because you're actually doing the job and you're doing a great job.
And I was like, okay, I didn't actually even get the no.
Now, just for a second, going back to ballet, did you think that you wanted to
be a ballet dancer, a professional ballet dancer when you were a teenager?
So I danced part time from literally age four and then at 15, I dropped out of
school and trained as a professional ballerina.
And what happened then?
I got a back injury, so I had to stop.
So how did you pick yourself up after that?
Well, I had an incredibly supportive mother who actually picked me up and put me
into TAFE and I finished school as a mature age student at tech.
And that then gave me the ability to then go to university.
And from then on, my education and my career was much more normal, if you like,
but I've definitely had a nonlinear approach to career development.
And I think having had the experiences that I had at such a young age in the
arts and looking to pursue a career at such a high level and then not succeeding,
really built in me tenacity and resilience and obviously discipline to then take
that into other roles in other industries.
So did the discipline that you presumably learnt in ballet help you later on?
I once gave a speech actually about the parallels between the dark art of
investment banking and the brilliant art of classical ballet.
And what are the parallels?
Well, so discipline, the ability to succeed at a very high level in classical
ballet requires an enormous amount of discipline as it does in most work
environments. Teamwork is incredibly important.
You know, as a dancer, as you begin your career as a dancer, you start off in the
court of ballet, you are working in a team and you absolutely have to have
precision in terms of teamwork and cooperation.
Sounds a lot like what you need to do when you're working in teams in investment
banking. And then the other thing, I mean, the reality is dance is a very
competitive environment and lo and behold, investment banking is known to be a bit
competitive as well.
So I think there are actually lots of parallels between the opportunities and
the exposure that I had in training as a ballerina and how I then was able to
leverage those skills that I built in the roles that I've had subsequently.
Sounds like you were indeed very prepared for investment banking after.
Perhaps more so than you thought, yeah.
I love that. OK, Cynthia, on that note, we're going to take a short break, but
don't go away. When we come back, we're going to open our chatterbox.
Welcome back to 15 minutes with the boss.
I'm here with Cynthia Scott, the chief executive of Zip.
Now, Cynthia, this is a section called the chatterbox in front of you as
threatened is this very lo-fi but very beautiful brown box inside which are
around 15 questions.
I'm going to ask you to pick out a few and let's start with some more questions.
OK, have a bit of a fish.
Who is the person outside of the business world whom you most admire and why?
When I think about leaders, what I admire in leaders are people who are low
ego, authentic, people that you can relate to and you sense that they're
approachable, but that also have incredible impact.
Yeah, someone like Liz Broderick.
So can you tell me a bit about Liz Broderick?
Elizabeth Broderick is, she was the sex discrimination commissioner for
Australia and the reason why Liz's leadership really resonates with me is
that she was prepared to tackle some very challenging subjects that impacted
business, industry, the military society as a whole, and she was prepared and
very willing to lean in and engage everyone, all stakeholders in those
conversations, but in a way that was very inclusive, but also then very
And what was the problem that she was trying to solve for?
Gender inequality.
And how did she go about doing it?
By engaging all stakeholders in the discussion.
So I think men and women of all ages and all walks of life and gave men and
women an equal voice in the conversation.
She led the creation of a safe space for people to communicate what they really
felt in a non-judgmental way and that then enabled others to feel that they
could actually raise concerns, ideas, thoughts, and again, around a topic that
had hitherto been really challenging and still continues to be challenging today.
And you can take that into any walk of life, really create a safe space and
allow people to express their feelings.
Yeah, no, I love that.
Have a go in the books.
What's your favourite party story that you like to share?
Well, given we've just talked about the fact that I'm usually in bed by 10, I
don't go to a lot of late parties, that's for sure.
Cause often in a social setting, people will talk about sport and my really only
sporting contribution is when I was running Barclays, I had an idea that it
would be kind of cool to bring the Barclays Premiership League trophy out to
Australia because Barclays sponsored the Premiership League, the football,
the soccer, the English Premiership League, it was called the Barclays
Premiership League.
And so that really massive trophy that they give at the end of the season, I
had the opportunity to bring that out to Australia.
And so I bought it out to Australia for a week and it travelled back
then with Thierry Henry, who used to be the captain of France.
And so Thierry and the trophy and I spent a week travelling around Australia,
showing the trophy to people.
I had wildly underestimated how popular the trophy would be.
And so by way of example, we were, our office at the time was in
Grosvenor Place in Sydney.
And I thought it'd be a nice idea to pop the trophy down in the lobby at lunchtime
and invite people to come and get their photo taken with the trophy and Thierry.
We had to get the police to come and do crowd control because so many people
turned up to Grosvenor Place to get their photo taken with the trophy.
So I learnt just how popular it is as a sport.
So do you think people are coming to see Thierry or the trophy?
The trophy, people were there to see the trophy and they really wanted to get
their photo taken with the trophy.
What a fantastic experience.
It was a great experience.
Let's, let's have another question.
What's your pet hate in the office?
I mean, hate's a pretty strong word.
The one thing that I will not accept in the office is inter team or
interdepartmental competition.
And the reason I say that is because we have enough competition outside the
four walls of our virtual and actual business that we don't need to compete internally.
We will all rise together if the company rises.
And the best way to do that is to not compete with each other.
So sometimes though, there is natural channel tension because different
teams might be incentivised to do a slightly different thing.
How do you remove those sorts of barriers to make sure that everyone is really
working towards the same goal?
For me, it's all about setting a really clear strategic objective, making sure
that people's KPIs match that objective and that their remuneration and how
they're rewarded and their performance is measured based against those KPIs.
So in the situation that you've explained where you might have people who are
seemingly competing with one another, then I'd just make sure that there was
a really clear alignment of their performance to their own KPIs.
And so removing the concept that you win and I lose or I win and you
lose at the end of the day, it needs to ladder up to everybody succeeding
because the company succeeds.
On that note, Cynthia, you have passed with flying colours, the chat
I now have one final question, which we ask all our guests.
And that is if we were somehow the holiday gods and we gave you a year off
unencumbered, you could do anything you liked.
What would you do?
During COVID, I did create a bucket list.
The list primarily for me and the thing that I would do if I had a year off, the
things I really wanted to do related to horse riding.
So if I had a year off, I would book a series of rides in really interesting
places all around the world.
So for example, there is a ride across Mongolia that I'd love to do.
How long is that?
There is a ride in Botswana that I would like to do.
How long is that one?
That one's only about 10 days, but to do the Botswana ride, you need to be able
to demonstrate that you are comfortable galloping a horse at a pace that can
outrun something that might be chasing you.
So there's a whole series of something fast that might be chasing you fast
that might be chasing you, but then there's rides in, I'd love to do a
cattle drive in Montana.
There's rides all around the world.
So I do have quite a long list.
So the year would go very quickly with me booking up all these
fabulous adventure rides.
And on that note, Cynthia, your time is up.
Thank you so much for coming in today.
I really loved hearing about the differences or more importantly, the
similarities between investment banking and ballet.
I love the fact that you try and get your teams to work together rather than
working against each other because the competition, other people on the
other side of the office building.
I love the way that you have learned to reframe the word no into why, or if
not, okay, how can I get somewhere?
And I really loved your story about jumping out of investment banking into
the deep end, into telecoms and just the way it opened up a whole new world for you.
So thank you very much again for allowing us to spend 15 minutes with the boss.
Sally, it's been fabulous being here.
And thank you to everyone for listening.
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This podcast was hosted by me, Sally Patton and produced and edited by LAPFAN.
Video and audio assistance and our music theme is by Alex Gao and our
executive producer is Fiona Bufini.
The Australian Financial Review.