About this episode

Michele Ferrario shares his entrepreneurial journey and insights on leadership, culture, and the importance of frugality in business.

Michele Ferrario didn’t set out to become an entrepreneur. From McKinsey to private equity, Rocket Internet, and Zalora, his path built confidence until the right problem—and the right partners—pushed him to co-found StashAway in 2016. In this episode, Michele reflects on serendipity, culture, leadership style, and the delicate balance between empowerment and control. A consistent theme in his journey is that frugality buys freedom—less reliance on capital markets, more control of the company’s future. Show Notes [00:40] Show intro [02:11] Guest welcome: Michele Ferrario, Co-Founder & CEO of StashAway, South East Asia and the Middle East's largest digital wealth manager [03:10] Career journey from McKinsey to Rocket Internet to Zalora [05:13] Discovering a personal pain point with wealth management [07:12] Finding co-founders Nino and Freddie through a series of coffees [11:08] Navigating disagreements and building consensus as a leadership team [15:22] Entrepreneurial superpower: attracting and empowering talent [18:13] Struggles in balancing empowerment with control [21:11] Building a resilient leadership team over nine years [23:39] Avoiding key-man risk in a financial…

People in this episode

Guest: Michele Ferrario

Topics covered

• entrepreneurship
• leadership
• wealth management
• frugality
• team building

Keywords

• StashAway
• digital wealth management
• empowerment
• control
• talent attraction

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Gemini, StashAway

Books & works: Radical Candor, The 3HAG Way, The Goal, Good to Great, Great by Choice

Places: South East Asia, the Middle East's, Zalora

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