Airwallex appoints ex Milkrun COO as ANZ general manager

Australian payments company Airwallex has hired Luke Lathan as its new general manager for its Australian and New Zealand arm.

This appointment follows Airwallex's aim to continue its expansion within the Australian and New Zealand region.

Latham joins Airwallex following senior roles with Amazon, Amazon Web Services, Groupon and most recently as chief operating officer for Milkrun.  

Jack Zhang, CEO and co-founder at Airwallex said Latham’s deep experience in businesses disrupting traditional industries made him the right choice for Airwallex’s expansion in the region.

“We did an extensive global search to find the right person to lead our business locally because Australia is where we started and it is a special place for Airwallex,” Zhang said.

“Latham is the right person to help Airwallex expand and build on the more than 15,000 Australian and New Zealand business customers we work with. Latham will be a key part of our future success as we grow our network that now spans across North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.”

Latham said the banking and financial system was ripe for disruption as one the last areas of corporate Australia and New Zealand that hadn’t been turned on its head by technology.

“Uncertain economic environments are catalysts for disruption and Airwallex is in the right place with the right technology and right infrastructure to be at the forefront of that change,” Latham said.

“There’s huge opportunity to remove the pain points and high costs you get from traditional banking and financial services. Airwallex has seen phenomenal growth because businesses see the appeal of an alternative to the traditional banks across their needs in payments, treasury, expense management and embedded finance.

Latham started his career at Microsoft before leading e-commerce strategy for global marketplace Groupon in Australia and New Zealand.

He spent more than eight years working for Amazon Web Services and Amazon across the USA and Australia in a variety of senior product, strategy, go-to-market and general management roles.

Airwallex in Australia and New Zealand has grown its customer base from 6,000 to more than 15,000 in the last year, adding a range of customers recently including Kogan, Camilla, EUC, HiSmile, BFT, RATIONALE and Ecosa.

Airwallex started in Melbourne in 2015 and now employs around 200 staff in Australia and 1,400 globally, with plans to grow its workforce by more than 400 through the remainder of the year.

The business was valued at US$5.5 billion at its October 2022 Series E fundraising.