Meet Quan Yu, Ant’s high-flying tech executive managing risk for 900 million Alipay users
Quan Yu never quite expected to end up where she is. In the midst of obtaining her doctorate at Vanderbilt University, and potentially an academic career as an economist, a friend urged her to try out for a job at a major American bank.
One interview and that launched her lifetime career in risk management, ultimately landing her in her current role as Head of Risk Management at Ant Group, overseeing consumer and SME credit risk analytics and strategies for the owner and operator of Alipay.
Quan was named Forbes China Top 50 Women in Technology in 2020, an honor that another Ant Group colleague, Dr. Ying Yan, received in 2019.
After nearly two decades in the U.S. banking industry, Quan brought her experience back to China and to Ant in 2016. Now a seasoned professional, she says her passion for the field stems from its analytical nature, using data to solve problems and make a real difference in people’s lives.
As the leader in charge of managing risk for consumer products such as Huabei (Ant Credit Pay) and Jiebei (Ant Cash Now), as well as online commercial bank MYbank’s SME finance product, Quan’s work potentially covers Alipay’s 900 million users in China.
During her four years at Ant, Quan successfully led her team to create a more rigorous credit risk control system, applied data and intelligent systems to pre-loan risk management, and helped the group get closer to its mission of providing more inclusive financial products to SMEs and consumers alike.
One of Quan’s proudest moments was in the midst of the Covid-19 outbreak, when her team came together — “like a tactical SWAT team,” as she remembered, to determine creditworthiness for small businesses. These are based on technical foundations including data and AI, that together make up the risk management products covering such a large consumer base, she said.
Challenges on the job
A key learning early on in her career was to build her own confidence, and to be okay with having aspirations and goals.
In fact, looking back, Quan says she would have told her younger self, “Don’t hold yourself back — I wish I had more ambition when I was junior.”
She tells the story of when she had to deliver an important presentation to a room of mainly male senior directors at the U.S. bank. She remembers clearly to this day that she didn’t speak much after the presentation, because she assumed the audience knew everything and would laugh at what she said.
That was her “A-ha!” moment, when she knew that she needed to break out of her shell.
Quan was also told once by a U.S. leadership coach to “fit in with the guys, to watch football.” She forced herself to watch football for a month.
Her takeaway from that chapter: “I think, just be yourself. Don’t try to blend in with guys, you’re not a guy!”
Life lessons
When asked what advice she would give to young women starting out in their careers, she said that it’s important to have a growth mindset, no matter your gender.
When asked the inevitable work-life balance question, Quan initially bristles, saying she believes this is a biased question as it is typically only asked of female executives. But she pauses, sighs, and says, “it’s okay, it’s the reality.”
Quan’s support system includes her husband, who moved back to China with her, along with their now ten-year-old daughter, in 2016. “Weekends are all about me and my daughter’s time — we do whatever she wants.”
About one’s life choices, Quan offers sage advice: “I think at each stage, find the choice fits your life at that time, and make peace with it, that’s it. It’s different at each stage of your life.”
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