Perspectives on Product Management from an INSEAD Alum
The INSEAD TMT and Fintech Clubs joined forces this year to organise our first ever Product Games, presented by VISA, where MBA students from schools all over the world would work on a real product problem posed by Stripe. We received close to 70 applications from 25 schools globally, a clear indication that product management in the tech and fintech industries is a field that is gaining a lot of interest from MBA students — but what is it like to work in this space? What valuable skills will MBA students bring? We spoke with Arvin Singh (MBA ‘14J), Director, New Channels & Asia Pacific FinTech Engagement at Visa to find out his perspectives.
Arvin Singh currently works in the Visa New Channels team, helping non-financial institution partners across Asia Pacific to scale their businesses. Arvin’s experience in payments started on the merchant side at a Canadian telco where he helped deliver a co-brand Visa credit card. He subsequently joined Worldpay’s business development team to deliver comprehensive payment solutions (gateway, acquiring, analytics & risk) to eCommerce retailers across Asia Pacific. He holds an MBA from INSEAD, where he currently works with the alumni association to deliver a series of FinTech events.
From Insead to Fintech
What’s your role at Visa?
Arvin: I am part of the New Channels team at Visa where our main objective is to make Visa’s global network open and available for non-financial institutions. We refer to these companies as New Payment Enablers as they digitize payments in use cases that are traditionally dominated by cash. These companies can be retailers, airlines, fintechs, etc. I also get to engage directly with the fintech ecosystem by supporting initiatives such as the Fintech Finals in Hong Kong and the FIN/Sum conference in Japan.
How was your journey from INSEAD to Visa?
Arvin: Upon graduating from INSEAD, I joined Worldpay in their Asia Pacific business development team. Working at Worldpay was a great opportunity to learn about eCommerce payments. I was also lucky enough to be at Worldpay during their IPO in 2015. Subsequently, I joined Visa in mid-2016 to broaden my payments knowledge and focus on issuance.
Tell us about your time at INSEAD. How was the fintech scene then? What were you then most excited about?
Arvin: When I arrived on campus in 2013, the word fintech was not a part of any course vocabulary. The term that I had used to that point, for the work I had done in this industry, was emerging payments, which would now be a category under the fintech umbrella. Check out the chart below for reference. I was most excited about learning from the experiences of my classmates and exploring other potential industries to shift from telco.
What has changed the most at INSEAD from your time to today?
Arvin: From a campus standpoint, I have seen continued infrastructure change with the expanded Singapore campus and some great public recognition of the MBA program from a variety of publications.
In the last 18 months, I have been lucky enough to be involved with both the alumni fintech engagement as well as working with the inaugural leadership team of the student fintech club. It has been great to see both the student and alumni come together to drive knowledge sharing across the various pillars of fintech, e.g. Wealth Management, Payments, etc.
Innovation @ Visa
How has the thinking on fintech evolved at Visa during your time there? What are you most excited about today?
Arvin: I believe the initial engagement was focused on learning where the opportunities exist to collaborate. This has shifted to working on real, scalable solutions with fintechs. The evolving direction means being able to give access to the Visa network, which would allow fintech start-ups to scale their solutions.
How is Visa working with established and upstart fintech players? How do you think the payments landscape will evolve in the next few years globally, as well as here in Asia? What role do you see Visa playing in this future world?
Arvin: For an established fintech, it is important to demonstrate our ability to help scale their solution through our open approach. This type of engagement can vary based on the type of fintech provider and the end customer that the fintech is targeting. Given the size of some of these companies, it remains optimal to first understand their existing pain points before determining where we can help.
For an early stage fintech, we are able to identify the appropriate partnership models to allow these companies to build their proposed solutions. This could mean introducing a card issuer, processing platform or perhaps an eKYC provider that can help the fintech further construct their solution. There’s also a larger opportunity to help early stage fintechs refine their value proposition
What are the biggest challenges you face in your current role at Visa?
Arvin: The nuances in each market across Asia Pacific are a significant challenge to scaling programs. Working through brand new value propositions, product distribution channels and regulatory frameworks to be able to go from market to market can be quite difficult and definitely requires patience.
Why did Visa decide to support Product Games? How do you think events like Product Games can support the development of a fintech ecosystem at universities?
Supporting the Product Games was an opportunity for us, as a team sitting in the product function, to identify new opportunities in payments from a group of highly motivated competitors. This type of engagement allows us to gain a fresh perspective on existing challenges in the payments world.
Advice for MBA Students
Would you be able to tell us about a time you applied product skills — i.e., iterative thinking, prototyping and testing at work?
Arvin: When working with startups, the default mode of operation is speed. While I have studied design thinking in the past, seeing a startup operate under that mode on a daily basis is a different learning experience. Specifically, I have seen a company revamp an existing marketing plan days before launch as they did some final focus groups to realize that there was a mismatch in the value proposition to the consumer needs. Product and customer uncertainty will always exist and seeing a startup react to this as quickly as they did was a great opportunity for me.
How do you think MBA students can equip themselves with the skills necessary for a career in fintech, and product management? What was your approach?
Arvin: There are many free resources available in the world now to get deeper into product management. In my case, I used a specific INSEAD course and professor as my guidance. Prof. Manuel Sosa was an inspiration and the SPSD: Creative Thinking course is one that I would highly recommend. I also worked closely with Manuel on an independent study project during my P4, which turned into a case study. Taking the learning beyond the classroom was a real benefit for me and it is something I would recommend for others.
Additionally, MBA students signed up for the product games are already a step ahead to take on an extra opportunity to apply their skillset to a product specific challenge.
What’s your message for MBAs who aspire to be product managers/fintech professionals in near future? How should they design their careers?
Arvin: I would not be too focused on designing a career. Get out there and meet professionals in the product management space or the fintech ecosystem. Be present, listen well and you’ll find a way to contribute.
