In just 4 years Wealthsimple, the Robo-Advisor Platform, has become a powerhouse of the Canadian FinTech landscape with over $3B of assets under management, and operations in Canada, the US and the UK. We sat down with Founder and CEO Michael Katchen to take us through his journey, with a specific focus on the scaling stage of his company. We talk through the challenges of achieving massive growth, and what Katchen has learned as he’s turned Wealthsimple into a credible player in the established financial industry. Katchen shares some of the moments when lightning fast growth almost pushed the company to its breaking point, and some of the challenges of scaling in the Canadian ecosystem.

• understand the key business challenges when experiencing explosive growth
• learn about how executive team’s need to change as a company scales significantly
• learn about the challenges to scaling in the Canadian ecosystem

• stages of Wealthsimple’s growth
• strategic investors vs. venture capital
• prioritizing, preparing and hiring for scale
• importance of corporate values
• organizational structure changes when scaling up
• firing, hiring, and managing people with empathy and decisiveness
• how Wealthsimple built credibility in an industry filled with giants
• challenges that Canadian companies face while trying to scale

Presenter

About This Product

On-Demand Courses by LumiQ. LumiQ is a podcast company where engaging conversations with business leaders also count as verifiable CPD. We go out and find business, accounting and finance leaders to interview about their expertise and experiences, and you get verifiable CPD for learning from the world’s top minds. Some days, you’ll find yourself immersed in the world of start-ups, or captivated with the story of how Bernie Madoff pulled off the largest fraud in human history. Maybe you’ll want to learn about how the music industry’s business model has changed over time? Whatever you’re interested in and will feed your natural curiosity of how businesses work, you’ll find on the LumiQ podcast. LumiQ is an enjoyable way to earn CPD.

Please note that not all on-demand courses include downloadable materials such as course notes or slides.

How to get started

Upon completion of purchase, go to mylms.bccpa.ca and log in using your CPABC Online Services credentials. Click “Go to your Courses and Materials” to go to your Learning Center, then find and click on your course title.