Lucia Ma is Group Treasurer and Inventory Controller at Klook Travel Technology and this year’s Champion of Change Overall Winner in recognition of her success at challenging conventional thinking, modernising treasury processes at the travel company, and empowering the next generation of female treasury professionals.
Her career journey combines adaptability, resilience and strategic curiosity. She joined the company in 2014 as a part time social media editor before transitioning into corporate finance in 2016 where she initially supported fundraising activities. In 2021 she was appointed to lead treasury at one of the most critical times for the travel sector.
Her role expanded again in 2025 when she took on the inventory function. Once again, she approached the challenges of the role without the constraint of traditional industry standard thinking, drawing on a mindset that led to a series of new initiatives across the treasury and finance function at Klook.
One of Lucia’s earliest achievements came in the wake of the pandemic when Klook’s FX trading volumes surged. At which point Lucia developed an in-house FX trading platform tailored specifically to Klook’s needs. The platform integrated multiple banking partners and fully automated currency netting and settlement across more than 30 currencies. The impact was far reaching, including benefits like a 20% reduction in average FX costs, and an increase in FX trading volumes.
When she turned her hand to transforming the inventory function, she had to overturn years of technological stagnation. Changes included dismantling heavily manual processes and establishing a scalable financial and operational architecture capable of supporting the company’s next stage of global growth. Under her leadership, the inventory function achieved 50% improvements in operational efficiency and enhanced profitability through stronger operational scalability and process optimisation.
Lucia has also worked hard to integrate technology in treasury. Her long-term road map includes integrating tokenisation pilots and AI driven liquidity forecasting capabilities aimed at transforming treasury from a reactive reporting function into a source of predictive strategic intelligence.
She has introduced an AI first mindset in treasury and inventory management, empowering employees to utilise AI assisted coding and automation tools to overcome operational challenges, dismantling the perception that innovation belongs exclusively to engineers of developers.
Lucia is committed to helping others succeed. For example, she encourages career progression alongside academic development, she intentionally appointed female junior staff as Lead Project Managers of high-profile initiatives giving them visibility and leadership exposure and her supportive leadership has led to a 60% increase in team satisfaction.
Lucia’s leadership is also shaped by resilience. She passed the CFA level 3 examination during a three-month maternity leave. She also challenges professional expectation associated with the 35-year-old career threshold.
Lucia represents a new generation of finance leadership, one that combines operational excellence, technological innovation and human centred empowerment. Her work has modernised treasury and inventory at scale while also reshaping organisational culture.
