Kammy Tsang, Senior Director, Treasury, Ripple and former Head of Treasury, Strategic Initiatives at Uber Technologies Inc. is a world-class diver, travelling the world and competing at the highest international level in her age group. As is often the case, her approach to sport informs and shapes how she approaches her career. For example, diving demands mental clarity and focus. In synchronised diving events, she has learned the importance of adjusting her pace, rhythm and style so that sometimes she leads and sometimes she follows. Diving has taught her the importance of putting aside the distracting inner voice to just focus on execution, another skill she uses in her work life. Perhaps most importantly, competitive sport has fuelled her determination and competitive fire to succeed.
Since Uber went public five years ago, the company has transformed into a complex, global marketplace and gone through periods of change and upheaval that come with corporate growth. Kammy has been involved in different and complex business launches, M&A, divestitures and structural organisational changes. She has supported the business journey as Uber became cash flow positive and reached GAAP profitability and been a force of stability through a series of transformations.
Her key achievements through 2023 include forging deeper integration of treasury with other business teams; rolling out new payment methods incorporating multiple Payment Service Providers (PSP) and AMEX partnerships, and fostering growth in real-time payments while reducing liquidity requirements. Kammy developed strategic partnerships with cross functional teams and supported compliance around UK liquidity management, as well as collaborating on the restructuring of a global legal entity. She also changed the methodology of intercompany transfers and reduced trapped cash.
All this alongside supporting the day-to-day liquidity needs of the business which came under pressure during the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) crisis. Kammy led the team that pulled out cash and reduced the company’s exposure the day before the bank’s collapse. Within 24 hours, her team redirects cash receipts, put in place a risk mitigation plan for payments that has SVB as a recipient and ensures online tax payments and seamless payroll that would have been impacted.
Kammy’s leadership style is characterised by resilience. She celebrates challenges as much as success, viewing success as a store of energy and resilience for when things inevitably turn tough. Her strong global team is renowned for being supportive and collaborative; she led the global cash team for two years, during which she had no turnovers amongst her direct reports and received favourable 360 feedback ratings. To ensure the success of her team, Kammy implemented clear roles and responsibilities with each manager covering a geographical region. She leveraged the strengths of subject matter experts, tapping into colleagues’ knowledge of liquidity, forecasting and technology.
She has been an invited guest speaker among industry groups, and financial institutions on real-time payment business use cases.
Outside work Kammy volunteers, particularly supporting the Association of Financial Professionals (AFP) Task Force, where she encourages more women to take on speaking roles. She has been outspoken about finding ways to promote equal representation across the conferencing schedule.
She has also launched a working mother’s group, forming a network of women with different backgrounds and careers spanning finance, to life sciences and research. All these women share the challenge of having many roles that compete for their time and energy. She hopes the group will support women by celebrating their success and building resilience, and believes it is an example of the importance of small changes. She deeply cares how she interacts with the people in her life; takes an interest in where others come from and builds connections because, she says, it is often the people who need the connections most that are the ones who have the least access.
Today, Kammy is a Senior Director of Treasury at Ripple. Ripple is the leader in enterprise blockchain and crypto solutions, transforming how the world moves, manages, tokenises and stores value. A company with more than 900 global employees and 15 offices, Kammy is joining a team steadfast and empowered to deliver on its mission to build crypto solutions for a world without economic borders. To date, Ripple Payments has processed 27m lifetime transactions worth nearly US$50bn. A vision that has the potential to impact treasury directly on how value moves around the world.
Strategic thinking
Kammy’s leadership style is characterised by an ability to take on complex issues, motivate teammates, and drive change within an organisation. Her 20 years of treasury experience have earned her a reputation for being able to isolate problems and bottlenecks and find solutions with an overarching strategy. Kammy delivers a next-generation treasury solution that aligns with the goals of the business.
Kammy holds a leadership position at a global digital company, alongside balancing the needs of her family and her own passion for competitive sport. She leads by example, serving as a role model for other women. She is a strong female leader who executes to accomplish corporate objectives, as well as driving her own career growth. She is also, always, looking out for other women, helping them to gain opportunities and advance.
