Running a global marketing function from APAC sounds like a logistical headache. For Jon Stona, VP of Global Marketing at Airwallex, it's a deliberate competitive advantage. In this episode, Jon unpacks how one of the world's fastest-growing fintechs has architected a marketing org that's globally consistent yet locally authentic - spanning Singapore, San Francisco, London, and regional hubs across Asia, Europe, and Australia.
From making the case for product marketing before performance spend, to using an F1 sponsorship to systematically close a trust gap against legacy financial institutions, Jon brings rare clarity to the strategic decisions that most B2B marketing leaders only talk about in theory. If you want to think bigger about brand, team design, and what marketing can actually own in a scaling business, this episode is worth your time.
Guest Introduction
Jon Stona is VP of Global Marketing at Airwallex, the Australian-founded global payments and financial platform supporting over 150,000 businesses worldwide. Before joining Airwallex, Jon held senior marketing roles at Stripe, Google, and Nike - giving him deep experience scaling marketing across global technology platforms and challenger brands at every stage of growth.
Key Topics
Why Airwallex built its global marketing org out of APAC, and why the APAC talent pool - wired for fragmentation and global trade from day one - is a genuine strategic asset
How the team is structured across Singapore, San Francisco, London, and regional markets, and why a flat, matrix model is essential when you're this geographically dispersed
The case for investing in product marketing before growth marketing - and why getting your positioning, segmentation, and value prop right is the "root" everything else depends on
The four truths Jon applies to any market expansion: brand truth, product truth, market truth, and user truth - and how product marketing is the function that calibrates where the variation sits
How Airwallex uses its McLaren F1 partnership to build trust at scale, structured around the reliability-credibility-intimacy-low self-orientation framework - and how they actually measure the pipeline and employee sentiment impact
Where AI is genuinely delivering efficiency gains in marketing (Writer, Jasper, Profound) and the paradox this creates: as AI levels the playing field on distribution, the non-technical facets of marketing - storytelling, positioning, insight - matter more than ever
Jon's advice for B2B marketers who want to take bolder moves: return to first principles, and remember you're marketing to humans who happen to make business decisions
Reko Rennie - Internationally acclaimed Kamilaroi artist who collaborated with Airwallex and McLaren on the 'Shifted Perspectives' campaign at the 2025 Australian Grand Prix
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