With his roots in Kuala Lumpur, our Lizard Terence feels like a fish in the water as CEO Asia of Lizard Global. His deep-rooted passion for innovation and sustainable and valuable growth are pushing him to successfully expand our brand throughout Asia and beyond. We sat together with him to have a chat about his experience as CEO Asia of Lizard Global, and his undeniable expertise in innovation and technological and commercial growth.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role within the Lizard Family?

“The family aspect of Lizard Global is what I love most and I am more than grateful to be a part of it. As CEO Asia, I’m mainly responsible for aligning all operational departments and expanding our business in Asia. Aligning all departments is a continuous process where all internal and external processes need to follow our corporate strategy and culture. Expanding our business is being done by finding new strategic processes and developing new services based on our internal expertise and acting upon external trends. Blending these activities creates a perfect mix resulting in technological, operational and commercial growth.”

”My passion lays in innovation and growth. Innovation never stops, and I love approaching a problem in different and creative ways to achieve maximum results and ever-lasting growth.”

How did your adventure at Lizard Global begin?

“My adventure started 3 years ago, in 2017. After working at a Digital HR agency, I continued at a Digital Marketing agency experiencing and contributed to the exponential growth of the company. I was ready for a new adventure where I wanted to have a bigger stake in the growth of a company, based on the lessons I’ve learned along the way. Lizard Global offered me an opportunity to structure all project-related processes to increase efficiency and improve expectation management on the client-side.”

What made you decide to come to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia?

“Next to the beautiful opportunity given by Lizard Global, it was also my Asian background which triggered me to move to Asia, as I was born in Kuala Lumpur. Its central location in Asia is a great stimulant for business and growth, and because I have a deep-rooted passion for innovation, I saw a great number of opportunities to stimulate this process in Asia.”

”The people in Kuala Lumpur are lovely, the food is delicious, and the weather is great.”

What are the most treasured things you’ve learned as a CEO of Lizard Global?

“Building bridges between internal departments while meeting external needs and expectations is a long and difficult process. However, seeing our cross-functional team growing and becoming better and better in achieving different digital transformation goals is more satisfying than anything I have ever experienced.”

Can you list the strengths of Lizard Global, and perhaps some challenges you’re facing?

“We have an open culture, which is one of the most important pillars to create great things in cross-functional teams. Everybody is aware of each other's talents and there is room for advice and own initiatives. People get the opportunity to grow rapidly as a professional while enjoying their colleagues, work, and achievements.”

“The biggest challenge we are facing is the high level of ambiguity that comes with the software development industry. How to manage that both internally and externally is more challenging than in any other type of business. However, overcoming these challenges is more satisfying than anything else and therefore worth the energy, effort, stress, and failure that you will cross your path on your way to success.”

The company itself has changed a lot in the past few years. Where do you see yourself and the company in five years?

“I would love to see our presence on at least four different continents. Not only business-wise, but also operationally working from a cell strategy. I see myself managing these different operational cells, while still developing ourselves commercially in both Asia and Australia, and help with the execution of our biggest digital solutions throughout multiple markets.”

What do you think makes Lizard Global unique? How does it stand out from other digital agencies?

“We are absolutely no technical vendor like most companies. Lizard Global is a digital partner that sits next to our clients instead of across the table, and we assist rather than just delivering. We co-create, consult, design, and create what you need, not just what you want.”

”We do not assume and fail, but we experiment and validate to ensure the perfect product-market fit.”

Are there any specific projects in the close future you’re looking forward to?

“It is great to see day in day out how much knowledge and experience we have gathered, and how we apply this digital expertise. When dealing with a great number of companies, it is amazing to see the possibilities of filling their knowledge gaps with our expertise. I can't wait to enable our experience in structuring that knowledge even more to upgrade our consultancy and training services, while also assisting in the execution of our advice.”

You played a big role in the establishment of our partnership with Salesforce. What are your experiences of that process?

“Next to the fact that Salesforce has one of the best SaaS solutions available, they are an amazing partner to work with. There is a close relationship when looking at opportunities relating to companies where Salesforce and Lizard Global can actively help to accelerate business growth.”

“At the start of the partnership, we travelled to Singapore on multiple occasions where we got introduced to all the big players at Salesforce to ensure that the foundation was solid. Now, by combining the great tool Salesforce offers with the expertise of Lizard Global, we implement custom solutions that fit our partners’ business needs and assist with the onboarding and user adoption process. This all results in positive energy and great dynamic, but most importantly, higher sales and an improved customer experience! Because in the end, we are all about results and growth.”

Meet more Lizards

Want to know more about our Lizard Family? Check out our previous interviews with our CEO and CO-founder Jeremy, our CTO and Co-founder Guido, our Product Owner Jordi, and our Senior Software Engineer Kenny. Keep an eye out for more interviews and find out more about our unique and skilled Lizards!