Sydney firm Lakeba appoints Microsoft executive to board as it looks to ‘export’ its tech

Sydney-based innovation studio Lakeba has tapped a Microsoft executive to join its board as it looks to expand deeper into Southeast Asia.

Lakeba chief executive Giuseppe Porcelli says the company is looking to ‘export’ its technology.

Sydney-based innovation studio Lakeba has tapped a Microsoft executive to join its board as it looks to expand deeper into Southeast Asia.

Kevin Wo, Microsoft’s managing director for global partner solutions in the Asia Pacific, has been appointed to the Lakeba board, which also includes marketing expert Mark Ritson, who lived on the same street as the firm’s chief executive Giuseppe Porcelli.

The company has been launching a range of artificial intelligence products, including a tool to accelerate digitisation across some of Australia’s biggest financial institutions, including ANZ, Macquarie Bank and Perpetual. It can slash the time it takes to verify documents from 12 minutes to seconds, enhancing quality checks on securitised loans and mortgages, and has its eyes on extending the application to payments, involving billions of dollars of transactions a day.

Kevin Wo, Microsoft’s managing director for global partner solutions in the Asia Pacific, has been appointed to Lakeba's board.

Lakeba has developed and deployed its tools on Microsoft’s cloud, making Mr Wo’s appointment seem like a natural fit to help achieve its ambitious goals.

Microsoft dominates the $3.3bn cloud computing market in Australia, with a 30.9 per cent market share, according to Gartner, edging ahead of Amazon’s 30.1 per cent share, last year.

“I’m responsible for the cloud AI business through our partners,” Mr Wo said.

“Prior to this role, I was the country MD for Microsoft Singapore, so I was responsible for the commercial and cloud business across Singapore. And prior to that, I spent a big part of my career in the professional services space.”

But Mr Wo said there “was no time for complacency” in the AI race.

“Today’s magic will be tomorrow’s commodity. So you know, we as a technology company have to continue to innovate. We have to continue to be relevant to our customers and industry that we are serving across all the markets that we are operating in.

“So I think there’s no time for complacency. We just have to continue to do what is right for our customers, and build out a platform where our partners can continue to innovate on.”

Mr Wo said he would bring an outside perspective to Lakeba as it looks to expand further into South East Asia and assist in the “potential nuances they have to deal with”.

Mr Porcelli said in Australia, Lakeba’s partnership with Perpetual would allow other companies to “see us more easily”.

“Perpetual is our best partner to accelerate our growth in Australia, especially with large organisations.”

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella has singled out Lakeba to highlight the tech giant’s cloud capabilities.

“Lakeba has taken what is perhaps the real frontier of retailing – there is a lot of talk about eCommerce – but one of the things is exciting is that every physical outlet is going to be transformed by AI,” he said.

“Just imagine if you could do to the physical space what you were able to do to the web pages through the use of the AI … you can start dynamically using data to help merchandise in any retail outlet.”