Olzhas (Oz) Zhiyenkul: From Soviet Collapse to Disrupting Global Wealth Tech - E592
"With how AI is coming up, if you don't have a core system to which everything talks to and from which everything emanates, then in the future, the more AI systems advance, you're not collecting all that data, you don't have mediums to then transform yourself to reap the next level benefits with all the technologies now that are coming." - Olzhas (Oz) Zhiyenkul, CEO and co-founder of Investbanq
"It's a thing of the past, and even a huge institution will collapse if it doesn't have systems. And what I got to experience was a massive inefficiency, starting with the fact that till this day, a digital interface in a private bank is either a beautiful front end that is written with errors because it's built on legacy systems, to the fact that still to this day, you can't trade most asset classes on a private bank digital interface. When in 2022 we exited that wealth management company successfully, I thought, 'I need to do something about this 'cause I still haven't found a system that is going to enable wealth management digitally.' And at that point in time in 2022, it was clear where the wealth management industry is moving and what it's gonna be in the next 10, 20 years." - Olzhas (Oz) Zhiyenkul, CEO and co-founder of Investbanq
"And what I got to experience was a massive inefficiency, starting with the fact that till this day, a digital interface in a private bank is either a beautiful front end that is written with errors because it's built on legacy systems, to the fact that still to this day, you can't trade most asset classes on a private bank digital interface. And then going a notch below that, 90% of wealth managers, outside of a few large ones, are operating without systems or with very narrow systems, and 90% of family offices are still operating on Excel. I got to witness that and feel that firsthand. I asked many questions, researched, and received answers: Why are banks doing that? Why are they not investing into those systems? Why are wealth managers making this choice? Why is it so difficult to switch outside of Excel?" - Olzhas (Oz) Zhiyenkul, CEO and co-founder of Investbanq
Olzhas (Oz) Zhiyenkul, CEO and co-founder of Investbanq, joins Jeremy Au to share how his journey from post-Soviet Kazakhstan to launching a full-stack wealth operating system was shaped by hardship, global education, and the inefficiencies he witnessed firsthand across Asia’s financial sector. They discuss how legacy systems fail family offices, why most wealth managers still operate on Excel, and how Investbanq aims to empower rather than replace relationship managers. Olzhas also recounts building boats from garbage on reality TV, reflects on cultural shocks from the UK to Singapore, and maps out his long-term vision for a digital-native wealth future.