Meet Our Head of Customer Success: Giorgia Pellizzari

It’s a pleasure to introduce Giorgia to the Hex Trust community. Here’s a recent Q&A interview to get to know her.

1. Tell us a bit about yourself.

Born and raised in Italy, I moved to Denmark for my master’s degree and started my career in a completely different industry than tech. I began my career as a management trainee at Ikea, which taught me a great deal about leadership and was an experience I’ll never forget. While Ikea was a great place to work, I knew inside that I had an unfinished business to take care of: I loved computers and tech ever since I could remember but never had the opportunity to work in the industry. So when life brought me to Hong Kong in 2015, I decided to join a startup and get my hands dirty. I learnt how to lead teams of developers and designers and rolled out a few fun mobile apps in collaboration with Apple and Spotify — enjoyable times! In 2017, I couldn’t ignore the surge of blockchain and crypto, so that was the year when I co-founded Holdex, which I still support and advise today. Since November 2020, I’m part of Hex Trust and super excited for what’s to come!

2. What initially got you interested in the digital assets market?

I started investing in Bitcoin in late 2016 mainly because I was in the right place, at the right time, with the right people. The whole idea of offering a disintermediated option to manage, transfer and grow assets resonated with me from day one. I feel very fortunate and privileged to have met some incredible people within the blockchain space in Hong Kong and Singapore over the past four years. The more I’d have conversations about decentralization and the endless opportunities that it brings, the more I wanted to know, to the point that I started writing blockchain comparisons for Unhashed.com. Eventually, it became apparent that a spectator seat was just not good enough, so I joined those that actively push things forward.

3. What was it about Hex Trust which made you want to join the team?

I met Alessio in 2017 at a Fintech Association of Hong Kong committee, and, you know, as an Italian, I can’t help chatting with a fellow Italian when I meet one. Since that day, we’ve regularly kept in touch, sharing the ups and downs of running a blockchain venture as well as our shared passion for wine tasting. Three years passed by, the market changed, COVID came, and our conversations took a different turn as the idea of working together at Hex Trust started taking shape. I then spoke to Rafal and Marty, and very quickly, the impressive company culture became evident to me. Hex Trust is a team of highly competent, driven and respectful professionals who focus on their vision without forgetting to care for each other. For me, there is just nothing better than this — on top of the fact that I get to talk about crypto all day long :-)

4. What does ‘customer success’ mean to you?

Customer Success for me is all about helping customers achieve their goals through our products and services. This is more than solving their problems or providing them with what they paid for. Sometimes people ask me why ‘Customer Success’ instead of ‘Customer Support’ — and this is a fair question. Customer Support is a massive part of Customer Success but still only one part of it. The way I respond is the following: if you remove the word ‘customer’ and focus on the second part, what comes to mind when you think about the terms ‘success’ and ‘support’? I would imagine the mental associations might be pretty different. ‘Support’ implies something along the lines of assisting someone in need — which is great but doesn’t have that positive charge that I want my team to have in mind at every client interaction. ‘Success’ is about achieving, building, exploring, getting to the next stage. As a result, Customer Success focuses on building relationships, understanding where your clients are today and where they want to be next, so you can take them there and grow your business in the process.

5. I also noticed you’re on the committee of ‘Women in Tech APAC’ — tell us more about that.

That is correct! I first joined Women in Tech HK (which is now Women in Tech APAC) a while ago because…well, I’m a Woman in Tech. The whole idea behind this community is that the advancement of women within the technology/STEM space could use all the help it can get. So we do what we do best: get together and share experiences, resources, opportunities, ask for help, network, connect and, last but not least, support each other as much as possible. As part of the committee, I hope to do more for the community together with the other amazing powerhouses that I get to work with on this. I’d also like to share that I’m a member of GJWTHF (Girls Just Want To Have Funds), which is another wonderful community that focuses on helping women in their investment journey.

6. Rumours say you’re a coach as well…is that true?

I am indeed. I’m taking my coaching certification with the International Coaching Federation through a great HK-based organization (whoop whoop to Belinda Esterhammer for getting me into that!). For some, what coaching is remains a bit unclear, so let’s take care of that: a coach is someone in between your biggest fan and a wise monk that believes in you deeply, helps you with stuff and never judges you. This person’s job is to get you where you want to get in life (whether professionally or personally) without ever giving you advice and by simply helping you to ‘think’. So far, I helped people change careers, stop procrastinating, get the confidence to pitch in front of challenging audiences, and the list goes on. This is a big passion and something I truly believe everybody should try — needless to say, I have a coach too.

7. Finally, tell us something interesting which you do outside of work, and which not many people know about you.

Outside work I advise other projects in the space (which could be seen as work again but what can I do…), nap with my dogs, volunteer, build on big puzzles (like 4,000–5,000 pieces), go SUP’ing, yoga, play board games and drink wine!

8. If people would like to reach out to you, what do you suggest?

Sure, feel free to email me: giorgia.pellizzari@hextrust.com