Culture connector

Seven days after joining as global tax director, Leon also took on responsibility for group finance. ‘A week after I joined, my boss asked if I wanted to take over the group finance role as well,’ he recalls. ‘My answer was simply, “Why not?”‘

Leap into the unknown

It was a leap into the unknown, but one that reflected the curiosity that has shaped his career from the beginning.

Although Leon had spent around 17 years specialising in tax, he never saw it as a narrow discipline. ‘People think tax is about rules and compliance,’ he says. ‘For me, it’s about understanding the whole business – strategy, operations, financing, supply chains and financial reporting – before figuring out the tax.’

That broader perspective is one reason he has always enjoyed the field. He describes tax as ‘storytelling’, where technical knowledge must be combined with judgment, communication and negotiation.

‘Sometimes the rules aren’t completely clear,’ he says. ‘You need to understand what’s driving the tax authority’s thinking, what the business wants to achieve, and find a solution that works for both sides.’

This philosophy has served him well as his responsibilities have expanded beyond tax into finance and operations.

Bigger picture

Growing up in Shanghai during the Chinese mainland’s rapid economic transformation, Leon was determined to build a secure future. His parents were factory workers and, like many young people at the turn of the century, he recognised that finance was becoming one of the country’s most promising professions.

‘I wanted to start with the basics,’ he says. ‘Accounting provides a foundation and a gateway to the bigger picture.’

His choice of Shanghai International Studies University reflected another passion – languages – which has certainly paid off. His English is impeccable, as is his general ability to communicate. Alongside accounting, this pairing has become a defining strength throughout his career.

Leon discovered ACCA during his first year at university and committed himself fully to the qualification. At the time, there were no exemptions for accounting graduates, meaning he completed all 14 exams over five years while beginning his career at Deloitte.

His first professional break came through Deloitte’s graduate programme, where an internship introduced him to tax. The attraction was immediate.

Beyond tax

After five years at Deloitte, he moved into industry with automotive supplier Lear Corporation, where he spent more than eleven years, with his tax responsibilities expanding across the Chinese mainland and other Asia-Pacific markets, becoming APAC tax director in 2019.

The role broadened his commercial understanding considerably. ‘I wanted to see how all the advice I’d been giving clients actually played out inside a real company,’ he says.

Among his achievements were leading complex royalty negotiations with Chinese mainland tax authorities, supporting acquisitions, overseeing tax audits and helping relocate major business operations within Shanghai. Each project required balancing commercial priorities with regulatory expectations.

By 2022, however, Leon was looking for something different. He believed the next generation of multinational businesses would increasingly emerge from the Chinese mainland, and he wanted to experience that journey from the inside.

JS Global offered exactly that opportunity. The interview process itself reflected the company’s entrepreneurial culture.

Connecting cultures

Today, Leon‘s role extends well beyond finance. As JS Global’s COO and finance SVP, he acts as a bridge between a Chinese mainland-founded global business and an increasingly international SharkNinja Asia-Pacific leadership team.

Much of his work involves translating not language but culture. He regularly helps filter the expectations of the company’s founder and senior executives in the Chinese mainland with leaders across Asia, an ability that has become increasingly important as SharkNinja expands rapidly across the region.

After the North American and European spin-off, JS Global retained SharkNinja’s Asia-Pacific segment, where regional revenues have increased more than fivefold, while the team has grown from fewer than 100 employees to more than 400. New product categories, local innovation and expansion into markets including India continue to drive growth.

Leon believes that the experience has fundamentally changed his perspective. ‘If you ask me today whether I’m more interested in finance or business,’ he says, ‘I’d choose business.’

Inevitable AI

AI transformation is one of JS Global’s stated priorities, and landing it across the group is a large part of his mandate. ‘I wrote our three-year AI plan – with AI,’ he says.

Leon’s interest in new technology extends beyond your average; he’s built nine apps for his own use and runs a set of AI agents through Telegram. All this and he can’t write a line of code. ‘The skill is in defining what “good” looks like, breaking a vague want into clear requirements, and spotting when the output is subtly wrong,’ he explains.

This is essentially the job he’s been doing for 20 years, in which ACCA has played a key role. While knowledge is so easily accessible via AI, what the qualification really gave him is discomfort with a number he can’t trace back to a source.

‘This turns out to be the most useful instinct you can have around AI, because the machine’s answer is always fluent and always confident, and it never tells you which part is hollow,’ he says.

Looking ahead

As Leon continues helping shape one of the world’s fastest-growing consumer brands, he hopes that younger finance professionals recognise that technical expertise is only the beginning.

‘Communication and understanding people become more important as your career develops,’ he says. ‘Finance gives you the foundation, but curiosity helps you keep growing.’