Carsome appoints Juliet Zhu as CFO

Juliet Zhu

JAKARTA (IndoTelko) – Carsome has officially announced the addition of a senior hire to its leadership team. Juliet Zhu has been appointed as Carsome's Chief Financial Officer.

She brings extensive experience in growth strategy and capital planning, having worked in the investment industry across China, India and most of all, Southeast Asia.

This includes most recently with Fosun RZ Capital, a Global Venture Capital (VC) under Hong Kong-listed multi-billion-dollar conglomerate Fosun Group, as well as other Southeast Asia-focused venture capital firms such as Jubilee Capital Management and Cento Ventures. Prior to her tenure as a venture capitalist, she honed her skills in understanding business fundamentals as an equity analyst and later, as a portfolio manager focusing on the TMT space in a boutique long-short hedge fund where she proposed and executed short positions in Twitter and Zynga among other trades.

As Chief Financial Officer, Juliet will bring her insights and leadership from her experience in Venture Capital to drive Carsome's growth strategy for core and new business verticals, ecosystem development through partnership and M&A, and overseeing all capital management including equity and debt fundraising. Following Carsome's successful Series C funding in December 2019, the addition of Juliet will strengthen Carsome's regional leadership in the industry by expanding its ecosystem of products and offerings, including financing, warranty, and insurance. Carsome aims to be operationally profitable in Indonesia and Thailand by the end of 2020 and have achieved it in Malaysia since 2019.

From her previous board positions, Juliet has built an in-depth set of knowledge and experience in business development, capital management, as well as strategic investments and M&As. Her experience will strengthen Carsome's position in the competition for capital from global investors.

"We are very pleased to welcome Juliet to Carsome," said Eric Cheng, CEO, and Co-Founder of Carsome. "We have known Juliet since 2016, and she has stayed close to us and the industry for the past few years. She knows everything about Carsome and is incredibly well-versed in the nuances of our industry and ecosystem players in China, India, US, and Europe. She will bring the necessary leadership and strategic thinking to the team and take Carsome's platform in Southeast Asia to greater heights."

"At my previous role with Fosun RZ Capital, we have done the most thorough horizontal comparison of sector opportunities and business models across China, US, India, and Southeast Asia. The used car market in Southeast Asia is one of the most exciting yet understated opportunities in the region," said Juliet. "The industry is one of the few spaces in the region that is comparable to the size of China with easily more than US$100 billion of untapped market in trading and financing alone. I have seen the growth of Carsome over the past few years, and I'm more and more convinced of the business model and the team. It's not a business for opportunists as it requires focus, perseverance, and lots of grunt work to build, and Carsome's team has proven their grit. I look forward to playing my part during this pivotal time in the industry and the company's history and will use everything I have to execute the vision we all believe in."

Beyond the financial services sector, Juliet has a passion for writing. She is an avid playwright with eight pieces of her work produced by the various local theatre. Juliet has also published commentaries on the economy and businesses in business magazines and columns. She is an active investor in private and public companies, especially in the tech sector.

Her appointment follows a period of accelerated regional growth for Carsome, signalling its move as the leading used car trading platform in Southeast Asia. In December 2019, Carsome raised US$50 million in Series C funding from investors, including MUFG Innovation Partners, Daiwa PI Partners, Endeavor Catalyst, and Ondine Capital. The latest financing round brought the total raised by the company to US$85 million. In November 2019, Carsome partnered with Funding Societies Malaysia, a peer-to-peer (P2P) financing platform, offering up to US$200 million in financing to its local car dealers for the purchase of used motor vehicles.(es)