Director Spotlight: Jeroen van Son, Board Director, Advisor and Growth Leader in FinTech and Digital Payments
With close to three decades of international leadership across Europe, Africa, North Asia, South-East Asia, and Australasia, Jeroen van Son has built a career defined by profitable growth, customer-centred innovation, and a commitment to ethical leadership. His track record spans senior roles at Westpac, Mastercard, PayPal, and Virgin Australia, as well as founding and scaling purpose-driven FinTech ventures.
Today, Jeroen is focused on contributing as a board director and strategic advisor, bringing to the table a rare blend of governance expertise, global growth experience, and entrepreneurial perspective. As Founder and Strategic Advisor of Sphere (For Good), he is also pursuing his passion for sustainability by helping consumers and businesses understand, measure, and reduce their carbon impact.
A Career of Impact and Innovation
From the very beginning, Jeroen has combined a commercial focus with a sense of purpose. At Westpac, he was instrumental in creating Westpac Assist, an initiative to support vulnerable customers while still delivering strong financial performance. During his tenure, he achieved a 13% CAGR across consumer finance and managed a $9.6 billion asset base.
At Virgin Australia’s Velocity business, he delivered extraordinary results following private equity investment. Within the first year, revenues rose by 185%, underpinned by innovative partnerships with blue-chip brands such as Coles, Samsung, Holden, and Bupa.
His leadership at Mastercard as Head of Hong Kong and Macau saw consistent 20%+ year-on-year revenue growth. He turned an underperforming team into one of Mastercard’s top-performing global units, demonstrating his ability to lead in high-stakes, competitive environments. At PayPal Asia Pacific, he helped redefine commerce by launching omni-channel capabilities and driving large regional distribution deals.
“I’ve always made it a strategic point to drive profitable growth whilst never cutting corners, operating in a compliant manner, and delivering genuinely positive impacts.”
This guiding principle has been evident in every role, balancing the commercial imperatives of the financial services industry with integrity and social responsibility.
Building Businesses with Purpose
Alongside corporate leadership, Jeroen has been a passionate entrepreneur. He founded Sphere (For Good), a platform designed to help consumers and merchants calculate and offset CO2 emissions from everyday transactions. By giving individuals the tools to understand their footprint, Sphere empowers them to make more sustainable choices and live carbon-neutral lives.
“The world needs businesses like this and I am proud to have conceived and founded it.”
Sphere exemplifies Jeroen’s belief that technology should be a force for good. It also reflects his focus on ESG-driven innovation and his ability to link financial services with broader societal outcomes.
Governance as a Strategic Differentiator
Jeroen’s governance style is both pragmatic and forward-looking. He recognises that governance is not simply about compliance but about enabling growth. He is known for putting in place systems, frameworks, and accountability structures that match the maturity stage of each organisation, whether a start-up or an established corporation.
His boardroom expertise covers financial oversight, P&L and balance sheet management, enterprise risk, and reporting frameworks. He is also highly attuned to the importance of culture, ethical leadership, and sustainable growth.
“Risk and compliance can become a strategic asset and differentiator. Strong operators engage with regulators early and innovate within that framework.”
This philosophy positions him as a director who can not only safeguard organisations but also help them scale responsibly.
Shaping the Future of Finance
Jeroen has a clear vision for how digital payments and blockchain will reshape the financial ecosystem. He sees digital payments as critical drivers of inclusion, cash replacement, and cost-efficient global money movement—factors that directly contribute to middle-class growth and a fairer distribution of wealth.
“Digital payments can and should be increasingly leveraged for good—driving inclusion, growing middle-class economies, and contributing to a fairer distribution of wealth.”
He also highlights blockchain’s potential to dismantle the outdated correspondent banking model, replacing slow and costly processes with faster, more transparent systems. With the rise of central bank digital currencies and stablecoins, Jeroen believes we are only at the beginning of what distributed ledger technology can deliver.
Guiding Founders and Executives
For founders preparing for capital raising or exit planning, Jeroen’s advice is grounded in experience. He urges leaders to build relationships with strategic capital providers long before funding is required and to structure their cap tables carefully to avoid unnecessary dilution.
He also brings empathy to the boardroom as someone who has been both a CEO and a director. He knows what boards need from executives and helps leaders communicate at the right level to ensure boards add genuine value.
“As a NED and Advisor I help CEOs to think, communicate and report at a level where the board can add the most value.”
Leadership and Values
At the heart of Jeroen’s approach are six guiding principles: integrity, creativity, tenacity, urgency, collaboration, and passion. These values shape the way he leads, governs, and advises.
“High performance starts with high expectations, communicated clearly and backed by empowerment and fair rewards.”
For Jeroen, high-performance cultures are built on clarity, empowerment, and fairness, ensuring teams are not just motivated but aligned with the organisation’s purpose.
Looking Ahead
As Jeroen dedicates more of his time to board and advisory roles, his focus is on opportunities where financial services and sustainability intersect. He sees particular potential in FinTech and digital payments companies that are poised to deliver environmental and social impact alongside commercial returns.
“I want to allocate my time to businesses with a focus on improving the world and the planet.”
Director Spotlight Summary
Jeroen van Son represents the modern non-executive director: commercially sharp, ethically grounded, and globally experienced. With a career spanning corporate leadership, entrepreneurship, and purpose-driven innovation, he is uniquely positioned to help boards navigate the challenges of growth, regulation, and sustainability. His track record demonstrates that governance and innovation are not competing priorities but powerful allies when combined with the right vision and values.
