How Digital Nomadism Fuels Innovation: Lessons from bunq CEO Ali Niknam

For many, remote work is a convenience. For Ali Niknam, CEO of bunq, it’s a way of life and a strategy for building one of Europe’s most innovative challenger banks. At SXSW London, Niknam joined Thomas Macaulay of The Next Web to explore how digital nomadism is reshaping business leadership, culture, and product design and why banks still lag behind the borderless lifestyles they’re supposed to support.

Born to Be Borderless

Ali Niknam is no tourist to global living. Born in Canada to Iranian parents, raised partly in the Netherlands, and now frequently traveling between New York and Europe, his life has been a masterclass in international perspective. “I was born a digital nomad,” he joked but the point runs deeper: this way of living has fundamentally shaped his leadership.

At bunq, that mindset isn’t just cultural window-dressing, it’s the product DNA.

Banking for the Modern Nomad

Where traditional banks operate within rigid national frameworks, bunq was built with flexibility in mind. It serves customers who live, work, travel, and earn across borders people who need 24/7 support, multilingual access, and tools that don’t assume 9-to-5 or one home address. “Most banks weren’t built for people who live globally. We were.”

That edge is more than marketing. It’s structural. The bunq team is international by design, the platform is English-first, and its offices allow for cross-border rotation enabling cultural empathy, not just timezone coverage.

Why Digital Nomadism Creates Better Teams

Contrary to the myth of distracted “laptop-on-the-beach” workers, Niknam argued that digital nomads are often more engaged both with their work and their local communities. The benefit? Diverse perspectives, broader talent pools, and an intuitive understanding of what users around the world really need.

“Our team isn’t just remote. It’s rotational. You work in different offices, meet new cultures. That diversity makes our product smarter.”

And it’s not just internal culture. The features bunq offers like travel-friendly insurance, curated local suggestions, and simplified multi-currency accounts are directly shaped by this nomadic lens. This is product-market fit, experienced firsthand.

Don’t Retrofit. Build International from Day One.

One of Niknam’s most powerful lessons came from his earlier ventures. His first successful startup was built in Dutch for Dutch employees, Dutch customers, with Dutch documentation and systems. When it came time to scale internationally, the language and culture were already too embedded. Expansion faltered.

So with bunq, he did the opposite. From day one, it was global-first:

• Internal language? English.

• Hiring? Cross-border, even before it was “needed.”

• Culture? No single dominant group.

• Product? Designed for borderless living.

This, he argued, is the only way to make global scale authentic and sustainable.

Patience > Policy.

Asked whether governments should do more to support digital nomadism, Niknam was surprisingly optimistic. “I think we just need patience,” he said. Post-COVID, the world was forced into remote work without preparation. Some backlash was inevitable. But now, businesses and cities are catching up and the smartest among them are adapting.

As for tools? It’s not about Slack vs. Zoom. “Email has been around since the 90s,” he said. What matters more is whether your company is built for distributed work rather than just retrofitting it onto an office-first model.

A New Model for Innovation

In the end, this wasn’t just a talk about travel or lifestyle. It was a playbook for future-forward company building:

• Innovation starts with lived experience.

• Inclusion isn’t a diversity policy it’s in your hiring, your docs, your defaults.

• Global culture means no dominant culture.

• Leadership means designing systems that reflect reality—not nostalgia.

For Niknam, digital nomadism isn’t just a personal identity. It’s a structural advantage. One that’s helping bunq break free from banking’s old habits and helping users live freely, too.

Independently Created. Not affiliated with SXSW.

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