From Whistleblower to Founder: Pav Gill’s Journey after Wirecard

In this episode, host Filip Brokes is joined by Pav Gill, former Head of Legal for the Asia Pacific region at Wirecard and current Founder & CEO of Confide Platform. Pav shares his extraordinary journey from a career at prominent international law firms to becoming a whistleblower who helped expose one of Europe’s biggest corporate scandals.

Pav discusses his entry into Wirecard, explaining the context in which he was headhunted for the role, unaware of the fraudulent activities occurring at the highest levels of the company. He provides insights into the internal workings of Wirecard’s Singapore office, his initial positive experiences, and the unexpected discoveries that led to his whistleblowing.

Listeners will hear the rationale behind Pav’s decision to remain anonymous during the initial stages of whistleblowing, his collaboration with investigative journalists at the Financial Times, and the strategic considerations behind the disclosure of his identity in the media and the acclaimed Sky documentary.

Pav reflects on his post-Wirecard career trajectory, highlighting the challenges he faced in returning to the workforce and how his whistleblower status later became a unique asset. He provides thoughtful analysis on the role of short-sellers in uncovering corporate misconduct, offering balanced perspectives on the ethical dimensions of their activities.

The conversation shifts to Pav’s entrepreneurial journey with the launch of Confide Platform—a compliance-tech startup focused on whistleblowing and compliance reporting. Pav explains his motivation for creating a secure, trusted solution designed to empower organizations to identify and manage internal issues proactively, thereby preventing scandals similar to Wirecard.

The episode also delves into broader regulatory discussions, with Pav offering a comparative analysis of global whistleblowing frameworks. He evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the EU Whistleblower Directive and explores regulatory trends in Asia, Europe, and the US, including recent political influences on regulatory enforcement.

To conclude, Pav stresses the importance of compliance professionals staying apolitical and diligently focused on applying existing regulatory standards, irrespective of broader political dynamics.

Recommended Resources by Pav Gill:

• Sky Documentary: Wirecard: A Billion Euro Lie
• Book by Dan McCrum (FT Reporter): Money Men
• Financial Times Article: The long-form FT exposé detailing Pav’s whistleblower journey (September 2021).

About Pav Gill:
Pav Gill is a lawyer and compliance expert based in Singapore. Following his critical whistleblower role in exposing Wirecard, he founded Confide Platform, an end-to-end whistleblowing and compliance management tool designed to strengthen corporate integrity globally.

Integrity Insights is produced by Berlin Risk Advisors GmbH

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Transcript

Pav, welcome on the podcast. Thank you for having me. Pav, can we, can we start with a, with a brief intro? Can you tell our listeners, uh, a little bit about your career background? Yeah. I'm a lawyer. Um, I started my career at anova, cliff Chance in King and Spalding found myself in the FinTech space after that.

Um, and as a lot of people know, one of the companies I ended up in was Wirecard. So I was the head of legal for the Asia Pacific region. Uh, a lot of fun stuff happened there. Um, resulted in me blowing the whistle after I left the company. I then joined WISE as its a bank council and then, you know, made it to the crypto scene where I was the general counsel of a crypto exchange.

Um, and now I'm the founder and CEO of my own tech startup. And you are, you are originally from Singapore, right? Yeah, yeah. I'm born here. Also did the military service and stuff, so I, I better be Singapore. Yeah. Okay. That's, that's, that's really, that's really interesting. Um, and yeah, so basically this, this whole Wirecard story, uh, there is, for everyone who's listening to this, there is a lot of, a lot of background information on this.

You can listen to other podcasts where Pav go into real, like, detail, uh, um, exactly what happened there. So we will kind of go just quickly through it. But, um. Uh, maybe just a basic question, like how did you, you know, how did you got this job offer? Like, what I find interesting is that I think you, you mentioned it also elsewhere, that you were basically headhunted by the company.

Yes. Uh, and I, I wonder like why did they, why do you think they reached out to you specifically? I don't know. I mean, they generally hired, um, people that were good in their jobs. I don't think, I mean, Wirecard was a fraud that was coordinated by the very top level, right? So I think from my kind of hiring a company which has a thousand plus 2000 employees, I think, um, it would just be someone who's hired for the role in this other country and he needs to just do what he needs to do.

I don't think they ever envisioned, or even in their wildest imagination, I don't think that that level of top senior execs thought that. Information would cascade down someday to this person in the Singapore office. So if I understand you correctly, you are basically saying that the people that actually hired you weren't even necessarily aware of the this fraudulent scheme taking place at the company.

Yeah, I mean, I was hired directly by the legal team, so, um, they were very focused because, you know, they just purchased Citibank's merchant acquiring business in Asia Pacific. They needed to get license in 13 countries. Uh, most of the legal and compliance work was being done out of Munich, and as the company was growing with the Citibank deal, they actually needed someone on the ground to help them with all these things.

So I think it was a more practical and. Um, just sound decision. I, I, the person that hired meet yet, I don't, he was relatively new himself. He was with the company for one and a half years. So, you know, my job was really to help that person out. And what was actually the role of the Singapore office in the, in the entire company structure?

It was the headquarters for Asia. So it looked after it was a comm center of all the ops, um, that happened here. So for example, finance was run out of, uh, the Singapore office, um, on the Asia Pacific level. So it was dispersed from here and of course from here it was received from headquarters in Munich.

Okay. Uh, and you, and you and you basically, so you basically were based in Singapore and you kinda like traveled around the, these 13 countries in the region, like coordinated. Those. Yeah. Yeah. So that was why it was very great. Like in terms of autonomy, it was very exciting. The colleagues were generally very, very nice people.

Um, fun. It had a startup kind of vibe, um, you know, in a way. So, yeah. And it was a reputably listed, you know, it was a reputable company, it was listed, and there were no reasons to, um, have any kind of real, serious red flags when I first joined. Mm-hmm. And so how much time did you spend there in total? Was it about a year?

Yeah, it was exactly one year, like to the day, it was one year to, it was, I think 18 September to 18 September the next year. Huh. That's, uh, that's very exact. And, uh, I mean, as I said, we are not going through, uh, what exactly happened at Wirecard. Again, there are plenty of resources online where people can learn about this, but what I am, what I was wondering when I was, uh, kind of researching your story is that you obviously provided.

All this information to the Financial Times. Uh, originally as an anonymous whistleblower, and it was only about a year later, I believe that they disclosed your name. Can you kind of explain this process? Like when, why did you stay anonymous at the beginning and why and when did, uh, you give, uh, the permission to, um, disclose your identity?

So the FT knew who I was from day one. Um. Since I reached out to them, uh, they always knew who I was. It's just that the instructions were very clear that as a whistleblower, I need to be anonymous all the way until I decide it's time to come out. Right? Because it's super critical that you are anonymous and not exposed because the challenge most whistleblowers face is that once the identity is out.

That's where they suffer a great deal of retaliation. Um, and most whistleblowers as individuals do not have resources to take on a company in these kinds of legal and reputational battles. So that's why it was very important for the FT and for my side to control, um, anonymity. But then a year after the company crashed, that's where I told the ft.

I told Suto. Uh, that okay, because the Sky documentary, um, is releasing on that day. Uh, you guys can also publish on that day, uh, who the whistleblower is because a documentary would be revealing it anyway. But you, you, I guess you needed to give a permission even to the people behind the documentary to disclose your name, right?

Yeah. So I had specifically chosen, um, Gabriela Sper, uh, who had reached out because, um, she was working with she. She was recommended by, you know, this other journalist, Melanie Bergman, I think her name is, uh, from vo. So Melanie wrote the book. She was very involved in Wirecard reporting as well. So Melanie had actually reached out because she knew I was, uh, from the whistle going standpoint.

And she said, look, this is a different documentary. Uh, it's actually going behind the scenes from the people's perspective. It's not really like a wirecard fraud story, but what happened behind the scenes, um, over the last few years that finally led to its crash? Right, like the various people that suffered and who tried to blow the whistle.

And so because of that we agreed that, okay, if that's the direction this documentary is gonna take, um, then we will be part of it. So that's where we worked closely with Gabriel Sperl. Um, and yeah, on the day of its release, a year after the company crashed. Was when we also decided to tell the ft. I think Bill also did an interview prior to that, uh, leading up to it.

Uh, that, okay, this is, I mean, you gotta control the narrative. But it's still very scary, right? It's still a big unknown. You don't know what's the outcome from these kinds of disclosures of who you are. Um, yeah, so it was a very interesting time talking about this specific documentary. One question that just sprung to my mind or something, because obviously there's so much content, you know, in terms of, uh, documentaries, books, uh uh, is there something you know, specific that you.

That you, when you watched or when you like consumed, when you read that you found like particularly, uh, kind of accurate or that, that you found like, you know, uh, uh, the best representation of the actual story. Uh, is there something you would like, recommend someone to, to watch or to, to read? I think they should watch the Sky documentary and it's not 'cause I'm in it, but because it's got a people element to it.

Um, I would definitely recommend that, uh, I would de recommend Dan Macron's book the Ft reporter's book called Money Men, because that's very detailed in terms of, uh, what happened, um, in a more historical. Uh, and then leading up event and post wirecard crash event. Uh, so for someone that wants in depth detail, uh, that would be one.

And also the article on the day that they disclosed my identity, I think it was about 46 pages long, one of the longest in their history. So that's really intensive reading as well. So those would be the three that I recommend. Great. This is really interesting. Thanks for sharing those recommendations, PA.

Um, another thing I wanted to ask you is, uh, like your post wirecard, uh, time, like how did you find the process of, you know, applying for new jobs and kind of getting back into, uh, into the industry after such a kind of, what I can imagine was a pretty traumatic experience? Yeah, I mean, it. It wasn't difficult because again, like no one knew I was a whistleblower and the company hadn't crashed then.

Um, so what was more challenging is kind to explain why you only lasted one year in this company. So that was more, uh, challenging and why occurred was also setting up fake interviews for me. Uh, with their friendly firms. Um, and those interviewers would just ask me why I left Wirecard, did something bad happen and I knew why they were doing that, if so, that I breached like an NDA or confidentiality aspect and why a card can make my life hell again.

So it was that, but I think I got a job pretty soon after. I think it was four months later. Uh, I joined WISE as their first APAC council, for example. Uh, and then moved to the crypto space. It was during my time in the crypto space where the documentary came out and everybody knew who I was. But the company took it very positively because.

Um, used it as a positive PR that, look, you know, in a space such as crypto, we would not have hired Path Gill, uh, if we wanted to do something wrong. Right? So that kind of also gave assurance to regulators as well as customers to some extent, um, that the company was taking legal and compliance very seriously.

Hmm. And then, um, just last question on this topic, I find interesting in this whole story, the, the role of the, the, the short sellers. Uh, and I wonder how you view, you know, their role in this particular context, and also how do you view short selling in general? Like, do you view it as a, you know, force for, for good or more like the opposite?

I think everything has a good and bad side to it. Um, even like Panadol, if you take too much, it's, it's really bad, uh, for you. But I think, uh, in a weird way, uh, short sell is, are, are like the same, right? Because what they're doing is acting as it's check and balance on the system. Um, and they're constantly looking out for, you know, companies that are inflating the books or doing other kinds of dodgy stuff and then reporting with it.

And this is directly in the benefit of. Uh, investors who are putting money in these companies. Um, the question then always goes into, because these money, these people are making money for themselves in the process. Um, is that. Moral or is that ethical and all this stuff. But you know, as long as you're not faking it, as long as you're not engaging in short selling to do pump and dump type, uh, bets, uh, and make money off those, move those vol, that kind of volatility, um.

And destroying, you know, good value, shareholder value in the process. I think then that's fine. It's a, it's a useful part of the system. And were, were you actually, because I think some of, some of these reports were published, was it in 2015, 2016. So even before you joined the company, like had you been aware of, of this information or?

Or not? Not, not that you, you didn't really come across this. No, I was, I have never owned stocks in my life, so I was never, uh, I just have no interest. Like I'm very bad in, uh, emotionally dealing with volatility. So if I put money in something and if I saw it lose even like one or 5%, I just want to get out of it.

So I'm just not someone that's very good in, um, in those topics. Uh, from an investing standpoint. Uh, so that's why I just never invested in stocks and all these things. And it was actually post Wirecard where I had my experience in these things. Like, okay, that's when I understood what this whole short selling thing was about.

Um, what is it actually? Uh, and yeah, it was a learning process for me as well. And it's also after leaving the company that I realized like, okay, wire had this massive short seller report against it called the Zara report. And that's when I came across it and I started looking into it. But you know, when you're in the, when I was in the company, I was just so busy on my day-to-day stuff.

Um, I was not. Looking for dirt against the company. And I think that should be the way people should ideally operate. Like I would never, I don't think it's normal for any employee to go into a, a new company and start sniffing around for wrongdoing. Um, it's usually when the, the smell is so bad or someone comes to you.

That's where I think, uh, things tend to kick off. I hope, I hope by the way, that you didn't change your mind and, and started investing in stocks recently because there has been a lot of volatility. You, you wouldn't, you wouldn't like it. No, no. I'm a startup founder now, so, uh, still pretty poor. So, talking about the, the, the startup, uh, if I have the correct information, you founded a company named Confide Platform in 2023.

Uh, can you maybe walk us through what your motivation behind this was and what the com company, uh, does? Yeah, for sure. I mean, after I came out publicly, I was doing a lot of global keynote speaking events. Um, I think, what is it I've done about 50 and two and a half to three years, and a lot of these was discussing things like the eeu s blowing laws, uh, that was rolled out, um, because of wifi, you know, triggering.

Or accelerating its implementation, for example. Um, and, and just these things, right? Governance, corporate ethics, uh, corporate governance and responsibility and all these various elements within that sphere. Uh, and I was always also asking myself, what's the bigger reason behind having exposed Wirecard?

Like, why me and not someone else? And then it just hit me like, look, I've seen how. Organizations kind of challenge a, a challenge from an internal reporting standpoint. You know, whether it's a HR reporting like bullying, harassment, me too. Or it's financial crime whistle blowing. Or even things like data breach, right?

Like should we tell our customers? Should we tell, uh, regulators? So I've seen it from that side As general counsel. I've also seen it as a whistleblower. So then it hit me. Why not put all that experience into a product that would benefit people, companies, and lawmakers? And that's how the Confi platform was.

Uh. Founded based on that. Um, I think confide is a very powerful word because every time you are in a situation where you wanna raise a concern or you wanna speak up, you don't know who to confide in or you're confiding in the wrong person, or you're not allowed to confide, for example, because of legal privilege or confidentiality reasons and whatnot.

So that's why I think it's a powerful name. And that was what went into the development of the product. And the, and the, so the company is based in Singapore, but I I I suppose you operate globally, right? You're, you have CL clients all over the world. Yeah, that's right. So we, uh, were very lucky to get a lot of global media attention when we launched.

Uh, for example, we were covered by DFT, uh, wired, US Business Insider, uh, and so on, right? Uh, I think what the media found fascinating is the fact that I've turned very negative experience into a product. And trying to make it positive, um, because what I didn't want or what I'm trying to achieve, uh, what the goal is, is to really have less wirecard.

So if you have something like the confi whistle blowing solution, for example, which is the world's person only end-to-end, uh, whistle blowing product, um, then hopefully companies will be given the opportunity to deal with cases before they explode. And hopefully deal with whistleblowers internally the right way instead of going after them because you don't know who they are.

For example, um, you know, it's really telling organizations like, look, have something your employees trust in place that actually works, that it's end to end. It's not just a receiving channel, but it also enables you to carry out the whole investigation on the platform itself. Um, and just bulletproof yourself.

Don't wake up one day, find yourself in the news, um, and then be like, how come I didn't know about this? If I knew about this, I would've done something. Right? So that was the original, uh, motivation and idea behind Confi, and that's why we launched with the whistle blowing product. But, uh. As of today, we have expanded into other operational compliance workflows.

Like, you know, grievances, for example, grievances, HR grievances should not be going in the whistleblowing platform because they're not whistleblowing cases. In that sense. They are grievances, they're employee, um, concerns, issues and stuff. Right? Or, or unhappiness in general. Um, and then you have conflicts of interests.

These shouldn't be going in. A grievance or into a whistle blowing channel. These are conflict of interest scenarios. And then you have gifts and bribery and entertainment and all the various, uh, different aspects. Um, a ML investigations, fraud and scams. You know, if you're a FinTech, you, if you're a customer of a FinTech, if you look for example, at Revolu, they in the news very often for scams being very high on their cars.

So if you have this kind of organization at the end of the day, what all these different products are trying to achieve. Is the ability to receive or have an issue or concern in that topic, race, being able to manage it from start to finish, and then bulletproof yourself as a company because it's all there.

So if anything happens, you know, how something started, who dealt with it, and then how it was concluded. So that's the Confi platform with its various, uh, solutions as of today. And are your typical clients more like smaller organizations that don't, I dunno, don't really have the, you know, capabilities to build such platforms in-house or do you also have like larger organizations that work with you?

No, we have very big clients. We have like energy grids Yeah. Of countries using us. We've got top five gambling companies using us. Um, fintechs of course. And then, uh. We've even got a English Premier League team that's come to us now because they're looking at this from a safeguarding angle, which if you think about it, is really big, right?

Safety in sports. How can we protect the youth? How can we protect women in sports? How can they raise concerns against abuse, against all kinds of bullying? Um, and, and those topics. And then we also have regulators that are coming to us saying, look, we're doing investigations. We need information from members of the public.

They don't want to show their face to us, and we don't want to use our existing web form and inbox or email system. It's just too cumbersome and clunky. And, and you mentioned, since you mentioned the regulators, uh, how do you view the, these regulatory developments in the eu? And like, how would you. You know, how, how would you say that the EU whistleblower directive compares to other similar regulatory directives in in other parts of the world?

Yeah, it's hard to compare 'cause it's very holistic and it's very game changing. The eus directive, um, it's also not financial incentive driven, say for example, like the us. Um, and it and the, the level and extent of protections and who it covers is quite extensive. It's very, it goes to like interns, family members of, uh, executives and employees and third parties and stuff.

So that's good. Um, it's got a good, it's a good start for the eu. Um, then the question is how do different countries implement it locally? And of course you have very strong, um. Implementation, for example, by Spain, where the fines up to a million Euros for non-compliance. And then you have very weak ones by big European company.

I mean countries like Germany who only would find you say 50,000 euros and also give you the option to be. Uh, to have anonymous reporting as optional, right? Uh, and so companies can choose not to deal with cases that are anonymous, which goes against the whole idea of this thing. So, uh, that's why from an implementation angle, each member state has a different approach.

Uh, but I think from an overarching perspective, it's really good. Um, if you think about a country like Singapore, it's a financial hub. We don't have a overarching whistle blowing law at all. So I think there's a lot of work to be done here. And then you have, for example, Malaysia, which has a whistle blowing laws since for quite many years now.

But in order to qualify for that law, the very first point of contact a person in a company needs to go to is the regulator or one of the enforcement agencies. If you even told your boss at the office, you don't qualify anymore. So it's just like, you know, the, these very different whistleblowing laws globally.

And how you qualify. Do they have the right idea behind them? Is it practical? Uh, these are things that I discuss. And is there, is there like one specific country or you know, like, uh, organization that you, uh, consider to be really like the role model in that space? You mentioned Spain. Uh. Is that, is that, would you say that they are, have the, they have the best, uh, regulation in place, or is there some, is there some other countries?

I mean, it's hard to say who has the best, uh, and it also then boil becomes harder as you go down on a case by case basis. Because as I, as I always tell companies, like not every, and I also tell, you know, control functions like lawyers, internal auditors, uh, compliance people, legal people, and all that stuff that you.

Not all whistleblowers are with clean hands, right? Not everyone has a good intention behind it. Uh, some of these people are actually trying to blackmail companies. Some of these people are compliance, um, experts who go into companies. They quietly, uh, take note of all the. The flaws in the business make themselves kind of difficult to fire in the process.

So how do companies navigate with these things is also very challenging. And these are topics which people don't like to discuss, but I think it's important to discuss them because if you don't discuss them, it actually works against real whistleblower. Um, right. So ignoring them is not the solution, but actually having open conversations and finding ways to fix, uh, these issues or address them at ease, uh, is, is in everyone's best interest.

Mm-hmm. And maybe just LA just one last question regarding the, kind of like the possible future of this, uh, the regulatory developments in this space because, uh. We obviously we have been paying a lot of attention to what has been happening in the United States with the, the recent Trump administration kind of pushed back against these anti bribery laws.

Uh, talking about the foreign corrupt practices, uh, law, which has been act, which has been, I think, paused for six months in February, 2025. Do you, do you expect to see something similar, uh, happen in the visible blowing regulatory space as well, or have you already been seeing signs of that? No, because I think.

I think what's driving the administration currently is the fact that the US has just so much regulation in every single aspect. I mean, if you think about the text code, it's got thousands of pages and most people can't even understand it. So I think the, the motivation behind that is to deregulate because there's just, just too many of these things.

I don't think they want to get rid of it completely. I think, um, they're just looking. To find ways to, uh, make that a bit more lean and less cumbersome because if it's so cumbersome, the pro, the cost is eventually gonna be passed on to, uh, consumers, right? And the only people making money from these things will be the law firms or the consulting firms, because they will be the ones that companies need to engage, which means their compliance costs are always constantly very high.

Um, so I don't know what the plans are with the whole FCPA and stuff, as we know with Trump. Uh. Something could be said today, but a few days later, or sometimes even a few hours later, it's changed. Uh, so it's just, it's just a wait and see game, uh, with the current administration. Um, and even with the tariffs, right?

Like everybody knew it's not gonna be a long term. So, you know, there's a quick pause after a few days. I think also because every market was tanked. Um, we also saw the bond markets tank together with the stock market, which is probably like an extremely rare occurrence. 'cause one's supposed to go up, the other one's supposed to generally go down and, and vice versa.

Right? But the fact that he achieved thanking both is a, it's, it's literally a lifetime achievement for him in that way. But, um, yeah, I think it's. From what I, what, what I like to tell, or what my approach is, and I'm very firm on this, is we should never allow politics to influence our roles as legal risk compliance people.

I mean, legal and compliance, people risk. Of course that's geopolitical risk, but le you are legal. If you are compliance, your job is to really understand what the existing regulations are, um, and apply them. So whether you agree with the political motivations behind them or not, that's a philosophical question.

But I think we need to be focused in, um, advising businesses or our, our clients and just applying what the law of the day is, uh, whether you like it or not. So I think that's where we need to remain focused. Um, whether it's in the whistle blowing space or in the, uh, a ML space, right? Uh, that's just, yeah, the reality of the situation do not get dragged into, into the political aspect of it.

Okay. Understood. Pav, thank you very much for joining the podcast. I really appreciate you finding the time. It is been a pleasure, and I wish you the best of luck with the kfi platform. And yeah, also make sure to stay away from the stock market. It's a, it's a dangerous place. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me.

Uh, yeah, truly an honor.