Jonathan Herps: Welcome back to Entrepreneurs Stories: Scaling Up — Episode 115, and the first interview of 2024. I'm delighted to be joined today by Anthony Quinn, Founder and CEO of Arctic Intelligence. Anthony, welcome.
Anthony Quinn: Thanks Jonathan, great to be here.
Jonathan: Let's start at the beginning — tell us about your entrepreneurial journey and what Arctic Intelligence does.
Anthony: I wasn't always an entrepreneur. I began my career in consulting, joining a Capital Markets practice in the UK about 25 years ago, working primarily with investment and retail banks across the UK, Europe, and the US. I relocated to Australia around 21 years ago and moved into running risk and compliance programs for major financial institutions — including Westpac, National Australia Bank, and then nine years at Macquarie Bank, where I was Program Director overseeing the Anti-Money Laundering, Counter-Terrorism Financing, and Tax Evasion Compliance programs for their retail division.
It was toward the end of my time at Macquarie that I decided to start my own company. They were supportive enough to allow me to work four days a week for them while I spent one day a week laying the groundwork for Arctic. I officially launched in November 2015.
Arctic Intelligence is a regulatory technology firm specializing in financial crime risk and compliance software — specifically, business-wide and enterprise-wide risk assessment solutions. We've built two platforms: the first, AML Accelerate, is a guided risk assessment platform tailored to approximately 30 industry sectors and 30 countries, serving small to mid-sized businesses such as law firms, accounting firms, fintechs, and real estate agencies. The second is an enterprise-grade platform targeting larger financial institutions, gaming companies, and consulting partners — covering AML and beyond, including bribery and corruption, fraud, sanctions, proliferation financing, wildlife trafficking, human trafficking, ESG, and general enterprise risk management. We currently have clients in 18 countries.
Jonathan: Who is your ideal client?
Anthony: Anyone who wants to work with us is a perfect client — but our sweet spot falls at two ends of the spectrum. On one end, smaller regulated entities that lack the internal capability and resources to build a proper risk assessment framework. On the other, large financial institutions — we work with over 100 banks globally, credit unions, wealth managers, and gaming firms — that need a highly configurable platform to build and digitize their own risk models. What really defines a client fit isn't size, it's where they sit on the maturity spectrum toward digitizing and automating their financial crime risk assessments.
Jonathan: If you were starting from scratch, what aspects of personal or leadership development would you prioritize?
Anthony: The honest answer is that most people entering entrepreneurship are still in the dreaming phase — they don't fully appreciate what they're walking into. I bootstrapped Arctic while still at Macquarie, investing approximately $700,000 of my own money before leaving. I then drew no salary for two years, followed by a minimal salary for another two to three years. The shift from earning a strong corporate salary to paying out hundreds of thousands per month in wages — with your own capital on the line — is a fundamentally different risk profile.
If I could do it again, I'd reflect more deeply before jumping in — not to avoid it, but to go in with clearer eyes. My instinct was "this can't be that hard, let's give it a crack." That attitude is both your greatest strength and your greatest vulnerability, because by the time you discover how hard it actually is, you're too far in to turn back — and that's when dogged determination takes over.
The other thing I'd prioritize is finding the right mentors — people who have genuinely walked in an entrepreneur's shoes. Corporate experience alone doesn't qualify someone to advise a founder. And mentors don't have to be physical people — there are books that can fast-track years of learning. The one I'd recommend above all else is The Founder's Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman. I wish I had read it five years before I actually did. It addresses every major decision a founder faces — sole founder versus co-founders, equity structures, bootstrapping versus raising capital, choosing investors, and navigating exits and crises. It is the definitive resource for anyone considering starting a business.
Jonathan: How do you balance personal life with the demands of running a global business?
Anthony: Honestly — not very well. The lines are incredibly blurred. We have clients across 18 countries, which means I'm regularly on calls at 6 AM and 10 PM. I have two children and I do my best, but it is genuinely difficult. The stakes are high — and it's not just about you. I think about my team, their families, the sacrifices everyone around me has made to go on this journey. That responsibility is both a powerful motivator and a constant source of pressure.
What helps is having a strong support network — an understanding partner, family, and trusted peers who have been in the same position. There are things you simply can't discuss openly within the business — issues with shareholders, capital challenges, board dynamics — and you have to carry a lot of that privately. Finding people who have genuinely been in the trenches, rather than those offering well-meaning but untested advice, makes an enormous difference.
Jonathan: What do you look for when hiring, and how do you build a positive team culture?
Anthony: We have 15 full-time employees, plus a broader part-time and contractor network. Beyond relevant experience, the most important thing by far is attitude. Working at a fast-moving startup means high expectations, rapid pace, and constant change. People need to genuinely understand and believe in the mission — and be comfortable with transparency around what's working and what isn't.
One thing I'm quite deliberate about is being open with the team about performance — both aspirations and reality. We run a quarterly State of the Nation report across product, sales, pipeline, and partnerships. It's an honest reflection: here's what we committed to, here's what we achieved, here's why. That accountability loop keeps everyone grounded and keeps me honest too.
I'd also say clearly — some people should not work in startups. If you're accustomed to a corporate pace, where scheduling a meeting means next month or the month after, that mindset is genuinely incompatible with the urgency of an early-stage business. Every week of inaction has a real cost.
Jonathan: What's been your biggest learning as a business owner?
Anthony: There is no overnight success. Even the examples that look like instant rockets — ChatGPT, Taylor Swift — if you look at the full journey, you see years of grinding, failing, and persisting before the breakthrough moment. People who leave corporate life expecting to flip a business within a year and live the easy life are setting themselves up for disappointment.
The real lesson is that aspiration matters, but perspiration is what actually moves the needle. Persistence beats resistance. You will hear "no" constantly — wrong timing, wrong budget, happy with spreadsheets, come back next year. The ones who build something real are the ones who keep going anyway, stay genuine, don't overpromise, and remain honest with clients, partners, and their teams about where they actually are.
Jonathan: What are your biggest challenges going forward?
Anthony: Our ambitions outpace our current resources. We're operating across 18 countries without physical presence in most of them, which requires an enormous amount of effort across time zones. The risk of burnout — for me and the team — is real and has to be actively managed.
The broader funding environment has also shifted significantly. During the VC boom years, the pressure was to hire fast, scale fast, and trust that revenue would follow. That model never sat right with me. I want to build a sound, fiscally responsible business — one where we control our own destiny. The market is now rewarding that kind of discipline, which feels like a vindication of the approach, but it still requires navigating growth carefully without the luxury of unlimited capital.
Jonathan: When you think of the word "successful," who comes to mind?
Anthony: Honestly, I think every successful entrepreneur is a little crazy at some level — you have to be. You could look at someone like Elon Musk and say, by almost any conventional measure, that is extraordinary success. But success is deeply personal. What drives you, what you're building toward, what you're willing to sacrifice — those are the questions that really define it. I've come home excited about attending a CEO charity event and had my wife say, "Isn't that just for successful CEOs?" — which was a useful reality check and a great reminder not to take yourself too seriously.
Jonathan: Any final advice for entrepreneurs?
Anthony: Perseverance. It sounds simple but it is everything. You will face more resistance than you can anticipate. Those who succeed are the ones who dust themselves off and keep going — who learn from every lost deal and every missed target, ask honest questions about what they could have done differently, and then actually apply those lessons. Don't be too hard on yourself when things don't go to plan. Progress in this game is two steps forward, one step back. The goal is to keep moving forward.
Jonathan: Anthony, thank you so much — this has been a genuinely outstanding conversation.
Anthony: Thank you, Jonathan. I really appreciate the opportunity.
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