Asian and Pacific Islander Month

The month of May is a time when we have the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of those who are part of the Asian and Pacific Islander community. This month, we would like to feature a few of our own employees who have made an impact in our Socure community. Thank you to those who shared their stories, and thank you to everyone in the Asian and Pacific Islander community who have made incredible contributions to us.

Vinoth Kumar

Please provide a brief history of your career.

I am a talent acquisition professional with 7 years of experience in hiring top talents for IT/Product/FinTech/SaaS etc. I have partnered with stakeholders to build high performing teams and adept at providing strategic talent insights & market insights, branding and candidate experience..

What is your biggest achievement thus far at Socure?

Despite being in the middle of a pandemic, our team was able to grow the Chennai team from 20 to 60 employees within a few months. (I personally would like to thank Alex and Swami for their continued support from the Engineering team, Ambika for the guidance and onboarding support, Shannon and Russell for providing the opportunity to achieve the above and all other stakeholders and People ops team for giving me a great experience working with you.) I am also happy to be part of a few Instagram series and blogs.

How has your culture played a role in your career?

I believe culture has a very distinct influence on our career path. Workplace culture helps build strong relationships and a comfortable environment . Culture helps me to keep the environment collaborative and inclusive, provides the opportunity to initiate ideas, changes and grow professionally and personally.

What was the biggest lesson you learned growing up in your household that you value to this day?

Be honest (நேர்மையாக இரு), Respect everyone (அனைவருக்கும்மரியாதை கொடு), Learn from failures (தோல்விகளில் இருந்து கற்றுக்கொள்), walk your own path (சொந்த காலில் நட)

How has Socure supported your career development?

First thing that comes to my mind is the colleagues that I work closely with. I learn a lot of things from them. Internal mobility is another policy that Socure supports to its employees for their career development.

Pranav Bhagwat

Please provide a brief history of your career:

In order to pursue higher education, I came to the United States in the year 2018 and joined the State University of New York, Buffalo. I completed my MS in Computer Science in February 2020 and have been working at Socure since March 2020. The last year at Socure has been really exciting as I got an opportunity to tackle multiple complex problems and acquire a new set of skills. I am really thrilled about contributing more to the groundbreaking work that Socure is doing!

What is your biggest achievement thus far at Socure?

End-to-end automation for the feedback jobs being processed through Workbench is one of the biggest milestones achieved by the team. This initiative took automation to the next level, as it enabled Workbench to take complete command and process feedback files end-to-end with zero human touchpoints. This helped us to cut down multiple pain points and process feedback data way faster as all the involved manual steps/setups were eliminated.

How has your culture played a role in your career?

Culture has a significant influence on my personality and career goals. I was taught the importance of hard work, dedication, and consistency very early in my childhood. An embodiment of these principles helped me to stay on the right track and maintain my mental and physical well-being. Coming from a land of extensive socio-cultural diversity, I was always taught to be highly respectful of every culture. This definitely helped me to establish many professional and personal relationships and become a better human being.

What was the biggest lesson you learned growing up in your household that you value till this day?

I consider my parents as my greatest teachers. One of their most important lessons that I value to this day is – “Whatever you do, give your 100%”. I try to follow this principle when I work at Socure every day. This permits me to work with the detail-oriented mindset, necessary to produce high-quality results.

How has Socure supported your career development?

I am very lucky to start a career with an incredible organization like Socure. I joined Socure remotely in the middle of the pandemic. The kind of support that I have received from day one is unbelievably amazing. Socure’s motivating, nurturing, and collaborative work culture has allowed me to grow in the right direction. I am very fortunate to work with so many brilliant mentors to guide me through the journey. This allowed me to build greater skills and expand my knowledge base which has significantly helped me to grow professionally as well as personally.

Doreen Weng

Please provide a brief history of your career:

My career history includes working for multiple hyper-growth tech startups. I gained both private and public company experience due to being a part of three successful exits via acquisitions. When I first started out, I was doing general accounting, however very soon I realized that I enjoyed the order to the Cash/Revenue world. aThere is always something new to learn in that world, and as revenue continues to get  very complex, I enjoyed working cross-functionally with different teams in Legal, Sales, and Sales Operations .

What is your biggest achievement thus far at Socure?

Our billing process is very detail oriented and requires accurate information as our contracts vary from client to client. In order to ensure that each client is billed accurately and timely without having to reference the contract every time, I’ve created a Master Contract File with all our client details which is used monthly to cross reference when we bill. This has helped with efficiency and accuracy and allowed me to complete billing on time and meet our month end close deadline.

How has your culture played a role in your career?

Asians are diverse in their ethnic demographics, languages, traditions, and cultures, but as a group, we share specific cultural values. It is no secret that Asian families strongly emphasize education and the importance of financial stability and security. Due to conditioning and the belief that choosing a practical career will lead to a promising and comfortable future, I majored in Economics with a minor in Business in college which led me to pursue a profession with market demand in Finance.

What was the biggest lesson you learned growing up in your household that you value till this day? 

Both my parents immigrated to the US from China in their mid twenties. They started off working in restaurants and factories when they first arrived, often putting in long hours and sacrificed any free time to keep building. While none of their occupations were glamorous, it was honest work where they were able to save to achieve the life they hoped for – for their parents and my brother and I.  Due to their humble experience, they have stressed that while it’s good to aim high, you have to start somewhere, and hard work and humility are some of the key ingredients for success.

How has Socure supported your career development?

There’s a strong focus on continual learning at Socure and it has allowed teams and individuals to drive their own developments tailored to their interests and skills through programs such as Sunlight and Socure University. I walked into Socure not knowing much about the Fintech/Identity Verification space, but with the help of these programs coupled with colleagues who are always willing to help in any way possible, it has encouraged my growth as a Revenue Accountant as well as my understanding of what we do and the impact it has as a whole.

Mohan Kumar

Please provide a brief history of your career:

I began working as an Accountant and grew to become the Manager of Finance & Accounting. After the company relocated their base to a different state, I parted ways with them after a 3 year stint and joined Island Pacific India, a product company as a Senior Accountant, where I managed the accounting & payroll for the Indian entity and reported to the CFO & Accounting Manager in the US headquarters. Then, I decided to take a brief break and started my career with Socure in June, 2019.

What is your biggest achievement thus far at Socure?

I was the first person to be recruited to the Finance Team for Socure, India. The financial process was outsourced until that point in time and I was able to build Socure India’s financial process. I owned and managed the Travel & Reimbursement system implementation for the entire organization, for which the feedback from the employees was largely positive.

How has your culture played a role in your career?

Tamil Nadu is very similar to America in terms of being a “melting pot”. India is technically a sub-continent and each state acts like a separate country, even though it is a part of a larger nation. We see a lot of people from various states migrating to Tamil Nadu and so, I have grown up in a culture that embraces diversity in languages, religions, cuisines and cultural practices and so, I have learned to connect, accept and work with people, irrespective of our differences in background.

What was the biggest lesson you learned growing up in your household that you value till this day?

The biggest lesson I learned growing up was from my mother. She taught me how to respect and protect my family members, to take care of their needs, and to encourage and give them confidence any time they stepped out to take risks. I believe that I carry these lessons with me in my work at Socure, where I am able to do the same for my colleagues.

How has Socure supported your career development?

Socure has provided access to Sunlight (a learning platform) as an opportunity for me to expand my professional qualifications. I was able to tap into Coursera’s resources and have been able to successfully complete two certifications.

Alex Li

Please provide a brief history of your career:

I joined Socure right after I finished my graduate school in early 2020. Previously I interned at Huawei and TuSimple. I was also a research assistant at UCSD’s and CMU’s machine learning labs.

What is your biggest achievement thus far at Socure?

With the help of our amazing ML Platform team, I developed the Rule Code Metadata Service from scratch, which serves as a single central repository for all rule codes of Socure’s products and analysis.

How has your culture played a role in your career?

I want to quote Bruce Lee’s famous “Be like water” speech here. In Chinese culture, we love water. Water is flexible. “If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle.” Water teaches us to be accommodating and have situational awareness. Whatever the task is in our career, we should always adapt fast. Water is also persistent and strong. While water can flow, it can also crash. We should be strong like water to overcome difficulties in our career.

What was the biggest lesson you learned growing up in your household that you value till this day?

Stay open-minded and embrace every opportunity to learn new things.

How has Socure supported your career development?

Socure allows me to try different projects within the company to help me understand my passion. The company also provides me with an opportunity to stand out and make decisions for the software designs and implementation details.