Women of Socure

In celebration of Women’s History Month at Socure, we’d like to recognize the achievements of a few female employees who have driven change and growth at our company. Thank you to ALL the wonderful women here who continue to make us the company that we are.

Rivka Little

What is role & history with Socure?

I am the Chief of Staff, working with CEO Johnny Ayers — and that’s exactly who drew me to Socure long before I finally joined. Back in 2014, I worked in product strategy at a large fraud company where we interviewed dozens of startups in the search for potential partners or acquisition targets. When Johnny trekked out to our offices in Hoboken to introduce Socure, I saw a game-changing approach to solving identity fraud and unlocking innovation in newly emerging digital-first fintechs. I knew Socure had thrown down the gauntlet in identity. I pushed for a partnership, but when that didn’t work out, I knew I would eventually join the Socure team.

What are your biggest achievements?

I have had two full-blown careers in one relatively short lifetime. I started out as a news reporter, covering cops, crime and politics. I interviewed everyone from George W. Bush and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel to hundreds of every-day people traveling their individually amazing journeys.

Fintech journalism delivered me into payments and fraud product strategy. Since then I have been humbled to work with banks and fintechs across the globe as they tackle complex identity verification and fraud challenges. In my tech journey, I am most proud of collaboratively driving a movement in which fraud and identity solutions shift from preventing to driving innovation in digital commerce and payments.

How do you overcome obstacles or any challenges?

With my “big goals” in view, I can place obstacles in context, and it’s easier to remember that every challenge presents an opportunity. I also know that great solutions emerge from collaborative thinking. I build and rely on my “thinker” community and network at every turn.

Who is your biggest influence?

That’s easy. My mom was a founder, a leader and a non-conformer. She encouraged me to chart my own course, fearlessly innovate and have at least one belly-laugh a day.

How has Socure supported your career development?

I began at Socure as the head of marketing and strategy and have been given the incredible opportunity to expand my leadership role as we move into our most rapid growth phase yet. In my new role I work closely with our CEO and with every function across the company. I couldn’t have asked for a better challenge – and I am honored to learn from so many great folks across our teams.

Vidhya Balasubramanian

What is your role and history with Socure?

It has been 8+ years since I entered the field of IT. I’ve developed on-Prem, cloud and hybrid products and possess knowledge on monolithic and microservice architectures. Most of my career was spent in the Enterprise Networking industry and recently in the FinTech. I feel that switching over to a different vertical allows us to learn a lot and refreshes the mind.

I was into the Networking Industry from the very beginning of my career and one fine day, I was browsing Linkedin and was curious about Socure after seeing a job posting. I reached out to the organization to understand what Socure does and finally landed here in Jan 2020.

What are your biggest achievements?

My Master’s project was my first achievement by integrating sensor profiles to Cloud. It was theory then when I started the research, and it was tough to get a cloud host being a student. It started as improvisation to handle the sensor profiles in an efficient way but I completed it as a Hybrid Architecture to be integrated into Cloud. With many limitations in guidance and tool availability, I have successfully presented my concept in IEEE conference and published in an Indian Journal.

I was the top performer in Geek Goddess Hackathon 2019 conducted by an online Portal and was a semi-finalist for developing a machine learning model using Azure and AWS & solving few other Problems. Unfortunately, I couldn’t participate in the Geek Goddess Finale. I consider this as an achievement as it was the first time I ventured into an AI/ML competition and grabbed the first place in semi-finals.

How do you overcome obstacles or challenges?

I’ve overcome many challenges like handling difficult people as well as tough situations but I’ve never let such people/ situations take the form of an obstacle. I do the root cause analysis for almost everything in my life and arrive at a plan to approach the challenge in subtle ways and some time with appropriate data and assertiveness to overcome it eventually or at the earliest, this allowed me to become better both personally and professionally. This attitude even gained me several good relationships.

We can never avoid challenging and difficult situations but they should never stop us.

Face the Problem! Feel a bit! Find the cause and arrive at a solution! Rise back again and even better.

Who is your biggest influence?

My mother and my father are the top-most influencers in my personal life as well as in my career. Their devotion, sincerity, and discipline towards anything still amazes me and makes me thrive for the same.

All my teachers, I wouldn’t exclude even one, for influencing me to have all the good traits and knowledge I possess today. I learn from all my friends, colleagues and all the managers whom I worked or work with. Everyone leaves an impact on me.

How has Socure supported your career development?

• I am encouraged to speak up freely and frankly on any of the improvements in the organization as well as in my tasks.
• I learned a lot after moving to this new vertical after spending a considerable number of years in networking. I would still recall the onboarding experience with a lot of training that helped me understand what the organization does and its impact.
• I felt so much support by the management team during one of a critical & unfortunate situation I had in my life post joining here. Socure waited for me to come back. Thank you, Socure.

Kim Lytle

What is your role and history with Socure?

I joined Socure in October of 2018 and I’m part of our direct sales team and I’m responsible for growing our direct sales revenue and customer base in the New York Metro area.

What are your biggest achievements?

Despite all the pandemic challenges of 2020, we had a really solid year of growth and I had a significant role in that working with some of our largest, most complex customers. What’s most important is that our solutions are helping our customers every day to strengthen their businesses by reducing their fraud losses and create better onboarding experiences for their customers.

Who is your biggest influence?

My parents have certainly been significant influences on my life and my career path. My father was in sales and pushed me in that direction despite the fact that sales used to be a predominantly male career. My mom showed me what it meant to be a working mom and wear multiple hats in managing a job and kids. Both of them always advocated that I could be whatever I set out to be and have supported me in multiple ways as I’ve grown in my career and as a mother.

How do you overcome obstacles or any challenges?

Step one for me on any challenge or big decision is usually to start by writing; (dissect it, think it through more clearly and identify options for how to overcome it. Then I usually talk through it with either a colleague, friend or my family. This process of writing it out then verbalizing the challenge and what I think are viable options usually helps me to crystalize my best course of action.

How has Socure supported your career development?

One of the things that I’ve loved about Socure is the opportunity to run with things that I see as a need for the organization or a gap that we should fill which allows me to expand my skill set and get creative. The organization supports our on-going learning by giving us a stipend for virtual courses and content on skills we want to further develop.

Michelle Fernandez

What is your role and history with Socure?

My first role at Socure was the Executive Assistant to our CEO, CFO, and Co-Founder. After some time, I provided occasional ad-hoc support to the Recruiting Team, and found a passion in cultivating connections with candidates interviewing at Socure. This allowed me to make the lateral move where I currently work as Recruiting Coordinator. I provide support to the recruiters with interviews and scheduling, and strive to ensure candidates have a warm interview experience.

What are your biggest accomplishments?

My biggest achievements at Socure have been growing internally, and creating strong relationships. Earlier this year, I planned a SoCares Committee meeting with New Women New Yorkers, a non-profit that empowers immigrant women to build community, their network, and help kick-start their careers. Socureans volunteered time to hold mock interviews with the women from the organization, and provide meaningful feedback and support to help them achieve their next career goals.

Who is your biggest influence?

The biggest influences in life are my parents, Christine and Alberto. Both have always encouraged me to never settle and to keep moving forward towards the things that will make me happy. Both created a beautiful life out of very minimal means (having fled Cuba), and they will always inspire me as I know nothing is out of reach.

How do you overcome obstacles or challenges?

When faced with obstacles, I try to “keep the peace” within myself and stay as positive as possible. Instead of tackling them head on in one giant chunk of a mess, which can spark panic, I accept it, realistically break up the obstacle piece by piece, and mend it together as best I can until the obstacle is no longer there and I can move past it.

How has Socure supported your career development?

Socure has been a massive support in terms of my career growth, and I could not be more thankful. I was formerly a teacher prior to joining Socure, and they took me under their wing as I made quite the career shift. When I eventually wanted to move internally my managers at Socure provided me with the coaching, interviewing skills, and helped me with goal setting.

Socure also encourages us to dip our feet in any area of the company that sparks our interest, and has even given us a stipend through Sunlight to purchase courses/certifications, and books, etc., to help set us up for success. I’ve purchased several books on recruiting and social media, and hope to work toward a certification within the next few months.

Chandni Dherwani

What is your role and history with Socure?

My current role is Manager, FP&A. I started my career at Deloitte followed by Goldman Sachs. After having worked at these large organizations, I was ready to be a part of a smaller fast-growing organization. When the opportunity at Socure came my way, I was immediately enamored by the people and the product.

What are your biggest achievements?

One of my achievements here at Socure that many of you are privy to is the weekly tracker we use for the biweekly Ops call! A real time tool to get the pulse on our customer calls, rev and ARR trends!

How do you overcome obstacles or any challenges?

I keep a positive attitude!

Who is your biggest influence?

My Mother.

How has Socure supported your career development?

At Socure I find myself in a room with very intelligent people on a daily basis. This keeps me mentally stimulated and motivates me to bring my A game!

Camille Enriquez

What is your role and history with Socure?

I’m the Accounting Manager at Socure and my role involves managing our company’s financials and ensuring our reporting is reliable and accurate. Prior to Socure, I was working at a VC supporting several of their portfolio companies with accounting and strategic finance services. From there, Avi Aronovitz, CFO, brought me on to the Socure team as one of his first hires.

What are your biggest achievements?

My biggest achievements at Socure would be sourcing and implementing some of the systems and internal controls used on my team and across our organization. Having these tools in place allow us to be efficient and scale with the hyper-growth of the company for years to come.

Who is your biggest influence?

Being a child of immigrant parents, my greatest influence has always been my parents. When I think of their hardships and the sacrifice they gave in order to give me a better life, they have always been my “why.”

How do you overcome obstacles or any challenges?

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I have been blessed with an incredible support system, both personally and professionally, that I reach out to for help when needed.

Make a plan. By making a plan and breaking down the challenge at hand into smaller realistic goals, I’m able to tackle (and celebrate) each of those checkpoints as mini wins, and ultimately get to the finish line.

How has Socure supported your career development?

Socure supports career growth by offering professional development resources and various perks to all employees. This includes our annual learning budget to use on books, seminars, classes, etc, as well as promoting a feedback-rich culture in which employees are encouraged to give and receive regular feedback to their managers and direct reports