The Unexpected Career Podcast

Suresh Vaghjiani: A Conversation at a Party Led to a Career in Payments

• Megan Dunford • Season 2 • Episode 10

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Season 2 Episode 10: Suresh is now the founder of Clowd9, but it was a conversation at a party that led to his first role in the Payments space.

 Clowd9 is the world's first cloud native, decentralized issuer processing platform. Check out their website: https://www.clowd9.com/

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Welcome to the Unexpected Career Podcast, where we share stories of real people and the twists and turns they have taken along their career journey. I am Megan Dunford, and as someone who found myself in the payments industry, largely by accident, I'm fascinated by how people's careers unfold and how they've gotten to where they are today. It's also why I'm passionate about reducing the pressure on young people, about going to university, what to take in school, and on getting that right first job. Today's guest is Suresh Vaghjiani, CEO, and founder of Clowd9, the world's first cloud native, decentralized issuer processing platform.

Suresh:

Hey, how are you?

Megan:

I'm good, thanks. How are you?

Suresh:

I'm good.

Megan:

All right, so we can jump in. First of all, thank you so much for joining. I was really inspired by something you said at the EWPN conference, and you were talking about your founder journey and you gave an example of how each step in the journey is valuable. Which really resonated with me. One of the reasons I've reached out and was really excited to try to get you to participate in the podcast, so I really appreciate you taking the time to do that.

Suresh:

Thank you. Look it's thank you for having me on. I've got many stories, many scar stories, lots of learning, and if other people can learn from some of my mistakes, that will be a job well done.

Megan:

Awesome. I start every podcast right from the beginning of when you were small. Did you have an idea in your head of what you thought you wanted to be when you grew up?

Suresh:

Look, I think my earliest memory of when I was younger was I had a sister that worked for British Airways and when you have family members, but I'm talking about in the eighties, in the seventies. I'm clearly showing my age now. It was you get a lot of concessional travel and that still applies. So I think by the time I was 10 years old, I think I'd been on 11 or 12 international flights. Wow. I guess from a young age it was like, oh I'm gonna be a pilot. You know, the normal one, right. Without actually thinking about. What effort, what work or what is required to do that? It just sounded great. And then as I got older, I was strangely, which, which doesn't resonate with anything I do quite good at asymmetric drawing, which is where you draw three dimensional objects on paper. And my family said, oh, you're gonna become an architect. And it's like, oh yeah, I'm gonna become an architect. Once again, not thinking about anything that's required to become an architect. It's almost like, oh, people are saying I'll do this, so sure, I'll probably end up doing something like that. But it was almost like people give you these views and then you are like, that's great, I could do that. But actually having no action whatsoever to do anything towards that. So I would probably say like many teenagers, the first few years all the way through high school was just doing the things that I enjoy. That were enough balance to be credible. If I was just, things I'd enjoy, I'd probably just be doing lots of sports. And, coming from an Asian family, it's like, no, no, no, that's not a real job. You need to be properly educated. So there's the, there's that push for the traditional education. I went to A school in Harrow called Gaton High School. It was one of the roughest schools in the area to such an extent. It's changed its name now and it's become co-ed as in mixed then before all boys school. And to share a story about how crazy it was there was a guy that used to sit next to me, you know? Mm-hmm. We play cricket together and all of these things. And then years after we left, I, I read the newspaper and it's like, oh my God. He's actually he's killed his sister in an honor killing and, he's in prison for it. So it's it was a pretty, pretty rough school, you know? Yeah. That, that's where I started off.

Megan:

Wow. So with that in mind, how did you then make. Decisions of what to do next after high school or sixth form. Did you decide to go on to university? And if you did, how did you decide what to take? Because the perception from the outside. Sometimes when you're in a difficult school, you might not make those decisions. So yeah, just curious about that.

Suresh:

I think my journey is probably going to be something that parents don't want to hear and the kids are like, yes, that makes sense. Right. I did a lot of things where I finished high school GCSEs at the time. Hmm. And had an extreme variant in grades from having a's to having u's unmarked'cause they were that bad. And all my friends were going to college, so I was like I need to go to college'cause all my friends are going to college. So I went to college and the jump to a level is a very big jump. And you realize very quickly that it's a lot harder than it should be. And I did reasonably. Okay. Reasonably okay. And then it was university, right? And the thing was, it was like my friends are going to university, so which university do I want to go to? It was more about, I'm gonna say, following the crowd, you know? Yeah. And I did start a university at Middlesex University doing international business. And then I flunk. You know, I got the student loan. I bought a car with it. And the thing is, at that time, university fees were paid for, they were covered.

Megan:

Mm-hmm.

Suresh:

And I messed up. I got kicked out of university'cause I didn't attend enough. And, then I realized it's a very funny story, but I have three sisters and one brother all way older than me. My, my older sister is 66, right? So there's a big age gap. So one of my sisters said to me, what are you gonna do now? You are you don't wanna study. What do you wanna do now? You could get a job working in a supermarket and in 10, 20, 30 years. You could make yourself something into management. And to me, when you are young, there's almost stigmas attached. There's nothing wrong with working in the supermarket.'cause Yeah, I actually did when I went back to university, but the stigma attached to like, I, no, I'm better than that. Right? There was like this wake up call and all of a sudden I basically said, I need to go back to university except I have to pay for it now because I, I've messed up. The moment you pay for something, you value it. It's a strange thing. It's almost like I started to think about it like I'm paying for something and I'm getting something in return. It's almost like a salary, every time I go into universities, like I'm getting paid to go and I'm paying to do it. So it was a different mentality to,

Megan:

yeah,

Suresh:

I have to go.

Megan:

And I wonder too if it was, it was a more active choice. The second time of, wait actually. If I want a different life than the option I'm seeing right now, then I do need to go back. Which is also a different level of commitment when you're just, many of us end up in university, as you said,'cause we're following the crowd. Or it's just this assumption that we would go, but we haven't thought about it. We just go'cause that's what we think we need to do. So you're not necessarily committed to it in that way. True. You haven't chosen it

Suresh:

sleepwalking. You're sleepwalking on the journey. Yeah. And all of a sudden you have a realization that, oh my God, is this it? You know? And went back and by the way, I've got strange views about university. What I mean by that is I am not convinced that a university degree puts you in a good standing from an employment perspective. I don't really talk about my studies because I don't necessarily feel like. They've contributed towards my successes. It's a strange one, but I've probably done some really low jobs where I feel they've contributed more to my success than the education. And I think when people hire people and they look at their CV and they say, oh, they went to Oxford, they went to Cambridge, they went to a top university, you are saying, oh, they must be a good person because they went there. They must be of a high caliber. It doesn't mean they'll be good for the role. It doesn't mean, yeah, it's just it's like this stamp, right? You've got this badge to say someone's validated that they were good enough for something. But like you look at a CV and they've worked at all these companies that you really aspire to be, but you don't know what it's like working in those companies and mm-hmm.

Megan:

They could be

Suresh:

the wrong candidates for your company. And I think many people make mistakes when they hire people'cause they don't see, these badges don't recognize key people. There are some gems out there to hire. So my, my view about education is that it's important to get your foot through the door. And sometimes people look at it to say, oh, they don't have a degree. I'm not hiring them. But I actually think they're missing out on some incredibly clever and talented people because when people don't have something. They overcompensate in other areas so people that may not have that first class degree from a top university or even have a degree, they have to compensate in other areas to overcome those things. And actually, as an employer, you might find that what they've got, the skillsets or the nuances or the way they communicate or talk to people is much harder than the person that's got the top education, the top university, because. They haven't had to try hard because their CV gets them through the door.

Megan:

Yeah, I would agree. I, and I don't think university is for everyone and it shouldn't be. And a lot of jobs, especially at the entry level, you don't actually need university and you would learn all the things you need to know about that job and progress in that job on the job. And there are things you legitimately only learn. By doing them and the things you learn by working retail you know, in a client facing role or I've never worked in a restaurant, but similar idea of anything that you have to deal with the public, the things you learn there, you are never gonna learn in university. Like university can be quite sheltered. So yeah, a hundred percent agree.

Suresh:

Yeah, I think that, when you are in that environment, you might deal with difficult teachers now and again, when you are working in retail, you can't determine who that person through the door is. You'll have a nice person, you'll have a terrible person, you'll have a considerate person. You will have someone that makes no rational sense and you've gotta somehow manage to work with them to get the best outcome. So it's. So I left university and then I was like I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew that I didn't wanna work for anybody.

Megan:

Mm-hmm. So he was

Suresh:

like, I wanna be my own boss. I wanna control my own times I work. So I decided to become a mortgage broker a licensed mortgage broker. And I was like, this is amazing. I work my own hours. And then as time unfolded, I was doing really well at it, but what I realized was a few things. One was I was like. 20 years old. And I had a golf cabriolet, it was like, oh, this is my car. And I realized that when you go to meet these clients, they don't want to see you in a flashy car. They wanna see you in a very basic car and they wanna see you outside of working hours on the evenings and weekends. And at that age, you're thinking, do I really wanna spend all my time doing this? But I think the breaking point was, I felt like a glorified insurance salesman, you know? If I sell them one policy, I make this much money, which is the right policy. If I sell them the wrong policy, like an endowment, I make thousands and I'm giving them the wrong information, but like it's what do I do? I felt like a glorified insurance salesman, so I wasn't really enjoying it. I started to follow the stock market and I started to talk to some of my customers about shares. Now, I'm not a financial advisor. I'm not licensed to say these things. I would just give them my observations and some of these customers would act upon them, and they bought shares that I had said, oh, these look really good. Not that I was an advisor, but they looked at them, they bought the shares, and they made lots of money. And I'm sitting there saying, what am I doing right? I'm giving people my observations, they're making loads of money. I'm sitting on the sidelines. I should be doing this? So I basically jacked in and I started trading in shares. I started doing day trading, and there's this image of these traders of, they could be sitting on the beach with all these charts and

Megan:

Yeah.

Suresh:

And they look really clever and they use all these acronyms and they're like, oh yeah, I'm using an MACD histogram. And you're like, wow, what do you use? Right? So there was this kind of validation where you feel really important because you know how the universe operates. And one, I realized it's an incredibly stressful thing, and secondly, you realize that it's so stressful and that's why so many people do it at a young age, not at a later age. And to be fair, I was doing really, really well. So I started off with 30,000 and I turned it into probably about 300,000 pounds. Right. Wow. However, I lost everything on one day. Which was nine 11, right?

Megan:

Oh God. Yeah.

Suresh:

So when you trade you have something called stop-losses, which basically means that if the market goes against you, you get out. Yeah. And you can have standard stop losses or you can have guaranteed stop losses. Now, standard stop-losses only work if the price trades through that range. If it doesn't trade through that range, then you know you don't get out. So I basically lost everything on that day in consideration. It's only money. People lost their lives, right? Yeah. And in my mind, I was like, oh my God I need to take a break from this, I need to take a step back and I need to do something that's nothing to do with this, and I'm gonna go back to trading. So my plan was, I'll go back to trading, but when you fall off a bike. You need to get back on the bike straight away.

Megan:

Mm-hmm. So

Suresh:

I basically did another job and I'll tell you what the job was in a second and I was like, I'm gonna go back to trading. By the way, this other job I did, I ended up being there for nine years. Right? Yeah. So that was me falling off the bike and I'm gonna go back, I'm really gonna go back'cause this job is very not so demanding and I'll be able to do it back. So I, I got a job doing statistical analysis of the housing market. For a place called the National Housing Federation. Which is a trade body organization. And, it wasn't necessarily very challenging, but, I could do the work very easily, coordination, statistical research of housing association tenants and stuff like that. So it wasn't challenging, but it was safe. I'm safe. And I always said I'll go back to trading, but I never did. Now everything changed by one encounter. So I went to a friend's, I'm gonna say birthday party, but I don't know if it was a birthday party. It was something like that. And they had this other guy there that was invited. I met him for the first time and he was showing me, this is such a random story. He's showing me a photo album, where he's got his photos printed in his photo album. And I said to him, oh, that photo album is manufactured in Germany by this company.

Megan:

Mm-hmm. And he's

Suresh:

No, it's not I, it's from Costco. And I was like no, it's trust me. It comes from that company. He's like, I don't know what you're talking about. I got it from Costco. Anyway, he goes to the back page and on the back page, it's the company that I said it is, and he said, how do you know this? And I said, oh, I'd just like to do my research and I like to go into granular detail about things. And he said to me, have you thought about being a product manager? And I'm like, what's the product manager? He said, oh, it's someone that makes sure that a product is fit for market, for the audience. And he said I'm working with this company and I'm the CEO and I wanna hire someone that's got fresh ideas. Would you consider being a product manager? And I was like. Okay, what is it? And he said, oh, I'm gonna launch a prepaid card. And I'm like, what's a prepaid card? And in my head I was like, oh, it's a pay as you go credit card. Which sounds really stupid'cause it contradicts, right. So he wanted to launch this product and historically prepaid cards in the market, always for poor people. So you'd always get a prepaid card'cause you couldn't get a credit card where he wanted to launch a card that was a prepaid card, but it was a premium product. So I joined this company as a product manager. A little bit of an outsider not knowing anything.

Megan:

Being

Suresh:

very conscious that I didn't know things. And the product was called Caixa and at the time it was probably one of the most successful prepaid cards around Europe. Had millions of customers, but embarked on this journey of really pushing the boundaries of ideas. In ways that I hadn't thought. So I'll give you some examples. We launched a contactless watch that worked anywhere you can make payments. And it was five years before Apple Watch was launched, it wasn't a smart watch. It didn't even need charging.

Megan:

Mm-hmm.

Suresh:

And literally what would happen is you'd have your card, your credit card, there'd be a cutout, you know, like you do for your phone, sim. And you slip it into your watch, and even if your watch battery died. It just worked,

Megan:

Yeah.'cause you still have the, I'm gonna, this is probably the wrong terminology, but like the chip card in your watch. So it was,

Suresh:

the reader was give the signal. So you would, we were doing these things and there was a period when you know, when London Underground enabled contactless payments. Mm-hmm. So people don't know this, but for one year before it opened to the public. There were certain people that were testing it, and I was working on the product team, and I was testing these watches and all of these new products on the underground. And TFL would give me a letter every month.

Megan:

Mm-hmm. So when I

Suresh:

get stopped by a ticket inspector and they're like, where's your ticket? And I'm like, oh, they are paid with my watch. They look confused and I show them this letter. I think I've still got this letter somewhere. When they see this letter, their response is, I dunno, gov look looks all pucker to me. So their view was like, looks legit, but it was too strange to question. So every month they'll give me a letter. For one year I was traveling on the underground showing these things. So really pushing some of the boundaries on this. We did a contactless watch. We actually did a contactless device for for iPhone four. You couldn't make contactless payments on iPhone four. So it was a case and you put a microSD in there and the microSD acted as an antenna. So it was way ahead. It was like, oh my God. Wow. And you opened the app to make the payment. So there was some really clever stuff there. Right. And as with many organizations, I felt like I was there for five and a half years, and it was my first payments company, and in my head I was like, oh. I wanna leave, but I'm not sure, I'm like, what about if I'm not good enough elsewhere? What about if I can't hack it? What about you stay within your comfort zone?

Megan:

Yeah. Especially since you had come into that company as an outsider for not only payments, but product role. So I could definitely see how, it starts to feel like an anchor of I can do it here, but can I do it somewhere else?

Suresh:

You feel like an imposter. And I see it with so many people that when they do their first role in any new sector

Megan:

mm-hmm.

Suresh:

They almost have like imposter syndrome, they stay longer than they should because they're not quite sure if they can hack it elsewhere. And I see it universally, I see people. That are really unhappy in their roles, but they're thinking if I go somewhere else, what about if I'm not good enough, what about if I can't hack it or what about if I get found out? You know? Yeah. There's that and the flip side is what about if you go there and you spread your wings and you're stronger than you've ever been before.

Megan:

Mm-hmm.

Suresh:

So I, I don't know if I would've ever left, but I got approached by this company called Pay Safe. And they were launching a new issuing division and they wanted to have somebody run that division and grow it as a new service. And had it not come, like beating on the door, I don't think I would've actively looked for it, and it came and I spoke to the guys and I liked what they did, and they had bold ambitions. And there I was providing my licenses. To companies that wanted to launch something new. And first guy I met you know, Russian hair, looks like a surfer dude, comes to the office, says, I wanna launch this multicurrency card, you know, and I was like, yeah, yeah, that sounds great. You know, join the queue. There's all these other people that wanna do the same. Met with him and there was three people in the whole company. He gave me his business plan. His business plan was started with 75,000 pounds. We decided to be their issuer and launch their first ever cards. I actually here have the first card ever issued because I had to do that. That company, you will know it as Revolut, that

Megan:

was wondering if that's where we were going.

Suresh:

That was Revolut with Nikola Vlad and there was a third guy that built the app in the early days. I must confess that everyone I meet now seems to be a co-founder of Revolut, but I can safely say that at least for the first 18 months, I'm not talking about from launch, but from kind of inception, there was really three people there, and, they had this ambition for what they want to do and they came with fresh ideas. They wanted to push the boundaries. So they did things the right way. They did things the wrong way. They broke a few things, but sometimes you have to break a few things and learn from them to come stronger. And then I what happens is when you work in a regulated environment like paye mm-hmm.

Megan:

You

Suresh:

tend to be very jurisdictional area. So what I mean is it was a very Europe specific offering. I wanted to do something global, and that was when I joined this. A company that was headquartered out of Dubai, had 26 odd people called GPS now known as Thread. I joined as managing director and we were providing the technology to Revolut and the likes of Monzo and then, but we didn't have Monzo then or anything that was all down the road. It was like, winning Monzo and winning Starling and the likes of Curve and all of these. You know what a lot of people don't realize is there were many companies that came before them

Megan:

that

Suresh:

had the same idea and that failed, and the reason that they failed wasn't because the product was poor. Sometimes it could just be about timing. Revolut was not the first Multicurrency card. There was actually one earlier than that called Cash Case. That was the product, right? And it was multicurrency in the same way. It failed because it was probably two years before people started using smartphones, which meant what's the point of having a multicurrency card where the only way to know what my currencies are is by ringing a number, and they'll, there'll be a recording telling you that. So sometimes it's about timing, it's not about the product.

Megan:

A hundred percent. Timing is such an important factor, and I think it's a good reminder for those who are doing things and, making that transition to being an entrepreneur of, even if it's a really great product or idea, timing is so key. And so even if it. Your product maybe isn't successful. That doesn't mean it wasn't a good product. You should look at that, of course. But sometimes it is just timing and there's so much to learn and build on from that experience regardless of the outcome, on an individual or team level.

Suresh:

Yeah. Sometimes people take failure very personally, right?

Megan:

Mm-hmm.

Suresh:

My, my approach to failing and it's not my approach, it's just what I've learned is. Stay focused on the goal, change the approach, if you really wanna do something, change the approach, but stay focused on the goal. Yeah. And I think that even as, even when you hire teams and you build teams of people to work with, you don't want people to all think in the same way.

Megan:

Hundred percent.

Suresh:

I've used this analogy before if everybody. Comes from the same line or it's the same ingredient. The food always tastes the same. You want someone to come with different flavors, different attitudes. But still be united on the goal. What I mean is, yes, as a team you should have disagreements, but be focused on the goal. You are all trying to achieve the same thing. But they might be people within the team that are not very, like I can say that the teams that I've worked the most successful with. Are we people compensate for other people's weaknesses? I would say what has been my strength, I'd probably say I tend to be very vocal. I tend to communicate and I often get credit for what my team have achieved. And it's not even me, but because I'm the mouthpiece, I get a lot of credit for it. But it's ultimately the team and. There's things that they do that I just can't do. That, that sometimes that granular level of detail that specifics that comes with certain characters in people. You need that in a team. If you are all like blue sky thinking visionary thinkers, then nothing will ever get done. You'll just have all these amazing ideas,

Megan:

you know? Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And I think like a team is. It's like a puzzle. Puzzle and it's putting those pieces together and no individual is ever all things. So you do need those puzzle pieces that go together and compensate and the different skill sets. And I think it even goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning of looking at. People who didn't go to university. When you talk about diversity and inclusion, it's not just about, gender, for example. It's a whole spectrum of things all those perspectives are so important. Even in the dialogue of university or when I look at with schools of, there's, talk of low value degrees and it's actually, someone who has done an English degree or a social sciences degree, they're gonna bring something different to the table than someone who's done tech. If so, if everyone does stem, we're losing a whole other way of thinking. But you also need people with that kind of more practical people experience, and you don't necessarily get that from university. So like you. You want people who have all sorts of different experiences and perspectives.

Suresh:

I think diversity of experience and diversity of background is not always visible. So it doesn't always keep the box in. Yeah. If we could have a panel where, we've got Asian people, black people, white people, people from different backgrounds male, female. And they all went to the same university. Right. And I would argue that is less diverse than having all men on stage, white men, where they came from different backgrounds. So it's almost like people look at things and just generalize and say, oh, that's not diverse. But to me, diversity is about the background. Someone that's come from a council estate, is more diverse than a male and female that have gone to Oxford University. Don't get me wrong, there are challenges with all of those things, but I'm just saying that we tend to focus on the visual, yeah. So

Megan:

It's easier to measure. and you can check the box then because it's easy to measure versus, as you said, not everything is visible. We don't focus on the whole range of diversity that we should be. And I think that some of the dialogue, at least in the UK, has started to change around that. Particularly around class, which is a different conversation in the uk. There's needs to be more, and as you said, regardless of that, it's like putting together a team is about perspective and skill sets and finding that perfect kind of mix.

Suresh:

And then when they come from different backgrounds, experiences, that's the magic recipe, right? Mm-hmm. And I think that sometimes managers want to hire yes people, they're surrounded by people that like their ideas and say, yes, but actually it's really valuable to have the ones that challenge you. It's not nice, but that's the magic recipe, so people that are gonna challenge you, people that disagree with you. But I still hire people that have the same ethics. I think ethics are really important.

Megan:

Yes. There's some non-negotiables, for sure.

Suresh:

Yeah. And I think that in my career where I've had a lot of extremes where you go from, I said to you that I was, the MD at GPS now known as thread. After we sold to private equity, I stayed on the board for a little bit and then I parted ways. And when you are in between staff, people are like, oh, who is he? What is really interesting? What people don't realize is, and this is just an observation, when you are in a really senior position people tend to believe their own hype, right? So what happens is that they believe that everyone loves them, and that if they left that company that I've got all these friends that love me, right?

Megan:

Mm-hmm.

Suresh:

But what they haven't worked out is, did they love the role you had in the company or did they love you? And it's not easy for people to identify that. Like I've been in organizations where I've had people in the team and I was like, that person's amazing. And then I have other people that are junior in the team that say. I don't think they are because the way that they talk to them is not how they talk to me. Mm-hmm. So there's this kind of, you don't always see the whole picture, you know? So I see people where you, you leave an organization, all of a sudden your so-called hundreds of friends that love you all disappear'cause there's nothing you can do for them, you know? it's a real ego equilibrium, and I've been fortunate enough to have it a few times. So that it resets who, your friend circle should be. You know your genuine friends, they're the ones that will contact you when you are down and out. They're the ones that will check that everything's okay. When you've won the lottery tomorrow, everyone's your friend, right? Yes. All

Megan:

sorts of new people that will come out of the woodwork. They're

Suresh:

the loveliest people you met. Oh yeah. I went to university with you. We were old buddies, right? In careers, I think that people can't always separate. So they have the shock of their lives when they leave. I've seen your posts thinking that everybody loves them and they don't.

Megan:

Yeah.

Suresh:

So I guess after we sold to private equity, I decided that I was going to I, I basically became CEO of Tribe Payments. Mm-hmm. It was more technology, more of the same stuff. But I guess the funny point was that I did leave Tri Payments, but it was with my son that we we came up with some concepts for names and stuff like that. And when I told my son that I'm leaving, he's like, you can't leave. That's your company. It's just well, it doesn't really work like that. It is whoever owns the company, owns the company. It doesn't matter what you bring to it, but it can always be very emotional when you've, when you leave a company that you spend so much time with. And it's been such a big imprint on that.

Megan:

Yeah. Especially if you are part of building it and if you and your son were part of brainstorming names and things. There is an attachment there for sure.

Suresh:

I must confess that it was actually a friend from a previous company that actually came up with the name.

Megan:

Mm-hmm.

Suresh:

And and I was hoping to recruit her, but it didn't quite work out. But she was a, she was amazing. But, I always get the ideas and then I always run them through the children because ultimately they represent the future. Something that I think is amazing, if they think that's a dog's dinner I see that you've gotta put it under their noses to see if it works or what their initial views are on things, the way that we may look at things like security and privacy the kids don't look at it that way.

Megan:

Yeah.

Suresh:

So it's great to get that validation. So it was strange leaving but when you know it's the right decision for you as sometimes you look and it was in the middle of COVID as well, to be fair. So anyway, a lot of it has gone into almost everything that I've done has really gone into the formation of the company I'm at now, which is CEO and founder of Clowd9, but with a w because. To be honest, if you could spell properly, you wouldn't be in FinTech, you know? So it almost comes with a territory, and to really, push the boundaries. Doing things that no one else has done before. And I know everybody uses that term, but we really have pushed the boundaries and done things in that space. But then that's not really the point of here. It's more to talk about. Getting the right people, and going about town and getting the right people based on their skills, their track record. But the other thing I'd say to you is 50% of the people in Clowd9 are totally new to payments. Because every time you try and embark on a new journey, and you wanna really innovate, if you have people all from the same background or from the same previous companies, or from the same sector. You end up with the same outcome. We were trying to do something so different that 50% of our company, which is our entire tech team,

Megan:

yeah. Were

Suresh:

just cloud engineers, right? So when we would tell them to do something, they were like, why would you do it that way? So they would challenge everything. And if we hadn't got 50% of the people that were outside of the industry, they were experts in what they do, but not in payments, we would never have innovated in the way that we have. Now on a positive, we spend 90% of our budget all on technology, on a negative. We spend nothing on marketing. So we win business and word of mouth and recommendation, it works for us. But sometimes people say, I didn't even know you guys existed, but. I've been in the payment space for 20 years. Mm-hmm. It's very hard to remain relevant and I think that you have to keep evolving. Otherwise you do become irrelevant. And the other thing is you can never be an expert. You have to keep learning the moment you think you know it or you're destined to fail.

Megan:

Yeah, and I think that's what's, I think interesting about payments and FinTech is there are a lot of. Players, and there's a lot that's already happening. It's evolving very quickly, but on the other hand, a lot of it's just the same. And it's not a new industry. So what you were saying about like bringing in people outside of payments, again, it goes back to that kind of diversity of thought. Of seeing things in a different way, asking why do we do this? And like anything where you have a background for a long time, you just start to see things in the same way. So you see the problems in the same way and you just come up with the same answer that, the guy down the road is already doing. And that's what I think is such an interesting thing about FinTech is there's so many different things that are possible in it, but it is finding that kind of niche and new perspective and truly innovating, which is actually hard. So if,

Suresh:

if Revolut were all from a banking background, would they have pushed the boundaries? They wouldn't have achieved the success. Yeah. Even when you look at Monzo and you look at, Tom Bloomfield the founder, he said that some of the ideas he had where he had a situation where they didn't have a lot of money and they couldn't produce that many cards. So he created this waiting list, right? Mm-hmm. And then they said, if you recommend someone, you move up the waiting list. But he got the idea from a previous company where he was managing a dating site, right? So sometimes it's about these ideas that come and you bring them together. You sit there and say, you look at Elvis, right? Elvis, amazing, successful, but when you look at, if you watch the movie Elvis, he was actually singing, with black local singers there. Mm-hmm. And actually he brought that style to the mainstream. So this cross pollination of ideas is really the magic sauce as well, right?

Megan:

Yeah. Because as you were in the examples you just gave if you only have people who are in payments, for example, they're only gonna see how it's been done before. Instead of, oh, we tried this thing in a completely different industry. Could it work in payments? Could it solve this problem we're having in this FinTech? Could part of it work but even having that conversation doesn't happen if you don't have people who have those different experiences.

Suresh:

Very true, very true. Otherwise, we just end up with the same solution done in the same way as they say no one gets fired for hiring IBM, you know that kind of mentality.

Megan:

Yeah. Uhhuh. So

Suresh:

it's an interesting space and, and my whole encounter in payments was a chance meeting with an individual at a party talking about a photo album that started my career in payments.

Megan:

And what I think is so interesting about that is. That is sort of how a lot of careers happen, whether it's your very first job where you end up, like, I ended up in payments by accident. I started in B2B, foreign exchange and cross border. I. Did I even know that was an industry? No. I had this vague idea of like, oh, I think I wanna work for a bank. This is banking adjacent. You know, and so many people I know that's how their career started. Or even when they make pivots, it's for that reason of this opportunity kind of came in front of me, or I had an idea and I'm curious about it and I wanna know more. And then it's taking the chance and sometimes that chance doesn't work out and you make a different decision and go in a different direction, but you don't know until you take the chance and then it can completely change your career. The other thing I think about, which is cool about your journey is there is still a full circle there you started out wanting to be an entrepreneur and did start, working for yourself as a mortgage broker and now you're a founder, so there is that element that you've gone full circle on as well.

Suresh:

That's true. I guess I never saw that as the root'cause. I just thought, no, no, I need to just work for myself, be myself, and that's all there is. And that, that will be it. It is a funny circle for sure. You know. and then I guess the other point is that what I like about what I do. I don't necessarily need to have the ideas, people come to me with crazy ideas and my job is to enable it or to make it happen. So I like that. And, and sometimes people are crazy. You know, I had someone come into the office, and he had, in the meeting, they had a milkshake, McDonald's milkshake, in their hand. And what he had done was in the web of his hand. He had injected a contactless chip. Mm-hmm. Just between the thumb and the finger. And he basically said, oh, I, I wanna launch this and it works, show me. And he showed me, and it works. And he said, I wanna launch this product. but it was basically contactless implants into your body. Right. And I said, okay, from a technology perspective, this is possible. So how, where did you get the chip from? And he said, oh, I had to lie to the bank because they wouldn't give it to me otherwise. And, my answer to him was, listen, the way it works in payments, there's always a regulated entity. If you can find an issuing bank that wants to work with you, we can provide the technology. To this day, he hasn't been able to. And the reason for that is, you know, like your card on the back of the card it says this card belongs to Yeah. Is the property of this bank. In the same way. You implant yourself with a contactless chip. And then what about if it gets infected? Like what about if it needs something? Like do you sue the bank? So I kind of get it right. There's places in the world where you can get away with, you know, putting contactless chips in you, but I don't think it's going to happen in the uk. I could be wrong. But it's highly unlikely, unless it's forced upon you.

Megan:

Yeah. There's a few obstacles that would need to be. Sorted out. And it's not just a banking regulatory, there's the health aspect of it. So yeah, that's, I mean, interesting. And there's maybe something in between that comes out of an idea that seems crazy like that. So I think that's really fascinating. When you look back on your career, are there some common threads you see or, experiences that have pulled through throughout, the journey?

Suresh:

Look, I probably say there's some observations that I've learned along the way. some of these things might sound really crude what I say, but they say, be careful who you piss on the way up because you know, they could be pissing with you on the way down, right? Mm-hmm. And I think a lot of people burn bridges as they move up the chain and they're like, I am something that ego gets to them. You don't know that person you are doing certain behavior to, they may be in the same sector. You might be asking them for a job in the future. And it's a small industry. I think that look, you sometimes may have people within your organization that you have to let go, treat everyone with respect, treat them the right way. It's very easy to be negative about people. Don't burn bridges. It's not hard to be nice, but sometimes people get caught up in their roles and responsibilities. Mm-hmm. And I, I would say that, I wouldn't say it's my success, but I think that I've always tried my best to treat people with respect. I sometimes sit in meetings where I was the, the MD or, or the president of a company and I'd be in calls with customers because I just wanna learn. People would find it surprising that why is the president of a company on a sales call, like mm-hmm. In a meeting. And I'm very unassuming, so they don't realize that I'm senior. But I, I like that.'cause I, I feel like you should be able to communicate, whether you're talking to a, the cleaner, the CEOA barrister, a lawyer, you know, treat everyone with respect, but sometimes people don't because it makes them feel more important by making someone else. Feel lower.

Megan:

Or I think sometimes that's their hiding their imposter syndrome behind that as a defense mechanism.

Suresh:

I think you're spot on. You know, it's also when people hire people that are not better than them'cause they're worried about getting replaced and then

Megan:

mm-hmm.

Suresh:

You know, all they do is complain about how their team are not good. Like, I always believe in hire people that're better than you'cause they make you look good.

Megan:

A hundred percent. And it's, again, back to that puzzle pieces of the team. So you're hiring for skillset and just because you are the manager for example, doesn't mean you have all the skills you need the team to be able to actually deliver towards the goal. kind of related, if you could go back in time, is there a piece of advice that you would give yourself?

Suresh:

I think, okay, so I think if I could go back in time, I would basically say that there's no right or wrong. Like really it's, you've either done something great and it's right, or you've failed, but you haven't failed. You've just learned. So you either learning or you're succeeding, you know? But. I always used to get focused on the destination. Mm-hmm. I used to always think that once I'm there, I've made it. Once I've got this, I'm happy. Once I've got that, I'm done. And actually, you know, I know many people that never, never got there. and they, floundered on the journey. Like what I'm saying is the journey is more important than the destination. And I think that. A lot of people suffer thinking that when I get there, I'll be happy. And, and I, I've had to change that because I used to always think, just let me get there and I'll do that and I'll be set and, and I've now realized that actually the journey's more important than the destination.

Megan:

Yeah. I think that is so important. And it's not always easy, but it is such an important mindset because the other option, there's only two other. Outcomes of you don't get there. And so then you're never happy because you didn't get to that mythical destination. Or you do. And then it's like, well, now what? I didn't, you know, solve all my problems by getting to this destination. So enjoying the journey and focusing on the journey. Is so important. And also I think it opens you up to different destinations because if you're only focused on one thing and you'll only be happy if you get that one thing you might ignore opportunities along the way. You might not feel happy with some of the successes and things you achieve along the way. Just thinking about your journey, if you had been. Focus on something really specific and had this opportunity to join this company in product, you might've been like, yeah, that sounds interesting, but it's not taking me to this destination I have in mind. And actually that was a complete, change in your career.

Suresh:

And, and I think that the other challenge with focusing on the destination is that you never really get there. Yeah. Like the, like you get there and you are like. This isn't what I thought. This isn't what I wanted, this isn't what I expected. I use the analogy of people's physiques, right? Like, I'll sit there and say, I wish that I just was a little bit he, or a little bit slimmer, right? And then you've got the other guy that's, that's the exact physique that I want. And they're thinking, oh, I wish I had this and I had that. And then you've got someone, they're looking at someone else and I wish I was bigger. And they're looking at me saying, I wish I was big. So. The reality is that no one's really happy with where they are.

Megan:

Mm-hmm. They're

Suresh:

always looking and thinking the grass is greener on the other side. Yeah. And, I'm not saying be happy where you are.'cause if you're content, you don't move. But I'm saying there's nothing wrong with enjoying the journey and taking time to reflect. Sometimes you're working so hard. That you don't have time to enjoy it. Take a step back, look at what you've achieved, look at it from a high rise. Can you believe I started there and I've achieved this? Yes. But when you're close to it, you feel like I'm not moving. So yeah. And then the other, only other point I'd add is that with maturity and experience, you have to build coping mechanisms to deal with stress. Mm-hmm. And I, I, I've had situations where it's been incredibly stressful, mental impact. And there's no right or wrong. Everybody has their own way of coping mechanisms. Mine is walking, you know, I try to go out for a walk in the morning, even if I have to have work calls, I have them while I'm walking. Mm-hmm. Because it gets you out of the environment. And I think where people, people are not traveling into the office, it's a lot harder, so, the mindset and working in isolation in offices can be a lot more challenging.

Megan:

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's definitely true as, especially as you said, people work from home a lot more now, and so it's very easy to just. Be really looking inward and not even leaving your flat, for example, and just changing the environment is one great way to a clear your mind, get perspective on stress and other things. But also it's another example for a lot of people of where ideas and new thoughts come from, of again, changing your environment, doing something. That doesn't necessarily require your brain to be active, but it's active, if that makes sense. It's like that. Um, I think there's that saying of like, your best ideas come in the shower. I think walking is another one of those examples of that's where you can be processing information without thinking about it actively. And so you get new ideas or you'll solve a problem or yeah, I think that's. Great advice. For sure. So just flip it around'cause we've been doing a lot of, looking back at the journey looking forward, what is your hope or vision for the future, whether that's, short term or longer term?

Suresh:

I think from a short term perspective, I, I feel like. I'm a big fan of, of bringing people on the journey. Mm-hmm. And, I have often seen many founders make lots of money and, some of the people that have contributed towards it, they have it on their cv that they were there for the journey, but they don't have anything to show for it. So from a short term perspective, I would love to be able to reward the people that I'm working with to, to have the upside life. Changing money. That's the plan. You never know what's gonna happen, but short term is people that have supported on the journey to be rewarded. And, and from a long term perspective, I think people think that when you have money, you know, you are kind of set, you are happy, you thing. I think what it does is that the long term is probably a position where you can make decisions that are not based on money. Like you don't have to be super rich, but you can make decisions that are not, I have to do this job'cause I hate it.'cause I need the money. It's not that. So I think, if you can have the quality of life that you want and your decisions aren't based on money, I think you are a very, very, very rich person.

Megan:

Yes. That freedom of not having to worry. And that's different for different people in terms of, it not having to worry about the basics and going out for dinner occasionally or whatever it might be for you, but just that freedom from. Money being the decision making factor in every aspect, or hanging over every decision.

Suresh:

But I think it's easy for me or us to say it for people that don't have money.'cause for them money is everything. Yes. But I'm saying the aim. The aim is not to get rich. The aim is to have financial freedom.

Megan:

Yes. Which is a different thing.

Suresh:

Yeah. Mean, I, I always say to some, I, I can't remember who I said it to, but I said, I don't wanna be the richest guy in the graveyard.

Megan:

Yeah. You can't take it with you. I mean, I suppose you could, but you can't do anything with it. If you take it with you, you can throw it into the casket if you want, but,

Suresh:

You know, chasing it can contribute to an early route to the. Also great as well. Right. So it's a balance

Megan:

also. True. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much Suresh, for sharing your journey and some really incredible insights around building a team and what's important for a team. And I really appreciate you taking the time and yeah, thank you so much for joining.

Suresh:

Thank you for having the opportunity to share some of my stories and the journey and, you know, really appreciate and hopefully it's, it's valuable for the, listeners. So thank you.

Megan:

Thank you. I think it will be for sure.

I really enjoy chatting with Suresh about his journey, and I love the value he has placed on what he learned in early job experiences. Three things I've taken away from our conversation are, One. The importance of expanding how we think about diversity, diversity of background, including education, industry and more are so important, especially to drive innovation. Two, in addition to bringing many perspectives, build a team with different skill sets, including people willing to challenge, hire people smarter than you, and then enable them to make the crazy ideas a reality. Three Suresh's Journey is such an amazing example of how serendipity can play a role in your journey if you are open to it. Suresh met someone at a party, which led to a product role in payments, a role, and an industry that he hadn't worked in before and that changed his career path. Finally Suresh's re's advice about enjoying the journey is such good advice. It's impossible to know if the destination, even if you make it there. Will be everything you think it will be. But if you are enjoying the journey, then there is no right or wrong path. Thank you for listening to The Unexpected Career Podcast. This was the last episode of season two, so please follow, share, and rate on your favorite podcast provider. The Unexpected Career Podcast is produced, edited, and hosted by me, Megan Dunford, and we'll see you soon for season three.

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