Spotlight Series: A Conversation with Tanvi Thacker
In the PayNearMe Spotlight Series, we shine a light on the people that make our company thrive. In this month’s interview, we sat down with Tanvi Thacker, Regulatory Reporting Manager, to chat about her role in the company, why she loves working at PayNearMe and her life outside of work.
Q: How long have you been with PayNearMe?
Tanvi Thacker: I’ve been with PayNearMe for seven years.
Q: Can you tell us about your career journey and what led you to PayNearMe?
TT: I earned a bachelors in medical technology and a masters in finance in India. The way I started my career is kind of a funny story! When I was younger, I had extreme stage fright. My lack of confidence was impacting my interview skills, so the college where I was pursuing my masters offered me a job as a professor. So, I figured this would be a challenge that would help me improve my public speaking skills. After all, if I can teach a room of 120 students, I could move past the stage fright!
The job helped me tremendously by not only improving my technical knowledge, but also public speaking, confidence and interview skills. After my family moved to the U.S., I started with a financial advisor firm, then moved on to a job at a banking firm where I did compliance and regulatory work. Ultimately, that job led me to joining PayNearMe as a Regulatory Reporting Analyst after I had my son.
There’s not a single day that I wake up and question my career choice or decision to join PayNearMe. I absolutely love what I do and all of the opportunities I’ve had since I joined the company.
Q: How has PayNearMe helped you in your career development?
TT: PayNearMe has afforded me so many new opportunities. I’ve been given the chance to take on new challenges and be a part of the company as we’ve grown from only accepting cash payments to all electronic payments. My management team has mentored me and put a great deal of trust in me, and that support has given me so much confidence and allowed me to grow professionally and personally.
And of course, the flexibility is a major plus! Without this work life balance, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve so much.
Q: Do you have any advice to share with those who are just getting into the fintech industry who might want to join a company like PayNearMe?
TT: Joining a fintech requires an individual to be collaborative and innovative.
Q: What are some of your favorite things about working at PayNearMe?
TT: Some of my favorite things about working at PayNearMe are the collaboration, transparency, honesty and the flexibility the company offers.
Q: PayNearMe’s Core Values are Together, Do the Right Thing, Results-Driven, Transparent, Flexible and Respectful. Which one most resonates with you and why?
TT: It’s so hard to pick just one! I guess because my working style is all about transparency, I would choose transparent. It’s important to provide and receive instant feedback; that helps me perform better.
Q: Let’s shift the focus to your role. What does a day in the life of a Regulatory Reporting Manager look like?
TT: In my role, I focus on helping PayNearMe meet all required regulatory reporting deadlines and ensuring we have all necessary licenses for our business to stay compliant. Much of what we do on the regulatory side of the house is run by monthly, quarterly and annual calendars of when reports are due. Because this requires me and my team to work cross-functionally with other teams, it requires strong project management skills and collaboration.
Q: Let’s talk about remote work. How are you able to stay connected with your team virtually?
TT: Even though our team is located across the U.S., I’ve never felt like remote work posed an issue to our productivity. If anything, it allows us to have more coverage and flexibility. We use all of the digital tools, such as Slack and Zoom, at our disposal to stay connected. It’s also great when our team is able to come together for in-person meetings for social and professional interactions.
Q: What are three things you have to have on your desk each day for a productive workday?
TT: I have to have multiple screens and a physical mouse! So much of my job includes working with large excel files so I need to easily be able to navigate with large screens and a mouse! I also prefer physically writing to-do lists and notes with pen and paper!
Q: What are some things that you’ve learned about yourself while working at PayNearMe?
TT: My self-confidence has grown by leaps and bounds since I joined PayNearMe because my leaders and mentors believed in me. There were so many things I didn’t think I could do, but my leadership team put me in charge of big projects and I was able to successfully complete them, and I learned I was capable of doing so much.
Q: So what about you—what kinds of activities or hobbies are you interested in outside of work?
TT: My family loves traveling. It’s so much fun getting to watch my son travel and experience new places and cultures for the first time. One of my favorite travel experiences was traveling to Paris to see the Olympics.
Q: If you could do another job for just one day, what would it be?
TT: I would happily be a travel planner. I find myself loving the planning aspect of travel almost as much as the actual trip!
Q: Any fun facts you’d like to share with us?
TT: Because I joined PayNearMe right after my son was born, and that was when the company was fairly new, it’s been fun to see the company grow right along with my son! So it’s almost like every time we celebrate my son’s birthday, we celebrate a PayNearMe birthday!
Q: How has PayNearMe culture evolved since you started 7 years ago?
TT: PayNearMe has had the same core values since the start. Yes, we formalized them, but those values were always a part of our culture. Even though we’ve grown substantially and added more employees, the culture has only gotten stronger as we’ve added more team members that align with our values and mission.
The root of who we are as a company has never changed, and I’m proud to be a part of PayNearMe.
