Remote Working is part of Feedzai's DNA
It's technological. It's digital. And, for this reason, Nuno Sebastião, co-founder and CEO of Feedzai, believes that the Portuguese startup is "well protected from the economic effects that this pandemic may have”. "The truth is that we are part of a group of companies that were born global and digital. This means that we are not just dependent on a particular region of the world and that our entire business is conducted using digital platforms and tools. Our company, both from the technological point of view and from the point of view of mindset, was all built to be operated in remote environments”.
"Feedzai was born a global company and highly distributed all over the world”, begins by telling Nuno Sebastião. At the time, and as soon as it gained its first major customers in the United States, the company had "people working from Portugal and supporting these very important projects that were starting". "This dynamic has been maintained and the reality is that we have more than 500 people spread all over the world and many of them already worked from home, even before this pandemic started. This culture of remote work was already part of our DNA”.
At the moment, each and every Feedzai worker works remotely. Including the CEO himself. "We made the decision to temporarily close the offices we have in Europe, the United States, Asia and Australia with the main objective of protecting our people and their families".
The process - which represents a huge challenge for most companies - was relatively simple given that the company is "digital native”. "Security is very important in a company like ours - when you work for some of the largest financial institutions in the world and who trust you to protect their customers, you know that you can't waver a millimeter. This means that we tested all possible scenarios to ensure that nothing would affect our customers' ability to support”.
In practical terms, the days that followed were filled with "normality”. "We already had all the tools we needed, the HR processes prepared, the project management mechanisms underway, etc.”, details Nuno Sebastião. Perhaps because of this, the Portuguese daily life has not undergone major changes since the beginning of this process. "At a management meeting, for example, I have people in Portugal, London and Silicon Valley, which means that we are all together in the same room, three or four times a year. All the meetings we do are via videoconference and it is absolutely normal to have people in different time zones, which means that we are all very used to these dynamics of work from home, the airport, the hotel”, he says.
