In this article, Mayuri, a Canada-based Zipster talks us through her Zipstory, and how her life experiences have shaped her passions for her work in the US Risk team.

Tell us who you are, what you do at Zip and a little bit more about your Zipstory

Hi! I am Mayuri Mukherjee, Senior Risk Manager with the Zip US Risk Team based out of Toronto, Canada. I have been a Zipster for almost two years now.

I have worked in the financial services industry for almost a decade, having started my career in India. What makes my journey as a Zipster even more interesting is the fact that it is completely interlinked with my personal journey of moving from India to Canada in 2022.

I remember seeing the Zip job ad the week I was leaving India and it just seemed like such a tremendous opportunity that, even with the stress of moving, I decided to make a go for it. And I am so glad that I did because it has been an absolutely amazing ride so far.

I remember doing my interviews in the first two weeks of landing in Toronto. By the third week, I got the offer. And by week four, I had been onboarded! Talk about Zip Speed 🚀

All things considered I never felt overwhelmed for one minute, even with such a big change in my personal circumstances. I have to give a shout out to the amazing People and Culture team who understood my situation and supported me at every step through onboarding!

In your experience, what are some of the opportunities you get working in the Risk team at Zip that you wouldn’t get working elsewhere?

I think what makes Zip unique is its collaborative work culture. Never have I ever worked in tandem with so many different groups in the past and it is absolutely phenomenal how different teams come together to successfully deliver projects. An example being how we delivered Decision Engine 2.0 - our new age Risk Decisioning Platform.

It seemed like a herculean task when we were starting out, especially for someone like me who has always focused on the strategy ‘ideation’ phase more than ‘implementation’.

What stood out for me was the amount of collaboration and support that I got from our Platform Engineering group. We worked as a cohesive unit exchanging learnings and feedback at every step of the way, delivering the MVP in less than six months. The project has gone on to have such a huge impact on the way risk management strategies are maintained and upgraded across the entire organization.

I would also credit the amazing leadership teams at Zip - the mentoring I have received from my leaders in the Risk team is something that I will cherish for the rest of my career. I read somewhere that ‘Mentoring is not about making people like you, but about helping them become the best version of themselves’ and that’s exactly how I feel since joining Zip - a better version of myself!

Tell us more about the way Zip does decisioning? Why is this important to you?

The base of a lot of risk management practices involves an individual’s credit history - it is what is most likely going to determine their acceptance or refusal for a wide range of credit products. But what happens if your credit history goes against you? It is only when I personally experienced this, that I started looking at risk decisioning from a whole new perspective.

When moving countries, you are not only starting life from scratch, but also your credit history from scratch too. At times, it was quite disheartening to be refused credit during those first few months and I remember feeling a little frustrated. And I feel that I have been able to bring a lot of these personal experiences successfully into my role at Zip.

We have a saying that Zip is ‘serving the underserved’ and I truly believe that the work we do here is very purposeful. I feel we take out some of the clinicality of risk management practices and bring a lot more heart to it.

We are truly Customer First, always looking for ways to approve more customers who come to us for credit, reward our returning customers and in general create a more wholesome experience for them. Behind the scenes, even as Risk Managers - we are always working with many other departments like Design, Marketing, Product, etc. to ideate the best possible customer experience. It feels satisfying to use learnings from your personal experience to improve the work you do, and I am so glad to have had this opportunity.

Thinking about the way you get your best work done, how does Zip support your wellbeing?

Zip has always been a tremendously supportive employer right from the onboarding days. I remember shortly after joining, I had reached out to the People and Culture team asking for an employment letter to secure a rental property. I got that employment letter in just a day. Zip made sure that I didn't lose out on the rental and they prioritized my request accordingly.

Another big pull for me is how Zip manages to create an engaging work culture, even though most of us work remotely. Zip ensures that we have open and transparent communication streams without an overwhelming number of meetings. And the best part is that we have a lot of non-work ‘touch bases’ with other Zipsters throughout the week, be it trivia hour or culture circles. Folks are also encouraged to have informal ‘coffee chats’ (we call it #meet-a-zipster) to get to know each other better - that personal connection helps when multiple teams are collaborating on big projects.

One of the other benefits we enjoy as Zipsters are the extended holidays where we get an additional day-off for all public holidays that fall during summer. For example, beyond just getting the Monday off for Labor Day, we also get the previous Friday off. This certainly helps us plan all of those camping and surfing trips throughout May-September with the family. After all, what is better than a three-day weekend? A four-day weekend!

Which chapter in your Zipstory, that not a lot of people may know about, makes you most proud to be a Zipster?

As Zip enters its ‘matured and continued’ growth phase in the US market, I look forward to making even more meaningful contributions with my work in the Risk team.

I feel that this is such an exciting time to be working for Zip. The initiatives we're owning in the Risk space continue to get more innovative, and we have a lot more interesting projects in the pipeline that will help us enhance our approvals and reward strategies while strengthening our existing platforms.

For me personally, I aspire to leave a meaningful mark at Zip through my contributions and look forward to continuing to develop my career at the same pace as the growth of the business.