Talking Operations with our Fraud Manager, Cesar Hernandez
Short intro about yourself + picture:
I was born in Mexico City but grew up in Hermosillo in the north of Mexico, the land of tacos de carne asada. I studied my last year of high school in a boarding academy in Oregon, USA, where I learned and improved my English. After that I went on to study Business Engineering at ITAM in Mexico City, during this time I had the opportunity to do an exchange program in the School of Business and Informatics at the University of Mannheim, Germany. My hobbies are traveling, content creation in Tiktok, languages, alpinism, bouldering, soccer, running, squash, art, painting, etc. I just really like doing and learning a bit of everything.
Why have you decided to join Klar in the first place?
Klar’s mission to democratize banking for Mexicans is something I’m very excited about. When I was studying in Germany I was able to compare firsthand the experience of having a Neobank account vs traditional banking. And when I came back to Mexico and Klar’s co-founders Stefan and Daniel went to my school to talk about Klar I was immediately happy to find out about this project to provide a good neobank and credit product to Mexicans. That’s when I decided to apply. As soon as I started talking with people from the Klar team during my interview process I realized that Klar was being built by very smart and talented people, which made me even more certain that I chose the right place.
What is the most exciting part of your role at Klar?
When working with Fraud everything is a rollercoaster, one day you think everything is stable, and the next one things are turned upside down. There are always new challenges, fraudsters never sleep, and they never stop trying to find new ways to steal. Of course, it’s not easy to see your own users being affected by fraud and feeling responsible in some way, but it is very rewarding to see when your work has a positive impact on protecting their money when there’s a product or tech improvement that make it harder, or even impossible, for fraudsters to keep doing harm. It is also very interesting having to interact with many teams and stakeholders within and outside of Klar, from customer support to credit and marketing, fraud has to be tackled holistically.
And what’s been the best part of working from Klar’s Mexico office?
The best part is unquestionably the team, the business team in Mexico is composed of amazing and very talented individuals working as a team, with a very horizontal feel, where you find analysts and C-level working together. It's a place where you can find a great environment to work, learn, collaborate, and keep growing as a professional, additionally, Klar has a very international team, which is something I enjoy. Klar is also a place where the leadership team is very humane, always listening to employees, always making an effort to improve, and always being flexible when necessary, even more so during the pandemic.
What motivates your daily work at Klar?
I feel extremely motivated when I see the impact of our work in the numbers, when I look back and see how far we’ve come when I see the metrics moving towards our goals, when I see operational and product problems being solved for good, when I see happy customers on social media, and many more subtle things in the day to day that make me realize we are climbing steps. I think what motivates me the most is that I see a direct impact of our efforts on the business outcome.
Can you tell us about your career journey at Klar?
I joined Klar in July 2020 as an Operation Analyst, the first few months were pure action, as the whole operations team was only four people, I got the chance to do a little bit of everything, from defying new processes to calling users directly to get their feedback. A few months after that, when Klar launched the Business Architect (BA) program, I became the first BA of the company.
A program with defined responsibilities and timeliness to grow within the company. After a year of joining Klar, I was given the opportunity to start developing my leadership skills and started building a team, from defining the recruiting process to conducting interviews. First Jerusa joined as one of the first interns of Klar, and then Eileen joined full-time. Now both of them are successfully growing in the BA program. In October 2022 I completed the three stages of the BA program, and I was given the opportunity to keep growing and contributing to Klar as a Fraud Manager. I’m very happy and grateful for my career journey at Klar. I've been given the opportunity to develop new skills, to learn, to grow, and to take on more and more responsibilities.
