For the last 4 years Quadcode, one of the largest FinTech companies, has been operating in Cyprus. We had the pleasure of meeting with Mrs. Eva Samburova, Head of Strategic HR at Quadcode. Among other things, we discussed the key values, corporate culture, their CSR plans, relations with the local community, the benefits of working in a team with people of different backgrounds and many more!
See the whole interview below!
Would you like to tell us a bit about yourself so that we get to know you?
Sure, my name is Eva and I have been working in Quadcode for more than 7 years and for the last 5 years I’m the Head of Strategic HR. I began my professional journey at Quadcode working on optimising processes and collaborating closely with technical specialists, which granted me a profound understanding of the development field and the various challenges IT teams encounter. This deep comprehension greatly benefits me in my current role.
At the moment, I have a quite large area of responsibility. As a Strategic HR department we focus on implementing various HR practices oriented to achieving the Quadcode’s strategic goals. We are committed to supporting our employees throughout their entire life cycle in the company including onboarding, professional development and growth, corporate life, problem solving, delivering information to employees and a lot of other things. In addition to that, we are working towards developing and increasing awareness for Quadcode, as we are a great company but not many people know about us right now.
Could you provide some information about Quadcode, so that we get some insights and the bigger picture of the company?
Of course, Quadcode is an international multi-brand company majoring in the fintech industry, and our main products are the trading platform, the SaaS trading platform and neo-banking. We’re actually operating in more than 170 countries at the moment and we have over 700 employees in the whole holding. We have 6 offices: two in Cyprus, one in UAE, England, Australia, and Gibraltar. Over the past year, our company successfully facilitated the relocation of more than 300 employees, mostly to Cyprus. With a decade of establishment, Quadcode has been actively conducting operations in Cyprus for the past four years, starting in 2019. At the moment, Quadcode has offices in both Limassol and Larnaca, thus managing to expand its operations further. It’s also worth noting that in 2023, Quadcode won the MEA for Best-All-In-One Brokerage solution at the UF awards.
Which would you say are the key Values of Quadcode? How do you frame and maintain a positive corporate culture?
Well, in our company, we have seven key values that we strongly believe in. The first one is honesty. We’re open, clear and direct in our communications. Without honesty, transparency suffers, and that can harm the company in many ways. By being honest, we can rely on each other and not doubt our colleagues’ words. We know we can always trust what we’re told, which lets us focus on our work instead of worrying or being suspicious.
Another core value at Quadcode is value our colleagues. We communicate with each other with care, we strive to give only correct feedback, we express our opinion openly and respectfully.
Another value is about the progress of our employees’ skills and talents, both as professionals and as individuals. We really appreciate it when people want to learn, grow in the company and become better professionals than they are now, so we help them do that.
The fourth value is accountability, which is crucial in the fintech industry where even a single mistake can result in significant costs.
Furthermore, at Quadcode, we value proactive behavior. We believe that individuals who work closely with our products and processes have valuable insights for improvement. We encourage our team members to come forward with suggestions and ideas without hesitation. We are open and appreciative of any input that can help us grow and meet our customers’ needs effectively.
We value and promote collaboration — as a multinational company we have people of different cultures and backgrounds, and we do believe that only together we can do better work, better projects, really anything. A single person is just a person, but together we can create a powerful force for change and progress. With different people, different ideas, and points of view we can do a much better job than one person can do by itself and that value is very important while shaping the culture of the company.
Last but not least, one of the key values of Quadcode is ambition for excellence, because we always set higher goals that we want to achieve. Every day we set the bar higher and higher. We believe that you should always want more, always try to reach something bigger and be at a better place than you are right now, grow, develop and make great progress through time.
So, those are our seven core values and we do a lot of different things to help our employees to engage and maintain that culture. We have a lot of events and bonding activities, because we care about our employees and their work-life balance, we want them to feel good, stay motivated and full of strength. We also try to get our employees to get to know each other and build personal relations, because we want people to feel comfortable in our company. We also work a lot with our managers to help them understand how to manage their employees better, so they would help them develop and be more motivated, and therefore, achieve their goals. And many other activities that help us build our culture.
Many experts now refer to an actual war for talent. How does Quadcode differentiate itself as an employer? What do you offer and what are the benefits of working a Quadcode? Simply, why Quadcode?
One of the main things, I believe, is our unwavering commitment to caring for and investing in our employees at Quadcode. We place great emphasis on fostering an environment where individuals feel valued and respected for their contributions. We firmly believe that it is vital for our employees to experience a sense of genuine care and appreciation, and acknowledgement of the significant work they undertake. The second thing I would say is the opportunities we provide our employees to grow within the company. We spend a lot of time, effort and resources on this. For example, in the last 4 years at least over 30% of our employees have received professional education tailored to their needs. We work case by case with specific requests of our employees, their goals, or challenges. We have HR specialists with managerial backgrounds who help aspiring managers become effective leaders. In addition, 70% of our managers receive education each year on leadership, communications and other essential areas. Another point of difference is transparency and understandable work processes that we’re constantly trying to improve. Finally, we offer a competitive benefits package including competitive salaries, bonus schemes, internal events, medical insurance, education and many more.
Would you agree that by embracing CSR a company can increase customer retention and loyalty, employee engagement and attract investment opportunities and top talent? Does Quadcode have any CSR plans you can share?
Absolutely. In Quadcode we care about giving back to the community. We used to have a CSR program a few years ago with a variety of activities ranging from educational programs for kids, on how to become a developer, to supporting Africa with water supplies. However, last year we decided to change our strategy and make the main focus on Cyprus, so now we are working on it. We want to offer more to the Cyprus society and help the people around us by simple things like planting trees, cleaning beaches, participating at sports events that support non-profit organizations and many more. Our CSR program is also important for our employees who want to give something to the world and they want to be part of these plans but might not know how to contribute to such activities. So, soon you’ll hear about us!
Through a tough reskilling time, AI is rapidly changing the nature of work and as a fintech company it must be even more challenging to keep up with the fast changing environment. Are there any specific development practices you are using to remain competent?
As mentioned earlier, we do invest heavily on our people to help them stay updated with the latest technologies and trends. Now AI is very popular, for example ChatGPT is everywhere, so we decided to implement it in our work and daily tasks. It saves a lot of time for our employees and we understand that time is valuable for everyone. Whatever technology can offer to us, to help us develop or save time we must embrace it. Lastly, our education programs are part of our growth strategy and they really help our employees remain updated about all the latest trends and as a result remain competent. The education programs can be specific short term courses or even long lasting courses/programs with 6 months duration and sometimes even longer.
We’ve discussed earlier that Quadcode now has 6 offices in 5 different countries and 700 employees. What would you say are the benefits of working at a multinational company that brings together people with different cultures and backgrounds?
I would say that there are many opportunities that a multinational company can provide. That’s not always easy of course, as miscommunication issues may arise because of the different cultural backgrounds and way of communication. For example, some people are more direct than others and they would ask for what they need directly which might be perceived as rudeness by some people of another culture. But at the end we are all looking at the same things with different perspectives and that’s great I think. Working in multinational company fosters creativity, innovation, and better decision-making.
To help employees, we have prepared a special course in Quadcode for employees working in diverse teams to help them understand, for example, how they can better form a question so that other people understand their point without any miscommunication. At last, we can grow as professionals if we are exposed to different working styles, ideas and attitudes. This exposure can broaden our horizons, enhance our skills and improve our ability to work in a globalized world. At the end of the day that helps us communicate better with customers around the world and provide the best customer service and experience possible.
You mentioned earlier that Quadcode is now established 4 years in Cyprus. How is your experience so far? How would you describe talents in Cyprus and relations with the local community?
Personally, I’ve been living in Cyprus for over a year now, and I’ve visited the country several times before. I can confidently say that Cyprus is an incredible place to live and work, with warm and friendly people.
In terms of talent, despite the tough competition due to the high number of companies, we are truly inspired by the amazing professional candidates we encounter on the island, and we have already hired many skilled experts here.
About the local scene, we collaborate with various communities like Techisland, which is relevant to our industry, and The Hub, which helps us connect with amazing people here. We actively take part in local events and support charities, and we hope to do even more in the future.
What’s great is that engaging and organizing events is easier here because people are open and welcoming. In fact, I believe that our external processes are rapidly moving forward largely thanks to the openness of the people in this community.
Would you like to share some career tips or any advice with the candidates that are actively looking for a job in the fintech industry right now?
Well, I think there are several things that are important to highlight. First of all we need to understand that this industry is rapidly developing so if you want to achieve more you have to keep up with the fast pace of the industry. It’s also very important to be agile in this industry because you have to change all the time. You have to change processes, decisions, or goals, which might be hard to accept for some people making it a bit more challenging to work in this industry. So if you want to join this industry you need to be prepared for changes and you need to be embracing change when it happens. Given the breadth of the industry, it is crucial for candidates to gain a comprehensive understanding of its various dimensions and potential career trajectories.
If someone wants to join an exact company they have to learn about the exact direction this company operates in. Last but not least, it’s important to work smart and always improve your skills to be more effective. So if someone is ready for this, fintech is an amazing industry to work in, learn, grow and become a better professional.
We have noticed a very interesting statement you have made on Quadcode website. “I believe that everyone is talented”. Could you tell us more about that? Would you say that Quadcode can help an employee to find its right career path or even discover talents they didn’t know they had?
Yes, that’s right. I do believe that every employee has talents and everyone can be successful in their work. Every person has their own super power, the only challenge is to find the right place and the right role where you can use them and grow faster. I believe that a person can achieve the same goal in different ways using different skills and talents. Naturally, there are important parameters here, such as the right culture that will help you develop. A great manager will help you and believe in you until you find the right role that suits you as an employee. In my point of view, an employee needs to have the minimum sufficient level for their role and use their skills and other talents to reach their goals. You just can’t be talented in everything but you can use your talents or the talents of your employees, team members and everyone around you to reach higher goals. That’s why we believe so much in collaboration, because everyone has their own talents and together we can achieve results.
What are we doing as a company to help employees discover their talents? A lot of things: we conduct internal assessments to determine how the role of a manager is suitable for an exact employee. We collect feedback for an employee to help them understand where they can develop further. We work a lot with managers, helping them understand how they can assist their teams, and work with them for their professional growth.
Are there any vacancies at Quadcode at the moment? If so, could you share some of the available positions that Quadcode is currently hiring for?
Sure, we are actively hiring in many positions. We are looking for people across many departments, such as Marketing, Product & Design, Engineering, Legal, Finance, Business & Development, Sales, Data & Analytics, Compliance & Security, People (HR) and even in Management.
If someone is interested in applying to our job openings they can find more information on the positions here.
