TrueTalk with Jiun Yi

Jiun Yi (or JYT as we like to call her!) recently joined the TrueLayer family and has embraced startup life with open arms. She effortlessly balances busy workdays filled with sales pipelines and client calls with evening football and boxing classes. Everyone at TrueLayer enjoys JYT’s wit, humour and sick burns 🔥 on Slack, as well as her “on point” London restaurant recommendations 👌.

Tell us what you do.

I work with Vincenzo Mitolo, our Head of Growth, on a day to day basis and together we strategise, prioritise, divide and conquer!

At TrueLayer, a day in the life of Sales involves:

• managing our steady stream of inbound requests

• iterating and designing our sales process for scalability

• optimising the way we use our CRM tool

• reporting pipeline metrics

• working closely with our Customer Success team

• aligning with our product teams on our roadmap

• constantly trying to stay abreast with the regulation and upcoming implementations

We are at a tipping point, having now launched in Germany and having introduced our second product — the Payments API 💰.

To do all of the above exponentially better, we are now looking for motivated individuals to join our growing team. If you want to learn more about the opportunities on our Growth team, drop me a message or check out some of our other published roles.

What attracted you to the role?

This was the perfect role to transition into a startup, following my stint managing the Accenture FinTech accelerator and leading the internal sales effort of an API aggregation platform. I was looking to develop a functional skill that I could be known for, after four years in consulting, wearing many different hats 🎩 and dipping into different areas.

When I applied, the TrueLayer sales team was a one-man team and that made the role even more attractive as I wanted to be able to join a company where I could deliver tangible value at pace.

What is something unexpected you've learned at TrueLayer?

I had a really positive candidate experience and have learned a lot about the recruitment process since joining TrueLayer. It’s been less than 5 months but I’ve been involved with crafting candidate tasks, refining job specs, and participating during phone screens and face to face interviews 💬. It’s really empowering to know that each of us, no matter how new, have a voice and say in who we hire and that we are all responsible for growing and shaping TrueLayer as we scale.

What's rewarding about working for TrueLayer?

All the unanticipated benefits. Our beautiful office, lunchtime and after work conversations, the highs of signing up a new customer, working with product teams who are constantly shipping, the fact that we represent 6 out of 7 continents, good Italian wine 🍷 and being at the forefront of open banking 🚀.

How do you maintain balance while working in a fast-paced startup environment?

I’ve managed to trade 6 am Mondays at City Airport for 10 ams at my own desk in London — but the intensity and pace of a day at TrueLayer is a whole new kind of balancing game that I’m actually still working on! ⚖️

“Done is better than perfect”, constant prioritisation and striving to do 3% better than I did yesterday are some of the guiding principles that I now try to apply on a daily basis at TrueLayer.

I think the key to achieving good work-life harmony is to commit to my non-negotiables (eg exercise, spending quality time with loved ones) and remembering to schedule downtime. We’re flexible with working from home and taking time off so this has certainly helped too.

What would you like to share with those interested in joining TrueLayer?

It’s really, really exciting! This is my first move from a 400k employee consulting firm to a startup and the change has been extremely refreshing. I think the point at which I joined was also a sweet spot for me as TrueLayer was both small enough to feel intimate but big enough that we’ve since been “banned” from using @here on Slack. You get a lot of ownership, autonomy, feedback, transparency and also entertainment and great Sonos beats 🎶 to work to.

If you weren’t at TrueLayer what would you be doing?

This is a difficult one… I’d probably be exploring new hobbies and ideas. My sister recently subscribed to a fashion/clothing rental service 👗 in Singapore (similar to Rent the Runway, a recent unicorn). We were both having a brainstorm about the interesting new subscription services and business models that we’re seeing in the UK and in Singapore. Perhaps when she decides she’s had enough of her 75 hour work weeks the both of us could work on a cool side project of our own. 👭

What’s a great book that you have read or podcast you have listened to recently and why?

I’ve read a number of great books recently but Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, the founder of Nike 👟, is still one of my favourites. It’s a memoir that reads like fiction and tells the incredible story of one of the world’s most iconic brands, and how it all started from a $50 loan.

What is your life motto?

Unpack your bags and plant your trees. 🌳

I’m one of those international kids and this has really helped to guide me in being confident in my choices and the steps that I take 6,736 miles away from home.