Hanif Joshaghani & Tiffany Kaminsky

It's an endeavour born of experience, one that Hanif Joshaghani and Tiffany Kaminsky hope will help steer others onto a better financial path.

“The concept of delinquency was near and dear to my heart because of some of the delinquency episodes that I had first-hand as a kid,” said Joshaghani, who with Kaminsky co-founded local tech company Symend. “I was reminiscing about the old times and remembering the challenges we had ... I still don't open my own bills. I hand them off to my accountant or my wife.”

“As a young adult, I ran into trouble with my first credit card and landed on the receiving end of collections and also saw, certainly, the negative impact it had,” added Kaminsky. “So really taking that empathetic approach in how do we educate, how do we empower these often vulnerable populations like our youth to have a massive impact on their financial future was something that I rallied behind.”

Combining behavioural science and advanced analytics, Symend's engagement platform helps customers achieve positive outcomes concerning debt recovery. The company has enjoyed incredible growth in 2020, from 51 employees at the start of the year to 250, while looking to add another 100 in April.

“I had really big visions, but smaller than where they are today,” said Joshaghani, who has been in Calgary since 2009. “I believe that in two or three years we'll be one of the top-three biggest tech companies in Canada. The vision for what we're building is resonating with the marketplace and I think we'll build a very consequential company.”

Kaminsky, originally from Saskatchewan, was the recipient of the inaugural Women in Tech honour at the recent Start Alberta Awards.

“As we look at that growth, certainly having grassroots in Calgary, bringing in some influential leaders to help guide us along our journey, is I think really exciting to see as we build our really diverse team in the future,” she said.