Meet Gen.t

Through his global cybersecurity company, Shield, the entrepreneur safeguards the future of some of the world’s biggest brands

Shield’s Justin Lie on safeguarding the future of some of the world’s biggest brands

As founder and CEO of global online fraud protection company Shield, Justin Lie knows the risks of cybercrimes all too well. But he didn’t start off in this line of business. For his first venture at age 16, he was a reseller of gaming products from Us-based suppliers, targeting local gamers on ebay and later, his own e-commerce websites. However, a series of fraudulent orders from scammers using stolen credit cards pushed him to look for ways to protect his online business. This developed into a passion for fighting online fraud and in 2008, Justin started Cashrun (later rebranded as Cashshield in 2016, and simply Shield last year) to provide end-to-end preventive solutions for big-name technology companies such as Grab and Sea.

When my e-commerce business received fraudulent orders, it was very frustrating because I would receive chargeback notices that could amount to US$500 each. So I started to research ways to combat such attacks and taught myself to write risk algorithms. Eventually, I devised a system of rules that could assess every incoming order while rejecting those that appeared abnormal. The solution worked very well, and that was when fighting online fraud became a passion for me.

Online fraud is constantly evolving. The methods that fraudsters use are becoming more sophisticated every day, so no two work days are the same. Shield predicts and prevents fraud before it happens, helping our customers to scale their business without risk.

Shield delivers an autonomous and instant risk decision in under 0.1sec. We also go beyond protecting accounts and transactions. Our artificial intelligence-driven platform protects an enterprise’s entire digital ecosystem, including against bot and corporate frauds.

Growing up, my businessman father was a big inspiration. He ignited my passion for entrepreneurship and taught me how to manage my finances. When my brother and I started earning money, for example, he made us share the burden of our household expenses so we could develop a pragmatic attitude towards spending. I hope to pass this on to my own kids when they are older.

If I hadn’t founded Shield, I would likely still be working for myself— and in technology. Instead of protecting e-commerce sites and digital wallets, I would probably be running one of them.

Generation T is Tatler Asia’s platform for the leaders of tomorrow. generationt.asia