Meet the team: Pedro Merino – in the paint of startup financials

Pedro Merino has brought this value of team work off the court to help the Finance team at Detectify manage company resources effectively. He describes the first call from Detectify as the best interview he’s experienced and tells why he made the decision to leave the corporate lifestyle to join the fast-growing security scene.

How it all started

Pedro Merino has studied and worked in Austria, UK, and Germany. He grew up on Tenerife, Canary Islands. At the age of five, he developed his passion for sports and music. He spent the evenings playing football and basketball until late at night. He balanced his love for sports with the calmness of playing piano, having his first piano concert at five years old. Playing piano helped him pick up languages swiftly. Playing basketball instilled in him the values of working together as a team.

Playing basketball at a professional level

Pedro practiced virtually every sport he had the chance to play, but his true passion was basketball. He trained 6 days a week at the best team in the Canary Islands and went traveling to compete with other national teams. 

Pedro recalls: “I remember playing basketball for entire evenings, 3-4 hours non-stop, without any consciousness of time. But the best feeling was coming home completely exhausted with a big smile on my face.” 

He stopped competing at a high level when his family moved to the mainland, where he had to leave the team and continue with his studies. 

From a lawyer background to the finance world

Pedro always wanted to study Finance but his parents, both lawyers, encouraged him to study law. So he decided to do both: study law and Finance.

It took him 6 years, but the combination of a dual degree was worth it, he says, “I started to compete in international legal competitions with my university, which gave me a strong interest in moving overseas and conquering new worlds.”

He finalized his studies in Finance in Munich and London. While Pedro finished law studies and became a qualified lawyer at the Madrid Bar Association, he also wrote his Ph.D. in law at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg. He combined his evenings and weekends of research at the library with the hectic working environment of an international law firm. Little did he know that after 3 years, he would move to Stockholm, where his career would finally shift towards Finance, his true passion. 

Navigating career paths in Stockholm

Pedro quit his corporate job at a prestigious law firm in Hamburg to start from scratch in Stockholm. He joined Swedish classes from day one and soon began to work in a startup with Crowdfunding. He then worked as a corporate lawyer in an international firm where he took the task to implement the recently passed Law on General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 

Pedro: “I remember having seminars and nagging all my colleagues about GDPR rules. Everyone at the office had to be compliant, so I took my role seriously. I am sure some colleagues hated me, but at least we never faced a fine.”

How to Detectify came into Pedro’s life.

Pedro learned about Detectify when he first moved to Stockholm in early 2018. 

Pedro: “I remember I saw an ad on LinkedIn for an open position in the finance department. Although I was not looking for a job, I was curious to know more about the company, he says. It turned out to be the best interview I ever had and a great career decision.”

Working in Finance in a tech-company

From day one, the shift was radical.

“You have to learn things quickly and have a proactive mindset to produce results from day one. Every day there are new challenges and things to fix at a high tempo.” 

To Pedro, the culture is the best asset at Detectify:

“Diversity of backgrounds and countries where everyone helps each other and contributes to a joint mission: to drive the future of the Internet.” 

Problems are opportunities

Pedro: “My life could be much easier if I would have stayed in my hometown, back in Tenerife, enjoying the good life. But I decided to pursue my dreams and not to settle for the easy way. I feel Detectify constantly challenges me to give my best and to drive change while I enjoy solving” problems. Detectify is the place to be.

How does your approach to Detectify’s finances and your own compare? 

Pedro: “I like to think of Finance as economic resources. Since resources are limited, I believe in using them most effectively to fulfil a specific purpose. At Detectify, we need to be aware of our budget of costs and revenues and what costs we need to prioritize over others to help us achieve our company goals. “

At Detectify, the finance department is constantly looking for ways to decrease costs, automate processes and be more efficient with the limited capital. Pedro says his approach towards own finances is the same as working at Detectify, but at work there is an extra level of diligence, since it is the company’s resources that are at stake.

Where do you see Detectify in the Future? 

Pedro is confident: “I see Detectify as a role model crafting internet security at a global scale and being able to educate the market players on ethical practices to make the internet a secure place.”

Pedro’s security tips for finance professionals:

• Use a password manager to keep your logins unique and secure
• If an email request “from your CEO” looks suspicious, you can double check the request with a call or slack message.
• Check bank activity regularly and use a VPN when accessing it from public networks