10 new reasons everyone should know about Airfox

Meet our new hires!

Our team continues to grow, adding experienced professionals with diverse backgrounds in their fields.

Patricia — HR Manager, São Paulo

Patricia joins Airfox in São Paulo as the HR manager in the Brazil office. Patricia collaborates with the Boston HR team to screen and hire applicants and continue development of the Airfox team in Brazil, including many of the employees introduced in this article! She also promotes consistent company communication between the two geographically spread offices. Patricia’s experience prior to Airfox includes the time she spent working at a Brazilian pharmaceutical company. She then worked for seven years at the global mining company Anglo American where she worked abroad in London for a year. After she had her first child, Patricia started working at a Brazilian infrastructure company Cosan.

Choosing to leave the large, corporate-HR scene for Airfox was a big move, but Patricia feels like it was the right one.

Outside of work, Patricia spends time swimming as well as playing with her kids.

Alex Barreto — Legal & Compliance Director, São Paulo

Alex is responsible for regulatory matters in the US and Brazil. He has also already represented Airfox as a speaker at Futurecom 2019. Alex’s experience is very relevant for the future sustainable success of banQi as he has lead teams who successfully processed payment institution license applications with the Central Bank of Brazil. Alex graduated from Faculdade de Direito São Bernardo do Campo and has since completed three postgraduate programs, most recently studying innovation management and digital law.

“I am very happy and honored to join the Airfox team,” says Alex. “I hope to help the company build a path of financial inclusion for thousands of people who are not served by our traditional system.”

Outside of work Alex enjoys traveling with his wife, cycling in the park, and watching his favorite soccer team Corinthians.

Paolo Conti — Design Lead, Boston

Paolo joins the marketing team as Airfox’s design lead, supporting the creative needs of the marketing department by creating designs and animations for both the Airfox and banQi branded content. Before joining our team, Paolo spent a majority of his career with Digitas in Boston, where he grew from a junior to a lead designer and helped interview, train, and ultimately build an offshore design team in Costa Rica. Joining the Digitas team immediately after graduating from Northeastern University, Paolo enjoyed managing a strong team of designers and establishing best practices for the digital studio.

When deciding to take the next steps in his career, Paolo freelanced for a couple of years and worked for many big-named companies around Boston including DraftKings, Bai Beverage, and the New England Patriots. Joining Airfox gave Paolo the opportunity to grow professionally while also working at a company whose mission he could completely support.

Outside of work, Paolo spends time with his family, including his two young daughters. He also enjoys designing and making fine jewelry based on skills he learned working with a goldsmith in Sicily, Italy.

Alexandre Mattos — User Experience Analyst, São Paulo

As a member of the User Success team, Alexandre focuses on the retail side of customer support; from increasing adoption to building strong relationships between banQi and customers in Casas Bahia stores. Alexandre, or Ale as his coworkers call him, is rarely sitting in the office in São Paulo. Instead he is always on the go visiting stores in the region, talking to store employees, attending meetings with the Via Varejo support teams at their company’s headquarters, and working with the employees in our support center. Ale attended Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro where he obtained his Bachelor in Mecatronics. Prior to joining Airfox, Ale worked as a business analyst at IBM in Rio, where he was the first contact point for all incoming support requests in the company’s Latin American division, tackling basic technical problems the customers were facing. At Airfox, Ale gets to work for a company he knows is putting the customer’s experience first.

“Every morning when I wake up, I’m happy because my work is positively impacting lives,” says Alexandre.

Ale enjoys kayaking, practicing his boxing skills, and traveling with his family and friends, as seen in this picture.

Rafael Maki — Lead Android Engineer, São Paulo

Rafael joined the Airfox team full time after working as a contractor remotely since 2016. As the lead android engineer, Maki (as he is known by the team) leads the team working on the development of the banQi app interface. He also ensures a quality customer experience with the mobile banking app starting at the developmental level. Maki obtained his Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering from the University of São Paulo in 2010 and his MBA in Strategic Business Management at Faculdade de Informática e Administração Paulista (FIAP) in 2014. He has over 10 years of experience working on software development for various Brazilian companies. Prior to Airfox, Maki focused on mobile development, which he believes let him transition easily onto the Airfox team and have success developing the banQi platform.

Outside of work Maki spends time playing with his son and hanging around with his family watching soccer games and movies.

Suzana Ribeiro — UX Writer, São Paulo

As a UX writer based out of our Sao Paulo office, Suzana is responsible for all of the copy banQi app users encounter navigating through the app, in turn directly impacting their user experience. Over the past 10 years Suzana has worked in different roles involving user experience and now dubs herself a UX designer who can write. Her first job was with UOL in Brazil, where she developed a love for the agility and dynamism of the digital world. She then worked for many different companies including HSBC, PayPal, and a variety of NGOs and startups. During her time at HSBC she was the content lead for the Intranet Revamp project which was named one of the 10 best intranets in the world by Nielsen Norman Group.

At Airfox, Suzana integrates the voice of the user into all product processes. She also created the UX writing guidelines and ensures these guidelines are consistently applied across multiple teams.

In her free time, Suzana enjoys exploring places she’s never been around the world with her son, who she touts as her “favorite adventure companion”. She also enjoys reading, specifically if it’s a Stephen King book.

Amauri Alvarenga — Senior Engineer, São Paulo

Amauri joins the team as the engineering lead for the company’s retail squad. Amauri manages a small team at Airfox, and his experience working on a variety of technology projects, presenting publicly at international events, and working for companies all of the world that has prepared him for his work here. Amauri worked on a project for the Vatican that uses technology to bring education to the most inaccessible areas in the world. He also worked on an IoT project to manage water and prevent damage to building structures, which he presented at an AWS Summit event.

Amauri is passionate about working for startups like Airfox and has founded his own company Iris, a small IoT startup.

Outside of work Amauri enjoys hiking and exploring the outdoors, as well as using his computer skills to compete and play games online. He also spends time at his personal startup and hanging out with his friends.

Alissa Carroll — Office Manager, Boston

Alissa joins the Boston office in the versatile role of office manager. She is responsible for fostering the day to day productivity of the Boston office by handling unexpected problems quickly and making sure everything around the office is running smoothly. Alissa also works alongside the HR team to grow the office personnel and assist in the hiring process by scheduling phone calls and interviews. Alissa attended University of Toledo from 2016–2018, until she transferred to University of Massachusetts Boston to study International Relations. Alissa hopes to pursue her Master’s in Legal Studies and has experience working for City Hall in Boston assisting with research, policy, and law surrounding human trafficking in Boston.

Between classes and working another job as an administrative assistant at UMass Boston, Alissa loves her time at Airfox because she’s proud to be part of an audacious team that is trying to make access to fair banking services a basic human right.

Outside of her busy work and school commitments, Alissa enjoys writing, filming cinematic movies, finding new coffee shops, and playing soccer.

Guilherme Fujisawa — Senior Accountant, Boston

Guilherme joins the team as a senior accountant responsible for preparing financial reports for each department as well as supporting the other members of the accounting team with budgeting. Currently working towards his Master’s in Finance at Hult International Business School, Guilherme previously received his Master’s in Business Administration with specialization in project management from Hult, and a Bachelor’s in Business Administration at Universidade Estadual de Maringá. Guilherme joins the Airfox team with over 10 years of experience in finance after working for companies of all sizes. He spent time at KPMG as an auditor and then decided to co-found a small financial advisory company called Simples Solucoes Contabeis e Fiscais.

At Airfox, Guilherme is excited to continue growing his accounting and financial experience at a fast-growing company providing banking solutions for people in his home country of Brazil.

Outside of working at Airfox, Guilherme likes traveling, playing any kind of sport, and trying new things especially if there’s food!

Ricky Tong — Senior Accountant, Boston

Ricky joins the Airfox accounting department after working as a corporate accountant for various companies in the banking industry. At Airfox, Ricky is responsible for accounts payable, payments, and reimbursements within the Airfox accounting team. Graduating from University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2010, Ricky has experience working in accounting for different companies, including the seafood industry. He also has analytic, reporting, and treasury accounting experience.

Outside of working at Airfox, Ricky enjoys spending time with his friends! Ricky (left) with a few of his friends.

Adriana Fujita — Project Manager, São Paulo

Adriana joins the Airfox team as project manager responsible for internal tools and retail projects. She also serves as a liaison between the Airfox team and partner companies, including retail giant Via Varejo. Adriana spent 12 years of her professional career working for Nike as part of their customer service, project planning, and supply chain teams. She also has worked for LG Electronics, and supported small and mid sized companies as a design thinking consultant.

At Airfox, Adriana uses her vast professional experience to merge ideas of the Airfox team with our partner’s technical expertise, creating a quality product for the underbanked in Brazil.

Adriana practices different mediation techniques in her free time, including Buddhist meditation, transcendental meditation, and mindfulness. She also does translation work in including for a book publication organization in India.

If you are interested in working alongside this inspiring crew, we are hiring for roles in Boston and São Paulo including engineers, product managers, and UX designers! For all of our current openings check out our website.

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