Meet Javier Ortega Estrada, Veriff’s new Chief Revenue Officer

Welcome to the team! Can you tell us a little bit about how you learned about Veriff and what drew you to the company?

I was introduced to Veriff through Jules Maltz, Veriff’s investor IVP partner and board member. Jules and I previously worked together at Hopin where he was also a board member. Ultimately, it was the amazing team and the pursuit of making the internet a safer place that brought me to Veriff. I am passionate about the work Veriff is doing to fight fraud and keep communities safe online. 

Can you share a little about your background and previous experience? What are you most proud of in your career so far?

After a career in management consulting and a stint as an entrepreneur, I joined Dropbox in 2013 (series B) to start the company’s expansion into EMEA. During my tenure there, we opened five offices in the region and grew revenue roughly 10x. In 2018, I moved to New York City to lead the sales and account management team across the U.S. and Canada. During my time there, Dropbox went from $200M to $1.8B in revenue, announced its IPO and operated three years as a public company (NASDAQ: DBX). As I mentioned earlier, prior to Veriff, I led and scaled the revenue team at Hopin, where the organization went from 9 to over 200 people and significantly grew the revenue in just two years.

I am most proud of seeing top performers at my previous places of employment become leaders and grow their own careers - some of them are currently C-level executives, VPs or stellar individual contributors.

How do you see your previous roles at Dropbox and Hopin contribute to your work at Veriff? What are some of the most valuable takeaways from working at those companies?

At Dropbox, I learned how important attention to detail is in order to succeed in the long run. The company would tune in to even the smallest details to make sure customers and teammates were set up for success. 

At Hopin, I learned how important being agile is in an ever-changing market, and its benefits in helping to build a customer base. One of the most important lessons during my time at Hopin is that making an imperfect decision is better than not making one at all.

I think the balance between both of my experiences will serve as a great asset when making go-to-market decisions and building teams at Veriff.

What excites you most about your role at Veriff?

The potential at Veriff is untapped - we are in a niche market that keeps expanding year over year. Every quarter our total addressable market gets larger, and our opportunity to help customers reduce and prevent fraud and for individuals to have more ownership over their own identity is exciting. Also, I am looking forward to working with a truly international team and helping to solve pain points for a global customer base. 

What are some of your priorities and goals for Veriff?

My overarching goals for Veriff are to provide the best customer experience in the industry, to continue to become a leader within the identity space, and to support business growth in a sustainable way. We have a great team in place, and a very healthy and diverse customer base. In 2023, we will focus on building processes that allow us to get even closer to our clients and more embedded in their business workflows. 

Aside from your work here at Veriff, what are some of your other commitments and passion-projects you are currently working on? 

I am currently writing a book about building high-performing teams. When talking to business founders, I realized my experience is relevant to companies gearing toward IPO, and I thought it would be fun and helpful to share it broader. The book highlights my experience and learnings I took from scaling companies as well as some anecdotes of challenges and wins during this time. In the book, I showcase conversations with some of the most impressive executives and founders I've worked with in order to expose that there is no silver bullet to growth and there are multiple approaches to similar challenges.   

I love helping companies grow and I’m able to lend my expertise as an advisory board member of a few startups in the US and in EMEA. I am also a Limited Partner in Stage2 Capital, a Venture Capital fund led and backed by go-to-market professionals. 

What are your hobbies outside of work? What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

I enjoy cooking (my party trick is cooking an incredible paella), arts, and sports (I’m currently training for Rio de Janeiro’s Ironman in July).

Onto some rapid-fire questions.

What is a must-read book?

Radical Candor by Kim Scott. This book  is a must-read for every leader looking to create an environment of trust. It helps managers understand the motivation of their teammates in order to unlock their full potential by being direct but respectful.

Favorite podcast?

Grit, hosted by my friend Joubin Mirzadegan. It is the one podcast I look forward to the most every week. He invites C suite executives  to discuss go-to-market strategies and growth with a lot of humor. I have been a guest on his podcast and the fact that it is totally unscripted makes it really entertaining.

One word to describe Veriff?

Trust!

What would be one piece of advice you could pass along to someone trying to kick start their sales career in tech?

Hard work trumps talent 90% of the time. Performance = Talent x Effort^2