Harmoney turns five! Meet Rahul Bathla

, 26 September 2019

Rahul Bathla, product manager

How did you come to join Harmoney?

In 2014, I was happily working in India for what was my dream company then, Oracle. My manager introduced me to the concept of peer-to-peer lending, which intrigued me and I started reading and researching about it. A couple of days later, I received a DM on Linkedin from a consulting firm asking if I was keen on an opportunity to work for a peer-to-peer lending firm based in New Zealand called Harmoney. 

I didn't want to change my job but was also keen to learn about peer to peer lending model , so I went ahead for the meeting. 10 March 2014, marked my first day at Harmoney .  

What were your first few weeks with the company like?

The goal was set from the very first day: we had to go-live in six months. It was challenging but very exciting. I was learning something new everyday. I found working with such an incredible team inspired me to take my own efforts a notch higher every day.

What's your favorite memory/experience from those early days?

In the early start-up days we all had to be nimble. I played different roles depending on the need of the hour and one of those roles brought me to Fiji to train our Customer Services team. It was a unique experience and I really enjoyed it, also learned a lot in the process.

What was the biggest challenge of those early days?

The biggest challenge was working across time zones, between India (where I was still working at that stage) and New Zealand. It was a bit of blur! We used to work from day till night, had meetings  whenever they were needed just to make sure everything was on track, coordinated and working. But we made it! And that made us all really proud.

What's different about working in Harmoney now?

We have grown by leaps and bounds. But we’ve always had a great team, made up of a really good bunch of people. I guess you’d say we’ve matured. Our early focus was really on building the platform, now we’ve evolved where we can focus on solving customer problems.