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The Diligence Above & Beyond Awards (DABAs) celebrate employees who go “Above and Beyond” in their work on behalf of Diligence. These awards recognize individual accomplishments and contributions to both team and Diligence goals three times a year. We celebrate these individuals at Senior Manager level and below for embodying the spirit of Exiger’s Guiding Principles.
The Impact Award
Hugh Huynh, Team Leader, Canada
This award goes to the professional that had a measurable impact on our product and our company’s achievement through research excellence.
About Hugh
- The best advice I’ve ever received is: “Inch forward, every single day, and you’ll get there.”
- If I could meet anyone, it would be: Yuval Noah Harari
- I’m currently reading: Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein
- I’m currently watching: Survivor Season 41
- My favorite invention: Air fryers
What is your biggest motivator when it comes to your job performance?
My team’s performance. Since becoming a team lead, making sure that my team is doing well quality, time management-wise has been one of my motivators. I aspire to build a strong team that excels at and enjoys what they are doing.
What have you been working on during your time at Exiger? Who have you met and what have you learned?
I have fulfilled different positions during my time at Exiger, including researcher, content reviewer, editorial reviewer, and team lead. … Meeting great colleagues from all office locations has helped me understand the value of teamwork.
What has inspired you? What excites you moving forward?
… My team’s performance has inspired me. Seeing them grow excites me moving forward.
The Creativity Award
Kat Xu, Team Leader, USA
This award goes to the professional that uses the freedom they have in order to create or support systems or programs which impact our products and process.
About Kat
- My go-to dish to cook: Homemade Fried Rice and Pork Belly
- The best advice I’ve ever recieved: “Failure is a different form of success.”
- If I could meet anyone, it would be: Aamir Khan
- I’m currently watching: Squid Game!
- I’m currently reading: Mastery by Robert Greene
What is your biggest motivator when it comes to your job performance?
My team’s success and well-being are my biggest motivators. Being able to use my experience at Exiger to help my direct reports have a fulfilling and rewarding work experience, while at the same time using my expertise to help the company make the world a safer place to do business, is the engine that keeps me going every day.
What have you been working on during your time at Exiger? Who have you met and what have you learned?
I joined the company in back in October 2018 as an intern, and now I’m a Manager, Team Leader in the Diligence Business Unit. I have worked in a couple different functions within the Diligence Unit including Research and Delivery, and Client Management. Now I’m primarily managing a team of researchers, and supporting them to achieve their career success at Exiger. Additionally, I’m also leading the Global Team Lead Partnership Program, a program designed to support all team leads across Diligence’s global offices.
What has inspired you? What excites you moving forward?
I’m always curious about different cultures, and I love to connect with people from different backgrounds. In my job, I have worked with a lot of researchers and team leads, and I’m truly fascinated by people’s life experience and stories. From these experiences I’ve learned not only about to how to do my job better, but also that we should always keep an open mind and be willing to understand things from a different perspective. Being able to connect and learn from people across the globe really excites me.
The Improvement Award
Sarah Hmaidan, Team Leader for Public Records, EMEA
This award goes to the professional that seeks constructive solutions, maintains a positive attitude, and works toward constant upward growth.
About Sarah
- My go-to dish to cook: A salad with almost anything I can find!
- The best advice I’ve ever received is: “Always be prepared, knowledge is the most important or powerful currency.”
- If I could meet anyone, it would be: Leonardo da Vinci
- I’m currently reading: Public Acquisition Reform in Romania, and anything about interior design or interior architecture, it has become my main passion lately.
- I’ve learned during quarantine: During quarantine I’ve learned a lot about interior architecture and how make the most of your space.
What is your biggest motivator when it comes to your job performance?
My biggest motivator is helping people succeed and be happy in their career and life. I’m also inspired by finding the approach that best helps each individual grow. That’s very exciting for me.
What have you been working on during your time at Exiger? Who have you met and what have you learned?
I have been at Exiger since May 2019, and since then I had the opportunity to work on all Exiger products, [and been] part of the training team for almost one and a half years. I’ve been a manager and team leader for two years. I constantly look for ways to help people improve and develop in their careers, and have had good experiences while doing so.
What has inspired you? What excites you moving forward?
I am inspired by good people. They move the world forward and I am excited to meet more of them. I believe Exiger has a lot to offer in that regard.
The Citizenship Award
Elena Cracanel, Senior Associate, Client Success, EMEA
This award goes to the professional that is egoless in seeking to do what is best for the whole organization, putting the interests of Diligence and Exiger before an individual office or team.
About Elena
- My go-to dish to cook: Pasta Carbonara
- My favorite invention: The internet
- I’m inspired by: Story Telling. I am a constant listener of people around me, including co-workers, family, and mostly friends. Every new story I hear makes me understand better people’s different conceptions. Considering this inspiration, I always learn from people’s experiences.
- I’m currently reading: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
- If I could meet anyone, it would be: Bill Gates. I’m impressed by Bill Gates’s success, particularly by his vision of “a computer on every desk in every home,” that he achieved.
- I’ve learned during quarantine: that socialization and personal contact play an enhanced role in all our lives than I ever understood.
What is your biggest motivator when it comes to your job performance?
My biggest motivator for my job performance is “making the world a safer place to do business.” I am motivated to come up with creative ideas to improve our internal practices in order to make the world a safer place to do business. I have worked in several positions while my tenure at Exiger, and my motivation also comes from trying to learn new things every day, meet deadlines and targets, and lastly success.
What have you been working on during your time at Exiger? Who have you met and what have you learned?
I joined Exiger as a Research Associate (RA) in July 2019. The office was opened recently in Bucharest, and the only roles available at the time were RAs. I was particularly impressed by the new things I was learning everyday on the RA position and by the diligence industry itself. After one year, I was part of the training team for a short period of time. After that, I joined the QA team in Bucharest.
… While I was still part of the QA team, I became a Performance Manager on the Research and Delivery department in Bucharest. I led a team of seven people for almost five months after deciding to join the Client Success team in London. I work closely with that team today.
What has inspired you? What excites you moving forward?
During the last two years, I have been working to understand the entire due diligence process, which is why I was involved in all the aforementioned roles. My inspiration comes from the knowledge I gain with each step and position.
