The story behind our first global ambassador: Grigor Dimitrov

Last week in Madrid, we announced our first Global Ambassador - Grigor Dimitrov. This first global sports sponsorship of ours is a big milestone for us. But what does a top ten ATP tennis player have to do with a fintech company? The short answer in our case is — A LOT.

If you want to excel as a brand you must be able to merge your company’s culture values with your brand identity. This approach fosters a strong connection with employees and customers, ultimately creating loyalty on both sides. The same was true when introducing our new ambassador, before we approached Grigor Dimitrov’s manager, we started by identifying the parallels between Grigor and Payhawk. This helped us to assure ourselves of the potential for a long-term partnership — seeing how much in common we have made us confident in the synergy between the two brands.

Payhawk: A true pro sports team

We have always been strong proponents that working in Payhawk is like being in a pro sports team (rather than being in a family). In a pro sports team, you are constantly evaluated against your individual performance and your contribution to the team based on your behaviours within the group. Who better to symbolise this than a true athlete?

The competitive edge

We are also extremely competitive and value a strong work ethic. Grigor Dimitrov mirrors this by being one of the best athletes on tour, consistently performing over the last 12 years which requires immense discipline, work ethic, and mental strength. In Payhawk we promote this spirit together with the mental and physical benefits of sports by providing all of our employees globally with gym passes. This approach keeps the competitive spirit high and the health in check. We are also constantly evaluating our performance based on data. Being able to know your numbers, and benchmark yourself against the top quartile performance is something we expect in every function and role.

Nurturing diversity

Having offices across eight countries makes Payhawk extremely diverse as a company and culture. Since our early days, we had people in four countries before we even reached 15 employees in the company. Navigating cultural nuances and building a company that avoids stereotypes is not easy, but sport is one thing that unites people in a way little else does.

The underdog spirit

Coming from a country like Bulgaria often leads to being perceived as an underdog in sports or technology. At Payhawk, we're built on the premise that the payment industry is extremely fragmented, and there is a need for an integrated global platform. A platform that enables finance teams to manage global spend in a unified way across borders.

However, building such a platform in a country without any fintech traditions comes with more challenges than advantages and Payhawk was always perceived as the underdog. We started from scratch and competed against hundreds of millions of venture capital money from day one. But motivation, determination, resilience, and skill are all required to outcompete many of the players located in more advantageous territories that had vast access to capital and talent. This is something that a lot of the 40+ VC funds that rejected us in the early days could weigh on their scale.

Entertaining, respectful, humble

We are building an environment with a very high talent density that allows people to express themselves and enjoy working with like-minded professionals. Some have never perceived Payhawk as a job but as a mission and a way to express their creativity and business acumen on a global scale. We have always been respectful of our competitors and the global market, but we build our own style by staying humble and working hard to achieve our dreams. Just like Grigor. We are happy to join forces and reach new heights together. Let’s go!

Learn more about our new ambassador Grigor.