The Philippines’ first neobank Tonik, announced that former Google HR Director for Japan and Asia-Pacific (JAPAC) and Meta (Facebook) Director of User Operations, Manoj Varghese, has officially joined its leadership roster. Joining the transformative digital bank as Chief People Officer, Varghese will spearhead the continuous growth and cultural integration of one of Southeast Asia’s fastest growing and sought-after fintech companies.
“As a veteran in leading cross-cultural teams in the JAPAC region and coupled with his extensive experience in the tech industry, Manoj brings invaluable expertise in further growing our workforce and footprint across our multiple hubs. His mission includes working with our diverse teams as we ramp up and solidify our efforts in accelerating financial inclusion in the Philippines,” says Greg Krasnov, Founder and CEO of Tonik.
During his run at Google, Varghese led the set up and expansion of the tech giant’s JAPAC headquarters in Singapore primarily hiring and onboarding the regional leadership team. This enabled Google to further grow its Engineering, Sales, and Operations teams not just in Singapore locally, but also across the Asia Pacific.
Similarly, Varghese also led and executed notable wins for Meta (Facebook) during his three-year stint at the tech giant—building and managing the community operations team, and working closely with global product, engineering, and policy team members to support over 1 billion Facebook users.
Varghese recently completed the Sloan Fellow Programme at the London Business School.
Having built credible strategic teams, expanded business presence across different countries, and worked in and led multi-cultural environments, Varghese is excited to join the passionate team at Tonik and help strengthen their mission of revolutionizing the banking scene in Southeast Asia.
“People are the heartbeat of any business, as all workforces play a critical role in moving the needle towards growth. As digital banking becomes a necessity now more than ever, it’s crucial for us to build a robust roster of leaders ready to serve the Filipino community. With this commitment, I’m excited to support Tonik’s world-class management team in driving financial inclusion in the Philippines and several more emerging markets into greater heights,” explains Varghese.
Tonik is supervised by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and deposits are insured by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC). Its unique cloud-based solution is powered by global financial technology leaders such as Mastercard, Amazon Web Services, and Finastra.
