Why I joined Moov: Ryan Howe

From a young age, I’ve always been a problem solver. Growing up in a small New York town with 250 people and no stoplights, neighbors appreciated my tenacity and entrepreneurial spirit. By the age of 12, I had several small businesses, and nothing made me happier than turning “nothing” into “something.”

After graduating from college and doing some soul searching, I decided to combine my love of helping people with my penchant for business. My path took me to law school, and I soon began practicing law at a large national law firm. Talk about the perfect role for me. I got to help businesses through the great recession and it was incredibly rewarding. What I enjoyed most was digging into the day-to-day operations of each business and using what I learned about the business to help solve their legal and business problems. I loved it so much that I decided to leave private practice and join a cybersecurity company as an in-house lawyer.

For me, there’s nothing like diving into a new industry and coming up with creative ways to push a company forward. Lawyers often get a bad rap for being nay-sayers and creating lots of red tape in the corporate world. Luckily, my team knew that wasn’t the case for me, and after eight years of progress, we successfully sold the company. Instead of joining another mid-to large-sized business, I decided I wanted to help build a company all over again in a new industry.

From there, I joined an emerging growth fintech company and spent my time studying, drafting, and working on solving complex contractual, regulatory, and operational puzzles. It was thrilling starting at the beginning and creating their first legal function, contracts, and processes. Cutting through the fintech clutter and navigating many thorny legal issues was exciting. But, as the company grew, I began to crave that startup life again.

That’s when the Moov name started popping up in the fintech world. I’d heard great things about their product and liked how they were tackling such a big problem in the industry. Not only were they giving out their code for free to help developers embed finance into products, but they were making waves by connecting directly with the payment networks. I’d spent a few years focusing primarily on one part of the larger financial services ecosystem, and I was ready for another broader challenge.

After joining the team, I was incredibly impressed by how capable, intelligent, and empathetic everyone was. The amount of care and importance they place on other people’s needs is unlike what I’ve seen at other companies. While some teams tend to be standoffish with in-house lawyers, Moov embraced my ideas and proposed solutions from day one.

Over the last few months, I can say that working at Moov has been unparalleled. It’s almost difficult to explain. The way people give trust, respect, and just so much of themselves to help others succeed is remarkable. It’s because of our leadership and the values they’ve ingrained into a business from the beginning. Even as a fully remote company, everyone has the same work ethic and passion, but we don’t let the work get in the way of being human. We care beyond the bottom line, too. Moov obsesses about the experience of our team members just as much as we stress about our customers, end users, community members, partners, and vendors. It’s refreshing because some companies lose sight of that.

Some day, I know everyone at Moov will look back and celebrate what we got to do here. Turning nothing into something gets us out of bed in the morning, and we’re already seeing the incredible impact of what we’re building. I’ve had the opportunity to work with many tremendous people and a lot of great teams, but Moov is something special. If you like helping people as much as we do, I hope you’ll join us in our quest to turn Moov into something even greater.

These are the reasons why I joined Moov—and why you should too.