May is AAPI Heritage Month stateside and Asian Heritage Month in Canada! Sendwave will be highlighting the contributions of our colleagues of Asian descent for the rest of May. Our first feature is Mona Liu.
刘月 (Mona) Liu is a US controller who recently celebrated her fourth year at Sendwave!
Tell me about yourself. “I’m originally from Beijing, and I moved to Halifax, Canada five years ago. No one in my extended family had ever moved outside the country, which makes me a first-generation immigrant. Though I had worked at international companies before, Sendwave is my first experience with a truly North American working environment. One difference I noticed was the focus on the mission — making sending money as easy and affordable as sending a text. In my previous roles, leadership sometimes off-handedly mentioned mission as a part of the business. I thought it was just a theoretical thing, not something organizations actually took seriously. It was exciting to see that it could be a real part of how companies make decisions.”
What Sendwave value resonates most with you? “I think my favorite value is embracing embarrassing honesty. To admit something which you did wrong in the past is not the status quo in many company cultures, no matter where you live! I find that this encourages the team to communicate well and to freely share our opinions. It’s way more efficient than distorting the truth to protect our egos.”
What parts of your heritage would you like to share this month? “Honestly, as a relative newcomer to Canada, this is my first time hearing about Asian Heritage Month… but I’m excited to celebrate! I’ve recently learned more about the history of the Asian diaspora in Canada, and though I haven’t experienced those hardships, it makes me proud to see what we have accomplished over time.
I see my upbringing influence me most when it comes to valuing hospitality. Back home, my parents always treat people with great kindness. They welcome everyone into their home, they serve neighbors meals and they take care of friends when they are sick or need help. I carry this value myself in Canada — our neighbors and friends freely stop by with just a knock at the door, and I love it. I maintain our traditional customs in Canada like cooking specific foods for holidays, wearing traditional clothes for Lunar New Year and decorating our house with paper cuttings. My favorite Chinese dish is 火锅 (hotpot). It’s a great way to share food and spend time together with friends.
One thing I wish more people knew about is the nuanced differences between various Asian cultures. We are often flattened into one story, but there’s more to share about each of them.”
Stay tuned throughout May for more stories from the Sendwave team, and learn more about the company at www.sendwave.com/careers and www.linkedin.com/company/wavemoney.
