Why I Joined Sardine
I wanted to take a step back and talk about something a bit more personal, but also very relevant to how I think about fraud prevention strategy.
It’s been six months since I joined Sardine. And I figured it makes sense to explain how I got here, because honestly, the decision wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t simple either.
This isn’t just about changing roles. It’s about moving from fraud prevention consulting into something broader, where I can connect content, product, and strategy in a way that actually helps fraud fighters do their job better.
And along the way, it raises a bigger question: what does an effective fraud prevention strategy actually look like when you’ve been on the practitioner's side for long enough?
What you'll hear in this episode:
- A personal breakdown of why I moved from solo consulting back into a team
- Why “freedom” in consulting isn’t always what it seems
- How I think about fraud prevention strategy after years in the field
- What made Sardine stand out as a fraud prevention platform
- Why practitioner-led content matters more than ever
- How fraud prevention solutions should actually be built and evaluated
Who should listen:
- Fraud fighters working in fintech fraud prevention and enterprise fraud prevention
- Risk, compliance, and product teams evaluating fraud prevention solutions
- Professionals working in fraud prevention consulting
- Anyone thinking about the gap between vendor promises and real-world fraud operations
- Anyone trying to build or choose a fraud prevention platform that actually works
If you’ve ever asked yourself whether the tools you’re using really solve your problems, this one will probably resonate.
Episode notes:
This episode is for anyone who has ever looked at the “freedom” of consulting and thought, okay, but why does this still feel weirdly stressful?
I’m talking about what it felt like to join a team again after 11 years on my own, and why that decision was not as simple as “employee good” or “consulting bad.” Honestly, nothing in B2B fraud prevention is ever that clean. Annoying, but true.
We’ll get into the uncertainty behind consulting, the strange emotional math of revenue forecasting, and why building useful fraud prevention content is harder than just publishing another polished thought leadership piece that says almost nothing.
The bigger point is this: fraud teams do not need more noise. They need clearer thinking, better strategy, and vendors who actually understand practitioner reality.
So this episode is partly personal update, partly fraud prevention strategy conversation, and partly me admitting that, six months in, joining the team actually makes sense.
And at the same time, it feels like we’re just getting started.
Suspiciously positive. But here we are.
Key takeaways:
So yeah, this episode is a bit different. More personal, less technical.
But I think it ties back to something important.
Fraud prevention strategy isn’t just about tools or models. It’s about understanding the problems, the tradeoffs, and the people doing the work.
And for me, joining Sardine was really about that.
Finding a way to take everything I’ve learned from fraud prevention consulting, and apply it in a way that’s a bit more focused, a bit more structured, and hopefully, a bit more useful.
Am I being too optimistic here? Probably.
But so far, it feels like the right call.
