Thirukumaran Sivasubramaniam did not arrive in Canada with a plan. He arrived with his mother and 3 siblings, a family that had experienced loss, displacement, and the uncertainty of starting over in a country where they knew almost no one. He was nine years old. What came after, over more than three decades, was a career that grew one deliberate step at a time: through software engineering at Amazon, through innovation leadership at RBC Global Asset Management, and eventually through co-founding Fintex Inc. in Toronto in 2023. The thread through all of it, he says, is not ambition in the dramatic sense. It is consistency, care for the people around him, and a conviction that the people who have climbed a hill owe something to those who are still on their way up. Sivasubramaniam mentors immigrant youth, organizes community fundraising, donates clothing to international communities, and judges youth leadership competitions. He does these things alongside running a fintech startup. The interview below reflects on what drives someone who has built so much from so little, and what he thinks about every day.
What is the earliest memory you have of understanding what was possible for you?
My mother had a way of treating education like it was not optional. Not as a punishment or a burden, but as the obvious path. She did not have much, but she had that belief, and she passed it to all of us. The earliest version of possibility I understood was a book, a school assignment, a problem worth solving.
I do not think I knew exactly where it would take me. I just knew that doing the work in front of me was the only thing within my control. That framing has stayed with me.
When you look back at who you were at the beginning of your career, what do you wish you had understood sooner?
I wish I had understood earlier that the people around you matter as much as the work itself. Early on, I focused almost entirely on the technical side. That was right for the stage I was at, but I did not fully appreciate how much a good team, a good mentor, or a thoughtful senior colleague could change your trajectory.
At Amazon, I was surrounded by people who took quality seriously. That shaped me more than any training program could have. I try to be that kind of presence for younger people now, because I remember how much it mattered.
What has kept you going through the harder stretches?
Honestly, a lot of it is remembering where I came from. My mother raised four children after losing her husband, in a country that was not her own, without a support system beyond her own determination. When I think about what hard actually looks like, it puts my challenges in perspective.
That is not a way of dismissing difficulty. It is a way of staying proportionate about it. Most problems in a technology career are genuinely solvable. My mother solved problems that were not.
How do you think about risk now compared to earlier in your career?
Earlier in my career, risk felt enormous. Every decision felt weighted. With experience, I have come to see risk differently. Not as something to avoid, but as something to evaluate clearly and then move through with intention.
Co-founding Fintex was a risk. Leaving a senior role at a major institution is always a risk. But by the time I made that decision, I had 20 years of context about what works and what does not in technology and in institutional finance. The risk was real, but it was not uninformed.
You put a lot of energy into mentoring young people, particularly newcomers to Canada. Why does that work matter so much to you?
Because I was them. I know exactly what it feels like to not know anyone in the industry, to not have a reference, to not understand the unwritten rules of how a professional environment works. I spent years figuring those things out on my own.
When I can shorten that learning curve for someone else, the effect multiplies. They become more effective sooner. They build confidence sooner. And often, they turn around and do the same thing for the next person. That chain is something I find deeply meaningful.
What does a good day look like for you right now?
A good day starts with my morning walk, which I take every day regardless of weather. There is something clarifying about that routine. Then I come to the work at Fintex, usually focused on a combination of team coordination, architecture decisions, and client-facing conversations.
In the evening, if there is time, I might connect with someone I am mentoring, or catch a game with my kids. My children play soccer and volleyball, and watching them develop in sport is one of my real pleasures. A day that has good work, some useful human contact, and a moment with family is a successful day.
What do you hope people take from your story?
I hope they take the idea that it is possible to build something real without starting with advantages. Not easily, not quickly, but genuinely. I did not have a network when I started. I did not have industry connections or financial support.
What I had was a degree, a work ethic that came from watching my mother, and the willingness to stay in the work longer than was comfortable. Those things compound. They do not give you shortcuts, but they build something that shortcuts cannot buy.