Meet the Trust Champions that Led BigSpring’s SOC 2 Process

Brianna

3 Aug 2022

Meet the Trust Champions of BigSpring

What is a Trust Champion?

A Trust Champion is the person who helps their organization measure and meet its internal compliance obligations. Their actions support revenue-generating activities, protect their organization from legal and contractual liabilities, and enable the organization to confidently and transparently showcase an intentional, robust, and differentiated culture of trust.

Arun Nagarajan – Co-founder & CTO – has led the compliance journey at BigSpring. Previously, Arun was the Director of Engineering at Uber; before that, he was a tech lead at Google. 

Yin Yin – Director of Operations – was a founding member, COO, and Head of Customer Success at Uniply (formerly known as COMPAS), where she led the team in building global expansion software for B2B startups. 

Rajesh Ghosh – Head of Engineering– assisted with all aspects of the technical side of the compliance process.

Dharsan Viswanathan – Data Engineer – has a vast knowledge of data engineering, which includes: Cloudera, AWS, Machine Learning, and Data Mining. 

Gabriel Brunacci – Software Engineer – oversaw many backend functions of the compliance process.

Together, their strong expertise and varying experiences make for the ultimate compliance team. 

BigSpring’s Story

In 2018,  Bhakti Vithalani – Founder & CEO – was on a mission to create a platform that could provide a direct path to progress for everyone. BigSpring is an AI-powered SaaS work readiness platform that gets people job-ready, not test-ready. The platform creates work-ready talent at a pace that matches rapidly evolving market needs. 

BigSpring does this with a learn-by-doing model. Users learn new skills through bite-sized content created by their peers and co-workers. Then users record themselves demonstrating what they’ve learned. This creates a channel for feedback and coaching at scale. Big Spring users say it’s ‘TikTok for work.’

To see how BigSpring works, click here.

How BigSpring Stands Out

The World Economic Forum selected BigSpring as a Technology Pioneer in 2020, which is a pretty huge feat, especially when looking at past recipients of this prestigious award; Google, Twitter, Airbnb, and Palantir. BigSpring’s reach extends globally to over a million learners with customers such as Google, Facebook, Uber, Samsung, AXA Insurance, Sotheby’s, Tata Group, and others. 

It’s evident that BigSpring has become one of the most game-changing and innovative platforms out there, but what makes them so successful? The answer is simple: their desire to help people become the best version of themselves. 

To do this, the BigSpring team knew they’d also have to practice what they preach with their internal operations. If they wanted their users to learn and implement best practices, so would they.

BigSpring’s Joyfully Crafted Compliance Experience

BigSpring’s readiness platform is relevant to many companies which handle sensitive data and have stringent requirements for their SaaS (software as a service) partners. They decided to pursue SOC 2 to assure their clients and prospects that their security measures exceeded the global gold standard, accelerating commercial efforts. 

The journey wasn’t easy, though. One challenge they faced was getting all their team members to stay organized and up-to-date on where they stood for each control. On top of that, none of the team ever really led a SOC 2 process previously, so another issue was determining what constituted compliance for a particular control. This also meant figuring out what level of detail was required for the evidence. Due to the strict nature of audits, they needed to ensure steady progress during the months of preparation. 

“The TrustCloud Platform became our single source of truth for all things SOC 2, where every team member could check on progress and submit the information that they were responsible for.” 

BigSpring accelerated their auditing process to completion using TrustCloud – a platform with “helpful hints and templates for controls.” In addition to using TrustCloud, they found that the TrustCloud team also helped them stay on track by providing practical guidance. 

Thanks to Arun, Yin, Rajesh, Dharsan, and Gabriel, BigSpring and its users are now better equipped to reach their full potential. 

Best Practices

When asked what recommendations they had for other companies pursuing SOC 2 compliance, BigSpring said organizations should:

  • Assemble a cross-functional team to cover all required categories. 
  • Assign a team lead for the technical areas and one for the operational areas, which can keep the rest of the contributors engaged and organized. 
  • Inform the rest of the organization about the importance of the effort at the start and give a heads up about what is required of them, e.g., to ensure their laptops are up to date. 

Want to Become a Trust Champion for Your Organization?

If you’re guiding the compliance journey but have yet to streamline your processes, have no fear because TrustCloud is here. 

Schedule a demo today, and we’ll make your compliance journey joyful.