Trishaala Ninan, marketing director of REV Capital, may still be relatively new to the factoring industry, but she’s already accomplished a great deal, including a full-scale rebrand. As she continues to advance in her career within the sector, there’s no telling what she’ll do next.

Executing a complete company rebrand is difficult. Doing so in your first year at a company in a new industry is even more difficult. But doing it all at the same time while planning a wedding is bordering on the impossible, unless you are Trishaala Ninan. As the current marketing director of the invoice factoring firm REV Capital (formerly Revolution Capital), she led the complete rebrand of the company in a matter of six months and got married in the same month — June — when the rebrand officially launched.

“It was a truly hectic yet rewarding time for me,” Ninan says.

Learning an Industry

Ninan’s accomplishments this year are even more impressive considering she had no prior knowledge of the factoring industry when she joined REV Capital in early 2021. In many ways, providing an outsider perspective on the industry is something that Ninan sees as a benefit, as knowing how to craft messages that get to the baseline value proposition is helpful for both existing and future clients.

While Ninan calls the rebrand her “baby,” her primary responsibility at REV Capital is to increase the company’s brand awareness across North America. As a young company and a market leader in Canada, REV Capital’s primary goal is to create more connections and bring better messaging throughout the rest of the continent.

“My role is to make the lives of the sales team easier,” Ninan says. “If I do my job well, clients will have at least heard of us so that by the time a sales rep reaches out to them, they have some baseline understanding of who we are and how we can help their business.” Ninan is also passionate about getting the word out about invoice factoring, an alternative source of financing for small and medium-sized businesses which isn’t always considered.

“My favorite part of our industry is that we can actually help businesses survive and thrive,” Ninan says. “Being somebody who’d never even heard of invoice factoring, it was interesting to learn about a different form of lending that could be so flexible for the needs of a growing business.”

Be a Sponge

Having the chance to learn about an entirely new industry and then pass on that knowledge to clients and team members was one of the most attractive parts of the job opportunity with REV Capital, Ninan says.

“I like to keep my mind fresh,” Ninan says. “Once I started understanding what our service is and what it can offer businesses, I was ready to spread the word!”

Constantly learning is something Ninan not only enjoys but recommends, as she advises anyone entering the factoring space (or any industry, really) to “be a sponge” and have as many conversations with industry participants, particularly experienced ones, as you can. In the past few months since the rebrand, she has taken the time to have those types of conversations, which has further enhanced her knowledge of the factoring industry and how every team member at REV Capital supports it. According to Ninan, this makes her efforts on the marketing side all the more effective while also allowing her to better relate to her colleagues and partners.

“I’m not just spewing marketing jargon to clients, as I have a more grounded understanding of the process, Ninan says. “This has broadened my understanding of my role in relation to other people’s roles.”

Ninan has made it a priority to encourage others at REV Capital and at her previous jobs to incorporate continuing education into their professional lives. At REV Capital, she founded a program called REV Learning, which provides company-wide training on a variety of topics presented by subject matter experts.

Building Something New Is Nothing New

A passion for helping others learn is not the only concept that Ninan has carried to REV Capital from her previous roles at real estate company Morguard and retail solutions provider The Central Group. At both companies, Ninan helped build a marketing team from scratch while serving under marketing professionals whom she still counts as mentors. In addition, she learned about two entirely different industries, which ultimately helped her in understanding a third at REV Capital.

“I’m really grateful that I had the opportunity to see what it was like to build a team from the ground up,” Ninan says. “While in those teams, I wore many hats until we were able to hire the right person. Thus, when I currently hire team members, I know what skill sets to look for.”

At Morguard specifically, Ninan learned another important lesson: to step into roles before someone else realizes you’re ready. She joined the company as an intern and left as its digital marketing coordinator. She’s continued to ascend in the years since, and even though she is excited to keep growing in her current position, her sights are set on a chief marketing officer role in the next five years. After all that she’s already accomplished, how difficult could that be?