Kirsty Martin has been working in payroll her entire career.  Since joining Yellow Canary in June 2022, Kirsty has quickly made her mark as a payroll queen. As Head of Customer, Kirsty is instrumental in helping our customers manage their workforce compliance needs. Kirsty’s weekends are just as busy, filled with kids activities, two dogs, and breaks to the beach whenever she can.  

1. What was your background before joining YC?

I was a Senior Manager at PwC in its payroll advisory practice immediately prior to joining YC.  Before that, I’d worked as a payroll manager for various companies.  As a payroll manager, I had overall responsibility for payroll, from setting up pay rules, ensuring compliance, and triaging issues.  

2. Can you explain your role at YC?

I’m Head of Customer in the Customer & Growth team.  I’m the main point of contact for customers on projects, and have responsibility for bringing together all the pieces of the puzzle.  While cliché, no two days look the same. Our customers are large enterprises who come to us for support in managing their workforce and payroll compliance. What this support looks like varies between customers. I help them to get the answers they need to ensure they’re paying their people correctly, and maintaining ongoing compliance with regulations.

I also manage the team of implementation specialists and customer success managers.  We work collaboratively to solve our customer’s problems, and I enjoy supporting them on their individual growth journeys.

Another large part of my role is working cross-functionally with the engineering and data teams. Each customer project involves work from all functions, so it’s important for me to be able to understand each of their roles to best be able to support the customer.

3. What brought you to YC?

I met Marcus and Brenton, the co-founders of YC, when I was working at PwC.  I was immediately drawn to their passion for this space, and was impressed by the work they were doing.  The team was only very small back then but we kept in contact.  I was passionate about solving the underpayment problems that so many companies were facing so when an opportunity came up to join the YC team I decided to go for it.

Since joining the team, I continue to be impressed by the culture they’ve built.  Everyone here lives by the YC values, and they form such a present part of our day to day.  I’m able to bring my whole, busy, self to work, and am given the flexibility and trust to get my work done in a way and a time that best suits me and my family.

4. What do you enjoy most about your role?

I’m a payroll geek at heart, so I love working with our customers to make their journey to workforce compliance as smooth as possible.

I also really enjoy supporting our customer team with their individual goals and growth pathways.  This looks different for all our Canaries, and I love working with them to uncover their strengths and new opportunities.

5. What advice would you give to someone wanting to break into tech and customer success?

Take the chance!  It’s a really interesting space to be in, and you get the opportunity to work with some of the smartest people you’ll ever meet. I’m truly blown away by the team at YC and what we can achieve.  There are so many opportunities to grow in different directions with tech, and it’s so exciting to see people moving into new roles all the time.  

6. Finally, how do you spend your weekends?

I have 3 kids and 2 dogs so there’s not much “spare” time. There’s soccer games, netball games, birthday parties and events. I’m also that person who can’t say no and I’m President of the P&C and manager of my youngest’s soccer team. Whenever we can though, we head to the Central Coast to my parents caravan and spend our time at the beach.