Patrick Finucane on the importance of empathy, both as a Dropboxer and a veteran of the Irish Army

At Dropbox, we believe in celebrating our veterans all year long. And every November, in recognition of Veteran’s Day, we put a special emphasis on honoring their service to their country and learning about their unique journeys to Dropbox with our Veteran’s Appreciation Month. Patrick Finucane, who served for over two decades in the Irish Army, explained how his role as an International Physical Security Manager has changed during the pandemic and how personal relationships are the key to his happiness at Dropbox.

Can you tell us about your role at Dropbox?

I’m an International Physical Security Manager. Essentially I’m in charge of making sure all Dropboxers are safe. That’s been turned on its head since COVID-19 kicked in. Previously, we looked after the security of the offices, looked after people while they were traveling, and did a bit of home safety. But when the pandemic hit and work from home started, we had to reinvent ourselves globally. Where we had 17 sites before, now we had 3000 sites. We had to socialize security awareness, training, and a whole range of other things that previously we never would have thought we had to look after.

A lot of Dropboxers say that their cadence of work has changed a bit since they’ve been working from home, because the whole working model is a little different. But with the security team, we’ve become busier. We probably haven’t been this busy in our history as a security organization, because now stuff that historically wasn’t an issue is now an issue. We’re constantly reinventing ourselves.

How long have you been working for Dropbox?

For about 3.5 years, with four months in the beginning as a contractor.

Where are you located?

In the countryside outside Dublin, Ireland.

Can you tell us a little about your military service?

I served in the Irish Army for 22 years in total. My service was initially with the artillery, and then I went into the counterterrorism section of the intelligence service for 16.5 years. I served several different deployments: Lebanon throughout the 90s, Boznia, Kosovo, Chad, Liberia, and some smaller deployments throughout Europe as well.

Was Dropbox your first job after your military service?

No, it wasn’t. After the military, I went back to university to do a Ph.D in political science, and after that I fell into a job I wasn’t looking for with some colleagues at a startup. It was great fun because I got to travel the world again, but I was looking for something that challenged me on more of a personal level. When the opportunity came at Dropbox, it was fantastic working at such a welcoming, open environment. There’s so much negativity in the world, even prior to COVID-19, but the amount of positivity you find working at Dropbox is phenomenal. Every day is a learning day; I can safely say I haven’t had a day at Dropbox where I haven’t learned something about myself or the company or skills I needed to work on.

How have you seen your military experience support the skills you’ve needed to succeed at Dropbox?

It taught me a lot about being calm, as well as demonstrating empathy with people. That’s not something that people outside of the service community typically identify with veterans, but we have an ability to look at situations and people from their perspective. We try to be analytical in the way we approach problems. Sometimes we have to make difficult decisions, so having the ability and the courage to separate a decision from the behavior of an individual is critical. Having the ability to demonstrate empathy with fellow Dropboxers, especially when they’re having challenging times during COVID-19, is an excellent skill that I’m appreciative to have.

What has stood out to you about the way the pandemic has changed the way you and your team work?

The cadence of communication has really increased. For the physical security team, we face the challenge of making sure that what we send out is relevant to the locality of the Dropboxer. For instance, when the wildfires hit, we had to send out messaging around places that were safe and unsafe to visit. Our messaging had to be spot on; there was no real room for error. As a company, we’re sending out a lot more proactive messaging, which is great.

As a security team, one of the key things we use to do our job is personal relationships. Without being in person, it can be more challenging to build these relationships, but it’s something we’re actively working on because we want to make sure the messaging gets out there. Recently we had Trustober, where we delivered information about being safe at home, travel security and social engineering in partnership with data security. Part of the design of this was to ensure that Dropboxers know who they can speak to when they are having a crisis.

What’s your favorite thing about Virtual First work?

How we’ve pivoted toward investing in people. All of my team internationally have been able to develop a real strong growth mindset in the last year; people have gone back to university, learned new languages, and learned new skill sets. The L&D (Learning & Development) Team has been fantastic in how they’ve helped us with stuff like that.

Why should other military veterans apply to Dropbox?

One of the main things that isn’t always spoken about is the appreciation for your service and the set of skills that you bring to Dropbox. So many of the veterans at Dropbox aren’t working in the roles you’d expect. We have a great variety of veterans in a number of different roles.

Another thing is the core values of Dropbox, which are so important. The one thing you find here all the time is integrity. Dropbox is more than the company, it’s the people, and these people act with personal courage, integrity, and responsibility. These may seem like old-fashioned values, but for a lot of veterans, they are key. You’ll find that so many of the traits we identify with at Dropbox are shared in the service community. Personal responsibility is such a big thing. It’s not a value we put on our website, but it’s something that individual leaders exercise at Dropbox, and it’s so reassuring to see that we actually live our values. It’s a real north star for a lot of people.

Our ERGs are the backbone of our culture at Dropbox. You can learn more about how they support Dropboxers of all backgrounds here.