CTO Ron Korland on Building Secure WhatsApp Integrations for Global Banks

~David Martin

Instant messaging has redefined how people connect; but in industries like banking, one wrong click can mean disaster. With this, the pressure to stay fast yet secure has never been greater. Leading the charge in solving this paradox is Ron Korland, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Tuvis. This highly regarded software development specialist believes that banks can innovate without losing the trust of their customers: “We give banks the ability to use WhatsApp and similar channels without compromising compliance or security, whether it’s preventing data leaks, stopping phishing attempts, or making sure every interaction is backed up,” Ron explains.

Based in the Bay Area, Ron is a seasoned software engineer and technology leader with more than 16 years of experience in software development, system architecture, and cloud solutions. Fluent in Hebrew and English, he has worked across startups and global enterprises, always focusing on scalable, secure systems.

Ron joined Tuvis in November 2021 as its founding developer and quickly rose to CTO, laying the technical foundation that would fuel the company’s growth. From building core systems and CI/CD pipelines to designing a real-time compliance engine, his work provided the backbone that allowed Tuvis to scale rapidly and gain the trust of major financial institutions.

At Tuvis, Ron architected a platform that seamlessly integrates WhatsApp with CRM systems like Salesforce to enable secure and compliant interactions. Reflecting on the inspiration behind this, he shares: “Coming from Israel, where WhatsApp is the main communication channel, I understood early on how powerful it could be for businesses—if only compliance issues could be solved.”

At the heart of Tuvis is its ability to unify instant messaging with CRM workflows: “It connects your instant messages to your sales or CRM system in one place,” Ron explains. “Instead of switching between Salesforce and WhatsApp, you can select a contact and instantly see the relevant data, create a task, or schedule an event—everything happens in one seamless flow.”

That seamlessness became a game-changer in industries where compliance is non-negotiable: “When we first started showing this to banks, many of them said, ‘We didn’t think it was even possible to make WhatsApp compliant.’ That reaction told me we were solving a real pain point, not just adding another tool,” Ron recalls.

Ron explains how Tuvis went beyond simply making WhatsApp compliant, it gave banks the option to back up communications directly into their compliance systems: “Latin America became our proving ground. The banks there move fast, but they also have some of the strictest regulators. If we could make it work for them, we knew we could make it work anywhere.”

As well as WhatsApp, Ron’s work and expertise also enabled the company to facilitate support for iMessage, Telegram, Signal and LINE methods of communication. These were all part of the Tuvis extension, to more regions assisting millions of people.

By bridging this gap, Tuvis helps sales teams boost productivity, cut response times, and improve conversion rates. In one case with Telefónica, the platform streamlined daily routines and turned potential leads into revenue more quickly.

Ron proved something many thought impossible: that security and speed can coexist at scale. His architecture has set new benchmarks, influencing not only fintech startups but also compliance officers and regulators: “Scaling up the system to support more and more users for big banks was really difficult,” he recalls. “But I’m proud that now it’s both stable and cost-effective.”

These capabilities have unlocked new opportunities in private banking, allowing financial advisors to connect with clients in ways that were previously off-limits securely. The ripple effect goes far beyond Tuvis itself. For years, instant messaging was dismissed as incompatible with financial compliance, leading many institutions to ban it altogether. By proving that regulated industries can safely adopt platforms like WhatsApp, Tuvis transformed what was once seen as a liability into a competitive advantage. This reshapes the fintech landscape and opens doors for others to follow.

A big part of this success comes from Ron’s unique approach: he blends usability with compliance instead of treating them as opposites. Ron explains his philosophy clearly: compliance, when done right, doesn’t slow people down—it makes them faster: “I’ve always believed compliance shouldn’t be the enemy of speed. If you build it right, you actually make teams faster, because they don’t waste time worrying about what they’re allowed to send,” he says. This mindset has reshaped how many SaaS providers think about regulated industries, shifting the focus from simply “locking things down” to “building them right.” 

Hence, to him, security isn’t a barrier; it’s a driver of efficiency: “What this product needs is to come from the market, not just from someone waking up and saying they’re going to change the world. Real compliance problems need real solutions,” he explains.

That perspective is one of the reasons Deborah Wanzo, Co-Founder and CEO of Tuvis, considers Ron so vital to the company’s growth. With more than 15 years of experience in enterprise technology and financial services, Deborah has seen firsthand how Ron’s leadership fueled Tuvis’s expansion into global markets. She describes him as both a visionary leader and a rare technical architect: “Ron built the entire technical foundation of Tuvis—from core systems and CI/CD pipelines to our real-time compliance engine,” she explains.

Deborah adds that Ron’s contributions go beyond code. By scaling multidisciplinary teams across engineering, product, and cybersecurity, Ron helped transform Tuvis from a startup into a trusted vendor for some of the largest banks and insurers in Latin America.

Those who have worked with Ron say the same thing: he’s both brilliant and humble. Oren Robin, who first met him at a Tel Aviv meetup in 2014, remembers thinking right away, “he was the smartest guy in the room.” Over the years, Oren has seen Ron’s talents again and again: he can understand complex systems in minutes, ask sharp questions, and deliver solutions quickly. Yet, what impresses Oren most is Ron’s attitude: “Ron has zero ego. He shares his knowledge, makes work fun, and helps everyone around him do better,” Oren shares. To him, that mix of skill and character is rare—so rare that “Ron is always my first choice for any business I start,” he added.

As CTO, Ron leads a multidisciplinary team of six: product managers, designers, developers, and a CISO—ensuring that every function moves in sync. As he puts it: “My job isn’t just writing code anymore,” he explains. “It’s making sure everyone from design to cybersecurity is pulling in the same direction. That’s how we deliver fast without breaking trust.”

Under Ron’s leadership, Tuvis achieved over 99.99% uptime, accelerated enterprise growth through its Salesforce partnership, and secured several multi-million-dollar contracts with global institutions, including some of the biggest banks in Latin America,  including Bradesco, Telefonica, and BTG Pactual, the largest investment bank in the region.

These milestones showcase his ability to pair innovation with reliability—a balance at the core of Tuvis’s success. Yet, as Deborah points out, his greatest strength lies in how he leads: “What makes Ron stand out isn’t just his technical expertise, it’s his calm, collaborative style. He builds trust, whether he’s creating systems that handle millions of secure transactions or guiding his team through tough compliance challenges,” she explains.

Ron can also work under pressure, an ability which stems from his early career. During his service in the Israeli Navy’s Submarines Division (2005–2008), this highly-regarded software expert managed SAP systems as an ERP administrator, ensuring mission-critical submarine operations ran smoothly. That experience instilled the discipline and reliability that now define his fintech architecture.

That blend of vision, execution, and reliability is especially clear in the areas of cybersecurity and compliance. With a focus on major banks across Latin America, including BTG Pactual, Tuvis equips financial institutions with advanced safeguards. Its data loss prevention (DLP) system blocks sensitive details like credit card numbers from being shared, while its phishing detection tool scans incoming messages, flags suspicious content, and automatically generates internal alerts.

Before joining Tuvis, Ron had already built a strong reputation as an expert in software architecture. He served as Chief Architect at Testim.io (later acquired by Tricentis), worked as Principal Engineer at Elementor, managed automation teams at Marketo, and led QA engineering at Alicanto and NICE Systems. Through these roles, he developed deep expertise in developer tools, CI/CD pipelines, and automation frameworks—skills that became the foundation for his later work.

At Tuvis, Ron applied that background to design the company’s core systems. He chose ReactJS for the frontend, NodeJS for the backend, and TypeScript to ensure scalable, type-safe development. This combination allowed Tuvis to support enterprise-scale traffic while maintaining top-level security and reliability. 

The results speak for themselves. Today, Tuvis supports millions in transactions across Latin America and beyond, extending its secure messaging to platforms like Telegram and Signal. With AI-driven insights, the system aggregates data from messages, tasks, and CRMs, helping sales teams craft smarter strategies.

The ripple effect across the industry is undeniable. By reimagining how financial institutions communicate, he’s turned instant messaging from a liability into a powerful tool. What was once a risk is now being adopted strategically as a competitive advantage.

Beyond leadership, he also built the company’s CI/CD pipeline, streamlining development workflows for seamless deployments. This setup allows Tuvis to roll out new features quickly while staying stable enough to scale from 30 pilot users to thousands across global banks. Looking back, Ron explains how those early choices shaped the company’s ability to grow: “One of the hardest parts was scaling from a pilot of 30 users to deployments with thousands,” Ron recalls. “Every shortcut you take at the beginning shows up later. That’s why we invested so much in CI/CD and automation from day one.”

Today, alongside his role at Tuvis, Ron plays an active role in the global tech and policy ecosystem. He contributes to open-source initiatives such as the OpenTelemetry Collector and is a member of respected organizations including the Bretton Woods Committee, Dynamite Circle, and Leaders Excellence at Harvard Square.

By setting new standards for secure messaging in fintech, Ron has created a playbook that banks worldwide are now following: built on compliance, scalability, and user-first design. Drawing on his motivation, he shares: “At the end of the day, I just love coding—that’s what gets me up in the morning. But what excites me even more is seeing the systems I build change how industries operate.” 

When technology outpaces regulation, the future can feel uncertain.  However, Ron has proven that the two can evolve side by side. Every system he builds is a reflection of his belief that people should feel safe when they connect. Tuvis embodies that vision. More than just a fintech success story, it shows how technology that prioritizes both security and usability creates real value for everyone. And in California, where global finance meets cutting-edge innovation, Ron sets the blueprint for the future.