Thomas Cronkright, co-founder and CEO of CertifID, is one of the industry’s first digital guardians.

After his own title agency became a victim of wire fraud, Cronkright decided enough was enough and donned his cape as the co-founder of the first anti-wire fraud technology for the mortgage industry.

Cronkright has been working with organizations like the American Land Title Association to increase fraud awareness and has published white papers providing practical advice for the industry in the fight against wire fraud.

In its first year of operation, CertifID was named an HW Tech 100 winner.

Cronkright was not content to just mope about his personal loss. Experts of the day told him to cut his losses and move on, but Cronkright was not going to take the fraud lying down.

His motto is to spend only 10% of his time ruminating on the challenge, devoting 90% on the solution.

He believes that many of the things that happen to people, good or bad, have a purpose and that unfortunate events can actually represent the dawn of a new opportunity or teach a valuable lesson.

CertifID is the outworking of that belief. Instead of dwelling on his loss, Cronkright pursued a solution and ended up creating a fraud prevention technology that has safeguarded over $1 billion in safe wire transfers in 2018 alone. His path to impact and growth is a constant motion from experience to analysis to action, rinse and repeat until the next goal is reached.

What one habit has made a crucial difference in your success?

“Spending 10% of time on the challenge and 90% on how to solve it. Many things in our lives happen for a reason. Some are meant to teach lessons and others to bring opportunities to light. Many ‘challenges’ are some of life’s best opportunities.”