1) How did your Coordea Journey start?
It was 2014 when I first heard about Coordea. There was a marketing job opportunity which I applied for, but it turned out it wasn’t a good fit. A year later, back in 2015, I finished my master’s studies in Marketing, so I was looking for new opportunities. As I was going through job ads, I saw a Marketing Assistant position opening at Coordea and I decided to give it a second shot. I did a couple of interviews and in November 2015 started working at Coordea. This year I’m celebrating 4 years and it has been a great journey. Sometimes it feels like it was yesterday. Funny thing is that when you do what you love, time passes by really fast and one day you just stop for a moment and realise that it has been a long ride.
2) Has there been anything that surprised you about working at Coordea?
Yes, it was the warm welcome I got from all the people that worked at that time at Coordea. When you are a new person joining an organisation everything is new to you, so it is very important to feel like you are not alone. The support, guidance, and friendship never lacked during these years. Back then, we were around 20 people and we were pretty much like a family. We did everything together – going for coffee and lunch breaks together, after-work activities, everyone helping when we changed office locations and such. I never imagined that it was and will be like that.
3) What was the biggest challenge when you started working in Coordea?
The biggest challenge was to shift the business mindset, from being local and national (as I was used to on my previous position) to thinking more international – Nordic specifically. Since I started working for a company that organizes data analytics conferences in Sweden, I had to educate myself in that field and learn a lot about data, analytics, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, how Swedish and Nordic companies work, what do they do with data, how can we market our products and services to them and a lot more things.
4) What are your biggest accomplishments at Coordea that you’re most proud of?
I would say that my biggest accomplishments working at Coordea are the number of things I learned through the years and building good relationships with colleagues. Recently, at Coordea’s 10th anniversary, I was announced as the “Co-Worker of the Year” nominated by colleagues for the Skopje Office and got a “Certificate of Appreciation” for the extraordinary professionalism and commitment to delivering outstanding work. I understand that to some people those might be perceived as a piece of paper or not a big deal, but to me they mean a lot. It means that the work, dedication and care about the company and the clients we serve on a daily basis has been appreciated, valued and rewarded, just like the good relationships I have with colleagues.
5) What is the hardest part of being a young manager and leader?
For me, the hardest part is finding the optimal level of time and balance between my individual tasks with the time spent managing and leading the team. I started working in the industry at a younger age, but have never been responsible for other people. Now, we are a team of five people, which is not a big number, but my responsibilities and priorities have changed. Every day I put my team members in the first place, guiding, advising and leading them as I believe is best and fit. My individual tasks and duties always come second. The best part of it is that I have a good mentor to guide me through the journey, which I’m beyond grateful.
6) Where do you find your inspiration?
Well, inspiration is not something that you go to a place or store to find or buy it. I believe it comes from many different channels and sources. It is the little things we do in life, such as reading, learning, sharing experiences with others, running, hiking, doing yoga, watching documentaries or movies, the morning or bed-time routine we have, how we treat ourselves and others… I try to learn at least one thing from every activity I do and every person I have in my life, and always push myself to new limits. There is so much of this world and we can do a lot of great things. The only thing is that we need to believe and be determined to do so. That’s how I find inspiration.
When you tell people about your job, what's one thing that surprises them, or gets them excited about the work you do?
When people ask me what I do for a living, I really need to do a lot of explaining, especially to more senior people. What surprises them is that I work from Macedonia for a Swedish company which does data analytics conferences in the Nordics mainly, and the fact that I get to meet people from all over the world from some of the most innovative companies, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, NASA, Google, Netflix, Uber, Apple, the New York Times, Zalando, IBM, BMW, Amazon, Ericsson, Scania, Volvo, etc.
8) Give me a weird fact or two about you?
Hmmm, actually I’m going to give three weird facts about me. First one is that I only sleep in a completely, totally dark and silent room. If there is a bit of light or noise than it is very difficult for me to fall asleep. The second one is also related to sleeping. I can go a day or two without eating and drinking, but not a single day without a 7-8 hour sleep. And lastly, I don’t drink coffee. I understand it might sound strange or weird, but don’t need coffee at all to function on a daily basis, only a good night’s sleep.
9) What are your career advices you’d like to share with everyone?
There are a couple of advices I’d like to share:
| Always be kind, humble, and help people out. No matter your job position, how wealthy or educated you are or where you live, always be polite and help out when people need you.
| Have empathy, as people are going through different phases and situations of their life. Think of how you would feel if you were in a certain situation and treat people as you’d like to be treated.
| Don’t give up. Things don’t happen overnight and if you want to achieve your goals in life, you need to work for them. You cannot buy them, and nobody can give them to you.
| Own your mistakes. We are humans, and of course, we’re going to make mistakes. The most important thing is to admit you’ve done a mistake (when it happens), learn from it and not repeat it. Try making new mistakes instead, you might learn new things.
| Never stop learning and expanding your horizons. Every day, moment and person is an opportunity to learn from. If you want to go far in life, you always need to be willing to learn new things and get better day by day.