So, yeah, um I started um my education in Bulgaria. I'm from Bulgaria, from Sophia. And um then after that, like I was studying business and I wanted to specialize more, specialize more in uh technology. So I decided to go to Germany and study information systems.And basically what I did is I did my masters in Germany and started basically coding on java playing with some algorithms and um learning about databases and software engineering. It was really challenging for me. Everything is in German. So making things even more complicated.

But yeah, so everything I learned was the hard way and I decided then to starting some cool company. Luckily enough, um the headquarters of Adidas was just uh in the city next door to my university. So I started working there and um there I switched to many different roles and this is something I want to share with you about the experience that I think um helped me a lot and the skill set that really helped me with some examples and learning mistakes maybe that I made. But really, I started in um consumer analytics working as digital analysts. So analyzing social media campaigns and really working with data, which I think is essential for any product manager. So what is really helped me is to make me passionate about data and make, make me use it because we needed to derive um the insights from the data for our um stakeholders which are part of the company. And after that, I moved to another team, which is called it innovation, which is the team. Uh It, it's like a start up within the company. You can imagine it like this. Um Because basically what we did, I was a lead consultant there and we um identify the problem space, then we think of the different opportunities we have as a business and create some innovative solutions, then we test them and at the end, we want to sell them always to um to the business and scale.

One example of this is called Store Factory. It's a very innovative project that Adidas uh started and you can see about it a lot in, in the internet, if you search for uh in factory store factory and I cannot share much because it's confidential, but I can share a bit about um the main um the main goal of it and what we achieve.

So we wanted to bring um the production from Asia to Europe and be close to the consumers. And that's why we created a group of concept, one store in Berlin, where we made the production inside. And my part of it was mainly on the digital side really to try to predict the fashion trends in real time because otherwise it take a lot of time like two years to predict the color trends. And we did it just for two weeks. So every two weeks, we were predicting the fashion training turn out it was really successful when plans really loved it. So this is just a group of concept. And then um yeah, we um basically prove that this, this has value and and make it happen. And what I really learned from this team is um that you can how you can build actually products from, from concept, right, by identifying the problem and then focusing on how you can solve it and then really making this um happen, making it successful. And not always, you know, skating was not always option because in such an innovative team, you are sometimes 10 years ahead of the market or 20 years ahead and the business is not ready because um they have some current challenges, but it was a great experience. And after that, I moved to consumer engagement, which is um where actually my product experience uh really officially start, I would say um I started as a product manager and switched to many different departments in this um area.

I started like, I'll just share broadly about them and and explain what I learned from this. Um it was um consumer basically again related to analytics, personalization, then marketing communication. Thank you, Rodian. Really great uh comment and I'm just getting distracted with the comments um conversation.

But yeah, uh really got to learn a lot and um utilize the, the knowledge from data and for the personalization part. Um If you can imagine, like you wanna find some t-shirt or something on the website and then uh you, you can see some things uh recommended. Like really we could cross sell a lot of things not sell was um a really great um experience. And also what we did is um part of digital communication related to um yeah, email communication with the customers, all the marketing communication, push notifications and all that.

So what I learned from there is um I would say a few things uh wise a lot on the back end side to understand the uh yeah, how, how the, the databases work, how, how we um work with the algorithms to make predictions and all of those things. And the other thing was how to scale global capabilities um globally because we were in the global headquarter and whatever we built, we need to adapt and scale across the different markets around the world. It's a really, really great experience. And in the meantime, I will just share it to another. Um So for this, because I think it's very interesting. I did volunteering in, in South Africa with the main goal to, to really help kids in a township close to, to Cape Town to um yeah, get inspired and change their lives. Even um even with small fee, what we did there was to do some workshops about leadership, how effective things um where we also did also particularly training that Zumba classes which turned out that they are teaching me how to play Zumba. Yeah, this is um not that funny when I saw those kids working but yeah, it was um amazing experience and what I really um got inspired there. I will share you the story of this guy here.

Uh This is Neil, he's 14 years old and we were teaching them how to make their goals to be smart, like specific and actionable and all of those things. And we asked them to share, like to think about their goals to put them on paper and then share them with everyone. So this little guy like super small and super cute. He came uh in front of everyone and he told us his love story like that his brother um is drug addicted that his family didn't have a lot of money, but he has a big dream. And basically he shared that dream and this was uh this was amazing because he doesn't just, he didn't just make it. Uh uh Yeah, I have a cool dream but he made it super actional how he would get there. So he said I, I really wanna change my community and to do that I know that I need to, to become a teacher because this is the way I can inspire small and or young people uh to change the status quo. So to do that, I, I started volunteering here in, in this uh NGO so that I can learn how to teach kids how to inspire them and, and then really how to make this change after that, that I wanted to uh to, to get a scholarship and, and start studying uh pedagogy in the University of Cape Town.

And yeah, basically to become a teacher and inspire his community, he made it so concrete. And I, we were, oh my God, we, we came here to teach them something and now we are learning from them. So really what I learned there is that um you can lead just if the only way to lead effectively is to be authentic and, and to make this happen because this can really, in this case, to change my perspective when we lived in this township. And yeah, you can see how this can inspire and even change lives to certain to certain uh yeah, way. Um After, after this, I was working again with my product management um experience. And I got a really exciting opportunity uh to drive an open source initiative which consisted of hackathons across Europe. So we organized hackathons all around Europe in Bulgaria. And so Amsterdam Barcelona Madrid and the headquarter, basically the winners from those hackathons came to the headquarter and competed to have the grand winner. Now, this is really cool experience. And what I would say, the biggest learning here was that get the best results.

Like the teams with the best results were the teams with very mixed um experience with designers with um some of them had even the professors in the university, we had uh people who are studying physics, uh psychology. It is so interesting to meet those people and get to see how those people can create great digital products in, in long time, basically, uh overnight, they didn't sleep. Um And they made amazing, amazing things. And yeah, what I can say is that the hackathon is really a way to, to hack the problems and, and create uh something really meaningful when you focus on the, on the things that, that have the highest value. And this is something that you should always uh think and, and apply in your product experience because that, that's really the key to focus on what matters most make it, make the group of concept validate it quickly. And after that, think of the iterations and scale really, really amazing. Uh If, if you guys want want to go in this direction, I really suggest you go and attend the heath, you will learn so much that you cannot imagine. And now I'll talk about another milestone in my career I would say.

And this was China, I lead the China dream, I say me and a couple of people uh from from the headquarters were sent in China with a year ago because Asia uh was is I think back then, probably now it's again the same thing. It was 60% of the revenue for the company coming from Asia. So it was really important to uh create very cool products, make them real scale, very fast, build the foundations and alate again. So they got a couple of people from the headquarter sent us in China and all. OK. Now create the China digital C and make it succeed, be the competitors and as competitors here, we were envisioning also. Yeah, Alibaba and others. So really, really big, big uh goal. So I uh was responsible for the analytics stream. We started just I think three people or I don't remember exactly three or four people maximum. And in the end, we were around 20 this year is uh part of the analytics team. The role the responsibilities were standing across many different things. So it was product ownership, project management uh leading the budget um defining the the O pr strategy, the direction for this team setting up the processes. It really everything in one because it it it's like we go there, imagine like consultants and we need to scale whatever. Uh we, yeah, basically find, find opportunity and, and scale. And for me like the learnings from from here, like the main learnings were that everyone knows that.

Yeah, when you hear China, you're thinking about scale, about speed, about all of those things. And it is really the case. What was really interesting to us was that the culture of shocking we had there when we got there, we, we did uh we did amazing girl Riana. We um we were yeah, shocked at the beginning and then we were so inspired by, by these people because you see people going to work like super early and going back super late. Um And some of the process were really man, you know, but they get things done no matter how sometimes things didn't really even sound possible. But if the right person says it should be done, they found a solution and they, they, they made it happen super quick overnight literally. And this is really amazing to, to experience that I cannot even translate it with the words. It's amazing experience. Um Yeah. So this was um I think I need to hurry up because my time is almost over. So, yeah, but China amazing cultural experience, amazing speed and great, really, really great um experience. I can just recommend everyone go there and, and learn. It's amazing. Yeah. Then now I after after China decided to get to come back and implement whatever I learned in Bulgaria in my home country. This is always my goal and I always want to um to do that.

Uh I work in the Virginia Sports, a great sports tech company which is operating in a very niche and unique B to B business. So basically we're official data provider for great organizations such as FA NFL and many others like really connecting the dots between the official data rights all, all the way to the defense. Um Yeah, here what I, what I really learn and um and I would say uh Excel on is to lead on scale and to manage huge portfolio of products inspired teams. And yeah, currently I have seven teams. Um It's, it's really, really cool and we serve the world with the data. So it, it's a lot of responsibility all of this. It, it's really um important to broad management, right? So I just put here all the skill set that um I talk to um to my experience, all of them are really necessary in my opinion, for product management. I won't go through all of them now. But, and you don't get scared if you don't have it all. Um If you didn't experience it all, the most important is that you're curious and, and you want to learn about those things and um yeah, just try them. So my advice would be curious, learn always because this is the most important thing.

Identify big impact opportunities, validate the assumptions quickly. Like for example, from China, you build something quickly and then you test it with consumers and then scale it, push hard on the right things, the priorities are to bring boredom and really nurture the growth of the, the.

You don't need to do it all at once. It doesn't make sense. And for all the women who are listening that really use the advantage that you're a woman in that because this is so powerful and you can rock the game. Thank you so much. Um Connect you on linkedin and focus on your passion. But the more you enjoy, the better you play, this is a quote from God now. Thank you so much. If you have some questions I can answer, but I don't know if um we have time. I can see if there's something important here. Like questions. Thank you so much for, for the great words. Thank you guys. Have a good day and talk to you soon. Bye bye.