After 6 months of travelling, learning and spending time with my family, my sabbatical is coming to an end. I am thrilled to announce that I decided to embark on a new professional adventure that’s really close to my heart. It’s now time for me to build again.
I’ve always been passionate about leveraging the power of technology to solve real problems for people like me and you, with a special emphasis on parents and children. This is why I am delighted to have joined Mondly by Pearson as Product Growth Director and owner of Mondly Kids, the family-friendly app that makes language learning fun and engaging for children.
My sabbatical in a nutshell
Taking a career break was a transformative experience. It gave me clarity, as well as the opportunity to recharge and spend valuable time with my family. Looking back now, I am happy to have accomplished everything I set out for when I decided to do this.
- Family travel. Travel has always been the best way for me to discover, recharge and connect with my family. I wrote more about travelling with kids here. I’m really grateful for having spent 5 of the last 6 months exploring the world, staying for longer periods of time in the Canary Islands, Mauritius and Thailand;
- Learning. I’ve proudly graduated from the Stanford LEAD Executive Education Program. I recently joined the Reforge community to make sure I never stop learning;
- Connecting with founders. I spent time with founders of tech companies, engaging in thought partnerships and working on solving problems together.
I also spent a lot of time reading and started running, having completed my first 10k the day I turned 35. In retrospect, I’m happy to have taken the sabbatical and I highly recommend career breaks to anyone looking to recharge and gain clarity on their purpose and what they want to do. Nevertheless, I am a type A personality that’s thriving while striving. It was about time for me to get back to business and start building again.
Why edtech?
My (mis)adventures in the crypto world showed me the importance of operating in an industry where you actually belong and doing work that you’re deeply passionate about. When I stepped down from my role at Bitpanda, I committed to pursue opportunities in areas that are really close to my heart: edtech, healthtech or the “new mom” / kidtech economy.
It will come as no surprise for anyone that knows me that I am a nerd high believer in the power of lifelong learning (wrote about my framework here). Leveraging technology to democratise access to high-quality education is a mission I resonate with.
As a highly-pragmatic, functional millennial, I draw a line between technology for the sake of technology vs. technology that makes our lives better. Throughout my career, I focused on solving a convenience problem – bringing things at the tap of a button (your ride, your entire financial life, your investments). Learning should be no different. Not for ourselves, not for our kids.
Narrowing it down to… language learning
As a person that has been living in 8 countries across Europe and the US and speaks 5 languages, I understand firsthand the importance of language learning. From a personal standpoint, for example, language is the reason I never considered relocating to Austria. Language learning is not just about speaking. It’s about connecting. About truly understanding each other. About belonging.
I believe that learning a new language can be a life-changing experience, as it opens up new doors, broadens horizons, and helps build connections with people from different parts of the world. As Nelson Mandela put it:
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart
Nelson Mandela
Why Mondly by Pearson?
Short answer is simple: because they’re simply remarkable. The reason I chose Mondly by Pearson is threefold: the people, the vision and the product.
The people
While I formally joined the team in April, I’m no stranger to Mondly. I’ve been in touch with Alex & Tudor, its founders, for more than 7 years now. To say they are outstanding would be an understatement. I’ve met hundreds of founders over the past 15 years and I don’t know a single example similar to Mondly. In short, Alex & Tudor have bootstrapped Mondly from zero to one of the highest rated educational apps worldwide, with more than 100 million customers. Yes, you read that line right. They boostrapped the company until acquisition and built everything with a team of equally outstanding people (about 50 of them, to be more precise). Oh, and they are incredibly humble and don’t talk about them as much as they should. If this is not remarkable, I don’t know what is.
As for Pearson, it is not only the world’s leading learning company operating in 200+ countries. It’s also so much more agile than you could imagine by looking at its history and size. The reason for that are the people: I’ve been inspired by the conversations I had prior to joining – the people I met are former entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs-at-heart, true builders interested in making a dent in the Universe.
The vision
Empowering people to connect with each other through language learning is something I definitely relate to. So is making learning a lifestyle, something I’ve been militating for over time. That’s exactly what Mondly stands for: enabling people to truly understand each other by making language learning fun and engaging for all. This perfectly fits into Pearson’s vision of enabling people to realise the life they imagine through learning.
I was immediately sold on the vision since it deeply resonates with my personal values and core beliefs. I do believe that learning is what got me to where I am today and I am committed to a lifetime of learning. At the same time, making an impact through my work is something that’s really important to me. Helping people understand each other, connect and realise their true potential is a vision I believe in and a mission I will happily embrace for the future.
The product
Last but definitely not least, the product is one of the reasons I chose to join. With their product ecosystem, Mondly by Pearson makes language learning accessible and fun for everyone. All these while leveraging technology to deliver a world class customer experience. In our product portfolio we now have:
- Mondly, the language learning app that enables people to learn 41 languages straight from their native one. All in a fun, easy and engaging way, designed by language experts;
- Mondly Kids, the family-friendly app that makes language learning fun for our little ones. Because it’s never too early to start learning and build a foundation for the future;
- Mondly AR uses augmented reality to create a new world, allowing you to explore, discover and interact, using your phone as a lens. You’ll also learn a new language along the way, because exploration is learning;
- Mondly VR is the first language learning experience worldwide using chatbots and speech recognition. With Mondly VR you can practice real-life conversations in 30 languages, all in VR;
- Mondly Works helps companies support their employees in their language learning efforts, all while improving business and communication skills.
What will I build?
As Product Growth Director, my focus will be twofold.
Growth
I will be building a lean growth team that will act as a problem-solving squad. Our primary focus will be on funnel optimisation. We will be analysing data, hypothesising, experimenting and refining solutions to improve user acquisition, conversion and retention. With 100+ million customers, any incremental improvement along the funnel can translate into exponential revenue growth.
Mondly Kids
I will also be the owner mother of Mondly Kids. I will be building a team in charge of driving growth, increasing user engagement and optimising the user experience. Mondly Kids has reached 1 million customers already, despite the fact that it has never been prioritised as a product. It already offers the best-in-class learning experience for children and I am excited to take on the mission to grow Mondly Kids into the category-defining product.
Time to build!
A while back I took an introspective look to understand what’s important for me when taking on a new role (wrote about it here). Mondly by Pearson hits all these three and then some:
- Learning. My learning curve is really steep at the moment, as I immerse in the world of education with a relentless focus on product growth;
- Building. Working on funnel optimisation, all while growing Mondly Kids to new heights, requires rolling up my sleeves and getting things done. I’m really excited about the opportunity to build together.
- Having an impact. Enabling people to realise their true potential through education is the closest I’ve ever been to having a meaningful impact in the world. Doing work with a purpose is good and feels good.
Last, but definitely not least, I spent the past 5 years in executive roles, managing hundreds of people. I used to spend most of my days in never-ending calls. Lots of my work was about enabling other people to do their work. It feels so good to get back control over my time and have some space to think, solve problems myself, get my hands dirty and be more hands-on. In the end, builders are gonna build.