I’ve been silent for a while now. That’s because the past month has been a whirlwind, a rollercoaster of work & emotions. My Revolut journey is coming to its end after 3 intense years. Yes, yes, you’ve read that sentence right. While this might come as a surprise for some of you, I am confident this is the best way forward. While it’s been a hard decision to take, it’s not one that I’ve taken lightly. But let’s start with the beginning.

Revolut: 3 years in a Nutshell

I joined Revolut in early 2018 as Country Manager for Romania. Revolut was the size of a small village back then – a promising startup with a couple of hundred employees and 20.000 local users. I was the first hire on the ground, working to achieve our goal to hit 100.000 users by the end of the year. We wrapped up 2018 with 150.000 Romanians using Revolut.

It soon became clear that there’s only so much growth we can deliver without a dedicated team and proper resources. Said and done, we started brainstorming on structures that would allow us to reach our true growth potential. This is how I ended up leading what we called our Growth Machine, a fancy name for our efforts to build a world-class growth department and hire growth teams in our priority markets worldwide.

I was later promoted to lead our growth marketing efforts across Central & Eastern Europe, Revolut’s second biggest region after UKI. Together with my team, we grew to more than 3.5M users. A year into the role, I was promoted again, this time to Global Head of Growth. As owner of the growth department, I was leading 15 teams across Europe, the US and APAC, setting up processes, solving problems and removing any bottlenecks in the way of our ambitious objectives.

Saying that my Revolut experience has been rewarding would be an understatement. I feel incredibly lucky to have been part of Revolut’s growth journey. I am grateful to have had the chance to work with so many talented & driven Revoluters all around the world. They’re always going to be a source of inspiration for me, with their passion, drive & relentlessness.

Why leave now?

You might be wondering at this point how come I’ve decided to leave and why now. Truth be told, things have changed. A lot. I’ve joined a fairly small company with hundreds of employees & 1M users globally. I’m leaving a rocketship with more than 2k employees & 15M global users (of which close to 1.5M are Romanians). I’m confident that there’s still huge untapped potential and plenty of growth opportunities ahead. However, I feel that my learning curve has plateaued and there aren’t as many things to build here as they used to be. And I have to admit I am tired.

While leading Revolut’s growth efforts, I also had a parallel growth journey of my own: “baking”, giving birth and raising my son, who’s now 1.5 years old. I worked until the moment I gave birth and I returned to my laptop shortly after. It was an informed choice I made at the moment. No, nobody tied me to a chair or forced me to do that, contrary to popular belief. And I don’t regret a thing, I would do it all over again. 

However, 3 years on the rocketship feel like dog years in normal time. This is the true reason why the median tenure in a tech startup is 2 years. I feel like I’ve run a marathon with the speed of a sprint. I know way too well what this means and I’ve learnt to listen to the signals that I receive from my body & mind. 

As I was telling before, this isn’t a decision that I came to terms with easily. I’ve been pondering over it for the past 2 months, going back and forth. I could have just taken a longer break and return afterwards, but this wouldn’t have been fair for Revolut & my team. In a high-growth company, taking as little as a 1 month break means that you’re starting anew in a different company. 

While I’m sad to go and I will deeply miss my team of rockstars, I am confident that taking a break now is the best decision I could possibly take. For me, for my team and for Revolut. I’ll always be grateful for everything I’ve learnt and for the amazing people I’ve had the chance to work with. And I’m confident Revolut will live up to its mission to reinvent how the world does money. From now on though, I’ll be cheerleading from the sidelines as my team is working to become a leader in every single market worldwide. 

So, what’s next?

I was recently talking with a friend of mine, sharing my decision to leave Revolut. She asked me “What’s the next stop?”. As unbelievable as it may sound for people that know me, a stop. I’ve been planning to take a sabbatical for 12 years now, so I’m committed to actually do it.

First time, after finishing my masters, I wanted to take a 6 months break. I started off well, going on a roadtrip throughout Europe. 1 month into my travels, in Barcelona, I decided to start both my own company and my NGO, so the sabbatical came to an abrupt halt. It took me 7 years to try again. Second time around, after an incredibly exciting and equally exhausting ride at Uber, Revolut approached me with the proposal to join them and I couldn’t say “No”. So I ended up taking a 9-calendar days “sabbatical” instead, in between roles.

It’s said the third time’s a charm, so I hope that this time I’ll hold on to my sabbatical. I’m way too self-aware to set an exact timing and I already have plenty of ideas & plans. While I’d love to say that I’m taking 1 year off, the only goal that I’ll hold myself accountable to is to have a minimum 3 months break. I’ll consider it a success if I do this 🙂

Another question people have consistently asked me is “What are you going to do?”. On a more personal note, my son is one of the reasons I’m taking this decision now. It was quite easy to work when he was a couple of months old. Parents can relate to this, it’s eat, shit, sleep & repeat, with little variations and little sleep. It’s not as easy now, when he’s a tiny human being that wants attention & uninterrupted play time with his mother. This time is not coming back and he’ll start kindergarten soon, so it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to spend time together. He’s my number one priority during my sabbatical.

There are plenty of other things that never made it to my back-to-back calendar. First and most important, getting back to school. I want to finally take the certification programs I’ve postponed for a while now. To read & write more often. To travel, as much as it’s possible & safe during the global pandemic. And, of course, to spend more time with my family & friends. Oh, and to binge watch series on Netflix and sleep. A lot (I mean, as much as parents sleep, anyway).

It wasn’t easy for me to come to terms with this decision. Part of me is sad and I know for sure that I’m going to dearly miss Revolut and my team. One thing that I learnt though (but internalised much harder) was that the advice to never give up is really bad advice. There’s a very fine line between being relentless & driven versus inflexible & stubborn. Never giving up is the latter. Giving up doesn’t mean you failed. It just means you’ve found a better way and you can now stop banging your head in the wall, because you’ve found the door. At this point in my life, taking a sabbatical is my door. So I’m giving up to a world of opportunities to open another, take a break and embrace new beginnings, whatever they might bring.