Growing with BlaBlaCar — Interview with Svitlana & Sarah
There are people from over 40 countries working at BlaBlaCar today, and the number keeps growing. While the official company language is English, it is far from the only one you hear when walking through the office. Today, we get to hear from two employees working in Paris, one from Ukraine and the other from Austria who both joined BlaBlaCar’s Community Relations team as Agents, but who have grown in different directions since then.
Svitlana Bogdanova — Safety Manager
Originally from Mykolaiv, Ukraine, Svitlana is our Safety Manager working in the Paris headquarters. She speaks no less than four languages, all of which she has use for in her role. Outside of work she has an obsession for decorating, but also enjoys painting, roller-skating and trying new food. After her studies in Journalism in Kyiv, Svitlana began her career in advertising & photography.
“After working one year in advertising, I decided to go back to journalism, and so I took a job at a wine magazine for professionals. I would write articles about tastings in high-end restaurants where they would pair wines with different plates.”
After two years of writing, Svitlana decided to move away to explore the Balkans, sewing stuffed handmade toys and working as a language tutor. Finally, two years later she found an opening in Paris to join BlaBlaCar’s Community Relations team where she could work in both English and Ukrainian. Today, seven years later, she is working as manager in our Trust & Safety team.
“My job today consists of making sure that our members feel safe and that their experience with our product is positive. On top of that, I support my team and make sure that they can grow in their role as well as their career.”
During her years at BlaBlaCar, Svitlana made several moves in the Community Relations team, her first one to focus more closely on members’ behavior. She quickly got interested in identifying and fighting fraudulent and negative behavior on the platform.
“My manager gave me the flexibility I needed to spend more time with what I was interested in and where I performed better. After less than a year working as Member Relations Agent, I took on a new role as Behavior Specialist where I was not only digging into member activity, but also organizing internal training sessions for the Community Relations team. It was crucial that they understood the process, so we trained them and created guidelines on how to escalate cases.”
After moving up in the Trust & Safety team at BlaBlaCar, Svitlana is today leading a team of four people based in Paris, Warsaw, and São Paulo, who all focus on safety. Her favorite part about her job? Flexibility.
“One of the things I like the most is the working policy. I appreciate the environment that we have, regardless of my age, gender or nationality, I feel like we’re all equals. After seven years, I still feel happy to go to work, and I think that’s something really special.”
Sarah Krenn — Senior Training & Knowledge Manager
It’s been eight years since Sarah first joined BlaBlaCar as Community Relations Agent for Germany. Originally from Austria, Sarah has lived in Paris since joining BlaBlaCar and enjoys life in France ever since. Today, Sarah is responsible for the Training & Knowledge team in the Community Relations department. Her team’s mission is to act as a support system for the entire department, enabling all teams to deliver high quality support.
“My team provides documentation, processes, training and responds to questions from agents within the department which consists today of around 250 people working towards 22 different countries.”
The role Sarah has today is quite different from the one she had when initially joining BlaBlaCar as an agent.
“When I had finished my Bachelor’s degree in Tourism Management, I moved to Paris to join BlaBlaCar’s Community Relations team where I was working with the German market. At the time I was replying to requests, moderating content, and escalating feedback from members.”
After some time working in the German team, Sarah took on different responsibilities, first handling the German support content and later on acting as a local coach.
“In the German team I was able to work on a variety of different tasks which helped me to develop my skills. Localizing and managing our German Support Content was one of them. Later on, I became the local coach for the German team.”
After spending almost four years in the local team, Sarah moved to the global team as a trainer, training new members who joined the department. Nine months later, she became the manager of the team. Her favorite part? The great team spirit.
“I love working with people who care about what they are doing and want to grow with the company. It’s very dynamic, I wouldn’t have stayed this long in the company if everything would always stay the same.”
Today she is managing six people working in Paris, São Paulo, and Warsaw. Her secret to managing a remote team is getting together both virtually and in person.
“I’m happy to work in such an international team, I speak different languages every day with people from different cultures and backgrounds. Since the pandemic, remote work has become natural for us and is not a big deal anymore. We try to meet up virtually every week, and have at least one fun event per month. I also try to make sure that we can see each other in person regularly.”
One of her favorite memories with BlaBlaCar? The BlaBlaShow.
“It was amazing! The event was organized by our Engagement team, where we could volunteer to perform on stage, getting professional coaches to help us create a performance. I was part of a group who performed a hip-hop dance performance; it was so much fun and one of my most cherished moments with BlaBlaCar.”
Special thanks to Svitlana Bogdanova & Sarah Krenn for sharing your stories with us. Thank you Emilie Baliozian, Amaya Ariza & Laetitia Melchior for your review & feedback.
Ready to join the ride? We’re hiring! Learn more: https://jobs.blablacar.com/
