Focus: Oleks, relocating from Ukraine to France at 16 and joining the Fintech ecosystem
In September 2015, I woke up in a small room in Rennes, one of the cities in the French province. This was my first day as a French student. What an honorary title, I thought then. To look like a real Frenchie, I bought a petit café et croissant for breakfast at the bakery around the corner and went to the first university lecture of my life. Oh my God, French people are speaking so fast (all non-native francophones should nod here)! This is what I thought after coming back home, as I literally didn’t get half of the words that professors were saying. So, I spent my evening with a French-Ukrainian dictionary, translating the notes of that first lecture that other students kindly shared with me.
This was the first day of a 16-years-old me that had just moved to France to follow her dream and get her higher education there. This article describes the long journey of a girl with an Ukrainian accent who ended up working in Marketing & Communication for French Fintech companies.
But first things first.
Girl with an Ukrainian accent
For those who don’t know me, I’m Oleksandra, but everybody calls me Oleks. I was born in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine in Eastern Europe (as a real Ukrainian, I would rather call it Central Europe, but it’s another debate) and I spent all of my childhood there. I studied at a school specialised in the French language, this is how I fell in love with French culture and France overall. During my studies, I did many exchanges: one of them was at 8 years old, when my parents sent me to France for one month to live in a French family and practice the language. Useless to mention that my knowledge of French at 8 years old was far from being perfect. Yes, it was a real challenge for little me, but looking back, I’m super grateful for that experience as it taught me, from a very young age, how to be independent and communicate with people all around the world.
Fun fact: I didn’t like France at the first glance and told my mum I would never ever come back there. 20 years after, she still reminds me of those words 😉
After finishing my high school in Ukraine, I was sure I wanted to continue my studies abroad. I was thinking about the UK, Italy, America or Canada… but the choice quickly fell on France. At that time, I had been studying French for 11 years and had a pretty confident level. So I sent my documents to several universities and got a positive response from University Rennes II.
Spoiler: the biggest challenge of my life
Oh that day! I still remember in details the emotions of a 16-years-old me opening the mailbox with the big kraft envelope and French stamps on it (it was the first real letter I’ve received from abroad!). Yes, I was 16 years old when I got accepted to the University, and this besides the fact that people were telling me it’s impossible.
Don’t listen to others and just do it — one of my biggest insights of that time.
How did I get it? Well, I started primary school at 5 and with 11 years of a secondary education, I got my diploma at 16. And this is where all the problems started. 😅
You can imagine, moving to a foreign country alone while being minor is not the easiest mission, at least from a legal point of view. To skip all the details, I had to: find a tutor who would accept to take the full legal responsibility for me in the city where I knew absolutely nobody; find a landlord who would accept to rent a room for a minor foreign girl because I couldn’t get a student residence; get a student visa when the list of the documents requested were conceived only for adults; and a lot of other paperwork that I have never done before.
So, I rolled up my sleeves and started preparing it all because it was my big dream and I couldn’t just let it go. Four months later, I got my visa and bought the one-way ticket to Paris. This is how the French chapter of my life began. 🇫🇷
Study hard, play hard
I moved to Rennes and started my first year at the University Rennes II in the faculty of Information and Communication. What a wonderful time! When I finally got used to hearing French language 24h/day, things became much easier. At that time, I discovered a true French concept of apéro, real students parties until dawn and enjoyed to the max the university life.
Later, during my studies I spent some time in the Netherlands and Belgium, diving deeper into Intercultural and Business Communications. But France was calling me back, so I returned to Paris and joined CELSA, Sorbonne University to finish my Master in Media and Digital Communications.
From non-profit to the French Fintech
After graduation, I knew that I wanted to work in marketing in a for-profit company.
Why marketing? Because thanks to my studies I got a great overview of this field and this is something I still wanted to deepen my knowledge in after 5 years of education (and this is a pretty good sign 😉 ). Also, I did several internships, so it helped me to discover different aspects of such roles as Communication Officer and Marketing Manager.
Why for-profit? Because unexpectedly for myself, by the end of my studies, all my professional experience was in non-profit organisations, like the United Nations for example. While it was super rewarding to work for a social change, and it truly convinced me that Marketing is the area I would like to build my career in, I also realized that NGOs were not something made for me. In fact, the scope of marketing and communications in such organisations remains quite limited and very framed.
After all that experience, I decided to try something entirely new for myself. This is how I joined the branding team of Lunchr at that time, later Swile, a well-known French startup, to work on the rebranding and the new brand image overall. And it was a super adventure! To be honest, I was a bit sceptical about working in a startup, and it has never been my goal. But after passing several interviews, it was clear that this world of challenges, ownership and constant growth was made for me. So, I decided to stay here for a bit, and I am still super delighted about that decision.
The app that rewards you everyday
One evening, I got a message on LinkedIn from Gauthier, the CMO of Joko. He was looking for a person who would take over Joko’s branding and communications, and he thought I could be a good candidate. I’ve heard about Joko before (yes, in French Fintech everybody knows everyone), and it looked like a nice company with a strong vision, so without any doubts I accepted to pass the first interview.
Two months after that first call, I got the job offer. The job offer in the company that surprised me by a strong corporate culture where everything is done for employees and their wellbeing. What do I mean? Here are several examples:
Work from anywhere policy. As I have an international profile, it was important for me to be able to work from anywhere in France, and even sometimes abroad. Not to be constrained to come to the office, but to do my work efficiently from home if I feel more productive working in pyjama on my sofa drinking morning coffee. This is exactly what Joko offers to its employees and we all, internally, appreciate these flexible working conditions.
Ownership. Whether you are an intern or a CEO, everybody at Joko is a full owner of their projects. Your manager is always there to help you, but they are not the one taking decisions in your place. They can give you a piece of advice, but it’s always you who gives a final word on your projects. And of course, it’s also you who owns the consequences. It was a perfect match with my way of working, as I like to have an autonomy while handling my projects from A to Z.
Benefits. Joko provides not only the usual benefits, like meal vouchers, health insurance and the latest Apple equipment, but goes well beyond by caring about your personal life and professional growth. For example, there is 1 day per quarter offered for your volunteer work. For me, who is coming from a non-profit background, it was important to continue contributing to a social change, and I’m happy to keep doing it with Joko.
To learn more about our internal culture, please visit this page 👉 Meet Joko
Branding, quésaco?
Did I say that I accepted the offer? Well, I guess you understood that from the first lines of this blog post. To finalize the story, I think it’s worth telling you what the job of Brand & Communication Manager at Joko looks like.
Branding. I am the person responsible for Joko’s brand image: what people think about us and how we want to be perceived, what are the actions we’re taking to achieve that. This is a very complex and global mission, as the modelling of our branding happens on different touchpoints, from the app itself to the care team answers by email. This is why I’m working with most of the teams internally to ensure our brand image stays coherent and consistent throughout the user’s journey. Moreover, there have been some changes at Joko, and we recently released our plans to power your shopping here. Of course, the branding will follow this evolution, and this is the very big project I’m currently working on. Can’t wait to show it to the world, stay tuned! 😎
Communications. Another part of my job consists in communicating with all our users on behalf of Joko via different communication channels, like emails, push notifications, social media, etc. Our Brand & Comms team produces newsletters featuring the best deals of the moment, supports the Product team with new features release and interacts with our community regularly. So if you are still not subscribed to our newsletters, you definitely should. I would be happy to send you some exclusive info directly to your mailbox.
Long story short
So here it is. Now you know all about my story and I hope you enjoyed reading this. If you ask me what is one thing you need to remember, I would tell you:
“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”
Push your boundaries, take challenges and do things other people think impossible. Set the bar high, and get those things done.
If it’s something that resonates with your values, you should probably check out our vacancies here. I would be happy to see you joining our team alongside me and my amazing colleagues.
Have you already checked their blog posts?
See you,
Oleksandra
