My Story

I was a pensive kid. I preferred my own thoughts to the company of my peers. And whatever I wanted to figure out, I figured out myself. In primary school I got hooked on my mum's old French dictionaries - and I learned the language from them. No teacher, no course. Simply because I enjoyed it. Well, I have to admit, I can't hold a conversation in French anymore.

At sixteen I started selling Oriflame. Nobody around really believed in it. But my mum backed me at the start. So I ran with it! Within six months I had a network of almost two hundred people and five managers of my own. The payouts came every three weeks. And for the first time I had it in black and white - the thing I'd heard at home all through my childhood. "Where there's a will, there's a way!"

"Where there's a will, there's a way!"

The other sentence I kept hearing at home was "learn languages and get out into the world." So I got out. Croatia - tourism. Within a month I could hold a conversation in Croatian. The Maldives - HR. Then Romania. I applied for a customer service agent role. The manager interviewing me said I was a born leader and should be running a team. So I tried it. At twenty-six I was leading the Czech customer service of a German fintech in Bucharest. Then Hamburg. Wiesbaden as Head of Customer Service. A corporate in Belgium. Remote for a Berlin company.

Croatia → Maldives → Romania → Germany → Belgium → Greece

And everywhere, the same pattern. For the first few months I went flat out. I found where the team and the processes were losing time and money. Pushed the changes through. Reported results that saved real money. Then came the routine of everyday management - necessary work, but not where I'm strongest. The big changes that energize me were already done. And when I saw a problem outside my department and wanted to help, I hit the limits of my role. But a company's problems don't care about department lines.

When the Berlin company was bought by Canadians, our paths parted. And instead of panic, what I felt was relief. I realised I didn't want to be an employee who only enjoys the first six months of a job.

Before deciding what next, I left for a season in Greece. Tourism is an old love of mine. Guests saw me as a rep. In reality I was running operations and logistics behind the scenes, so that problems never reached the guests. Because good operations are the ones nobody notices. While working in Greece, a former manager called me. "Eva, I remember how fast you find a problem and fix it. We need you at a company." I said yes. And doing that work, it clicked. This - come in, find it, fix it, hand it over - I can do this all the time! Across different companies, on multiple fronts.

"Good operations are the ones nobody notices."

Oh, and the numbers aren't the whole story. I don't just fix processes. I see people's strengths as fast as I see broken workflows. When automation takes over part of the work, it doesn't make people redundant. It means they can do the work the company actually lacks - and I help them find it. For example, a student from customer care works as a project manager today, because I saw that talent in her before she did. People who want change, I point to where they're most valuable to the company. Because employee experience translates into customer experience. Every time.