Meet the Team: Anastasya Fomenko

Meet Anastasya Fomenko, our Regional Growth Manager. Born in Turkmenistan, Anastasya and her family moved to Ukraine when she was just three months old. Ever since then, she hasn’t been able to stop travelling. 

Here, Anastasya Fomenko discusses her background in media and journalism, her love for linguistics and the digital world, adapting to working from home, the importance of exercise and her big ambitions for TransferGo. 

“My career in digital marketing, growth and sales started almost twenty years ago. I worked in TV before my studies…

I’m Ukrainian, but I’ve spent a lot of my life travelling. My father worked as an engineer, so we’d often move to follow his work. We moved to Ukraine when I was a baby and stayed there for a few years before moving to Kazakhstan and later, Russia. Once the work dried up there, we moved back to Ukraine. 

I started working in my last two years at school. I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a career, so my father encouraged me to try working at various companies for one or two months, even if it was unpaid. And so I volunteered at a local TV channel, working in tech support for a broadcaster. I worked in the evenings after school once I’d finished my homework.

After a while, I got promoted and had the chance to help journalists, before becoming a journalist myself. I interviewed people and recorded videos for TV and news channels. It was a really nice experience. I would have loved to become a journalist full time but I didn’t have time as I was applying to study Linguistics at university. The course covered a lot—from using language in advertising to defining people’s personalities by the way they speak and pronounce words. It was very interesting.”

“I worked for one of the first leading digital companies in Ukraine. At the time, we had dial-up internet and nobody had heard of Google or Facebook…

After my studies, I moved to Kiev. I think of Kiev as my Motherland as I’ve spent most of my life there. I worked for an internet portal and it was the first company that introduced search engines, news portals and marketplaces in Ukraine. At the time, we had dial-up internet and nobody had heard of Google and Facebook. We were pioneers. That’s when I realised I loved working in digital. I love how it connects people.

Over the next few years, I worked with media companies, web studios and global websites. At one point, I managed a team of 30 people. I also worked for one of the biggest Polish media holding companies when Ukraine was in the middle of facing another crisis and publishers were really struggling. I started out as Project Manager and left as Marketing Director. Later, Ukraine experienced another crisis. At the time, I worked for a programmatic start-up. Nobody wanted to buy advertising at the time. Our digital projects and solutions really helped Ukrainian publishers survive that crisis. At first, I managed Ukraine and then Russia and then I expanded into other countries like Hong Kong and Latin America. My experience there was very successful.

You have to be flexible in this industry and be up to date with whatever’s happening. That’s why I love working at TransferGo. I also love that I support fellow Ukrainians and other migrants. We give them something useful and help them save money. I’ve always wanted to be the bridge between technology and the people in Ukraine. Since my career journey began, I’ve been dedicated to digital media, sales and growth.”

“I’m responsible for growth, marketing and supporting our product. But I also share my knowledge of Ukraine with whoever needs it…

I started working for TransferGo three years ago as the Growth Manager. At the time, I was the only person working on growing the Ukrainian hub and it’s grown very well since then. I’m responsible for all Ukrainians in Ukraine and abroad. I work on everything from growth and marketing to supporting our product and banking teams.

I also share my knowledge about Ukrainian’s mentality, behaviours and the markets they’re used to. For example, in Ukraine, it’s common to transfer money from card to card. They’ve been doing it for 10 years. However, in Poland, it’s not as popular as there are other local services available. My knowledge comes in useful for different teams. I act as the bridge, transferring my knowledge of Ukraine to whoever in the company needs it to do their job more efficiently and achieve results.”

“I’m very self-motivated, but the idea of helping Ukrainians and other migrants drives me a lot. I feel inspired when we see results…

I’m very self-motivated so I don’t really need anything to drive me from the outside. I’m very organised. I like to plan things and follow those plans and I’m completely dedicated to what I do. On the other hand, I’m flexible and adapt quickly to changes and new strategies. I always try to give 150%. Simply because I love what I do.

That said, the idea that I can bring good things to Ukrainians and migrants in other countries is a big driver for me. I love our team and how we collaborate. Despite Covid and remote working, we’ve remained a good team and achieved great results. However, we’re used to remote working in Warsaw. At first, it was just me working in Warsaw, and then another person eventually joined our team. So all along, we haven’t had a lot of face-to-face integration with the teams in London and Vilnius. I’ve only been to London and Vilnius once. But we jumped into remote working easily and achieved good results. When I see results and meet targets, it makes me proud and happy. And it inspires me to do more and more.”

“I love the culture at TransferGo. There’s no micromanagement and everybody trusts each other to do their job…

I love how you can be flexible and independent at TransferGo. There’s no micromanagement. Your team trusts that you are an expert. On the other hand, if you need some support or shared knowledge or you have questions, there are always people willing to help and give you answers. It’s a great balance.

I’m really proud that I can help and support Ukrainians and migrants by providing a reliable and low-cost and high-quality service. It’s also great that every customer can reach our Customer Support agents by phone and meet the real person behind the screen—not just by emails and messaging. They interact with and talk to real people and it pays off. Our customers love our Customer Support team.”

“It was difficult keeping work and life separate in the beginning of lockdowns, but routine and exercise helped a lot…

Covid-19 didn’t really cause many issues for me. Once I realised we’d be working from home for a long time, I changed things up at home a little to make things more comfortable. I bought a better desk and organised a proper work station. My life became a lot more digital and I relied more on apps to keep in touch with my family and friends. And I learned to cook a lot of new meals.

I also become a lot more independent in the sense of my well-being. Before lockdowns, I used to exercise a lot outside of the home but I had to create a new routine. I started exercising at home on my balcony and it worked pretty well. Even today, I’ve realised I don’t need to go to the gym anymore. However, I’ve started going to group training sessions again—but that’s more for socialising, rather than exercise.

Achieving the work/life balance was difficult at first because I worked 12 hours a day. With everything being closed—even the park—we all had to stay at home, and online classes weren’t as readily available as they are now. So for a while, it was all work, work, work. Simultaneously, TransferGo experienced an enormous spike. Everybody wanted to transfer money. 

After a few months, I realised that working so much from home wasn’t sustainable. It wasn’t going to make me feel good. That’s when I decided to make time for exercise every day—even if I wasn’t in the mood. And I always felt much better. I believe exercise is as essential as food and sleep. That, along with eating breakfast on the balcony every morning while the birds were singing, made a difference. I found my way eventually, and I enjoyed it.”

“I’d love to see TransferGo continue expanding. My ambition is to see them go global…

Looking forward, I’d love to see TransferGo continue to grow. I believe we can one day cover the whole world. It would be great to see everybody being able to transfer money fast, easily and without frustration. I hope I will grow with the company, too.

I constantly monitor migrants and where they go, banking news and trends and listen to what people say and verify. A friend of mine called me recently and told me that he’d moved to Indonesia for work, which really surprised me. We know Ukrainians move to Poland and other European countries for work, but not as far as Indonesia. We’re now growing our efforts into expanding in Indonesia and I’m really proud that we discovered that destination.”

“I love nature, animals and planets. Washing an elephant in India was a huge highlight for me…

If I had to share some fun facts about myself, I’d say that being a Ukrainian born in Turkmenistan is quite unusual. I lived in Kazakhstan and the Far East too.

In terms of hobbies, I love sports and activities. I love to snowboard, skateboard, rollerblade, surf and dance salsa. I love travelling, meeting new people and experiencing new things. Highlights for me have included experiencing a flight simulator, renting a helicopter, seeing Acqua alta in Venice or… washing an elephant.

I once went on holiday to India came really close to an elephant. I was more interested in washing and feeding it, than riding it. Elephants are so smart and cute. They gave me a huge thing to wash it with. It was a fantastic experience.”

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