Connecting personal values with the company mission: Gerard Pinar, Supply Analytics Lead
We’ve chatted to Gerard about the scope and challenges of his role, what captivated him to move into EdTech, and biggest learnings from working during the COVID-19 pandemic.
What‘s the scope of your role here at Preply?
As the Supply Analytics Lead, my goal is to support the Supply & Enterprise areas made up of teams like Liquidity, Tutor Performance, Tutor Training, Tutor Success, Supply Product, Supply CRM, Supply Growth, Enterprise Sales & Account Management, and we also assist Customer Support. The most impressive thing is that we handle all these areas with only a team of three. (Thank you team for keeping up with this big scope!). Our goal is to provide teams with the right tools to enable them make the best decisions on a daily basis. We are also involved in the decision-making process which makes it very exciting!
What has been your career journey before joining Preply?
Five years ago I was a junior accountant at a small consulting firm, but after discovering the data world and startup scene, I instantly felt that it was my thing. I joined Deliveroo as an account management intern in Barcelona, then I got the chance to be the first Business & Operations Strategy member of their Spanish team. After some time, I got an exciting opportunity at Deliveroo HQ in London as a Business Intelligence analyst, and a year later I became a Data Science manager.
Why did you decide to join Preply?
I saw the connection between my own values and the purpose of the company. My biggest ambition is to make the world a better place, and my main belief to do that is through education. After Deliveroo, I wanted to do something with a bigger social impact, and I thought that helping out people to learn languages more efficiently is a great way to start. Since most of the content on the internet is in English, how can people be more aware of all the big challenges we have as a society, e.g. understanding the impact of climate change and the role we have to take care of our planet.
What do you enjoy the most about your job?
Being able to help out human beings by bringing the best out of them — seeing them grow and succeed is the most rewarding feeling for me. I also really love to code SQL, whether it’s to create something new from scratch, improving the performance of a query, or creating new tools for reporting. The best part is that I am constantly learning from our talented team. To this day, I never went to sleep after a workday without learning something new!
What has been your biggest challenge at Preply to date?
We are working on many interesting and complex projects right now. One of the objectives we have is to ensure that Preply has the right number and type of tutors on our platform to enable all learners to find a tutor that fits their learning needs. Another interesting problem we are trying to solve is to define what makes a good tutor, the complexity here being to isolate the student behavior (since learners have different teaching style preferences, this makes teaching style very subjective). We are also growing our team right now! At the moment, we’re hiring for a Senior Data Scientist to join us and help solve these and other interesting challenges. Check out the role and join us!
How does Preply support and empower your professional growth?
The most valuable asset in a company is people, and you get the best people by making sure that every hire we do is a very good professional and cultural fit. I’ve never seen a company making such a massive effort in hiring top-notch talent, and thanks to this we have an insanely talented group of people looking after each other and enabling everyone to grow together. Preply is also equipping managers with an in-depth training program from LifeLabs to empower leaders to drive a continuous culture of coaching, feedback, and development for their teams.
What’s your biggest passion outside of work?
I love racquet sports, so I play either padel or tennis every day. They both have the benefit of helping to improve my mindset, padel because of the teamwork and tennis because of mental toughness. It also helps me to stay fit, hence allowing me to be generous with my other passion — food (most specifically sweet treats!). Daily exercise has become one of the most important parts of my life, not only because of the physical benefits, but to support my mental health. Exercise is tremendously helpful in relieving stress and disconnecting from work after a full day.
What has working during the pandemic taught you?
The importance of physical and mental health. Working in a startup and the data world means moving at a really fast pace all the time; it’s easy to find yourself working long hours, falling into bad eating habits, and forgetting to exercise. So during the last 2 years I learned the importance of dedicating time to take care of myself, both physically and mentally. Since we demand a lot from our body, it’s so important to also give back so that we can continue to learn, perform and contribute the best way we can.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Always seek the positive side of things. Sometimes change can feel scary, but we should see change as an opportunity, not as a threat, in order to continue growing.
Lastly, in the spirit of our continuous learning mindset at Preply — What are you learning right now?
I’ve always been more focused on the execution, but thanks to my manager’s support, I’m learning to have a more strategic mindset, identifying low hanging fruits, and developing a business vision. I really enjoy being a problem solver, and now I’m focused on also being good at identifying impactful problems to tackle head on.
We’re actively growing our data team. If learning about our existing challenges has captured your interest and the opportunity to work in a purpose-led company has piqued your curiosity, then check out our open positions and apply now!
