I joined KC in 2018 with five years of sales experience (three in KC, three in B2B sales) when there were only seven-eight people and it was my third or fourth recruitment. Literally, from the second or third week I started helping with onboarding newbies. I also invented and organized an "Appealing Events" group, where I shared my knowledge in sports, described the top upcoming matches, so that each manager could brightly sell a free bet. Also I actively participated in the creation and implementation of our current selling conversation skeleton.

In February 2019, at the moment when we moved from the very first office to the shopping center in the Shulyavka district, I became a team-leader. At that time, there were two teams, which were launched to test the current format of work (one TL for 7-14 people), the test was successful and in 2019-2020 I gathered a successful team of eight people who worked and showed top results (from that team one employee became the head of sales, one – a team leader, four – continue to show top results in the position of manager, and we are still friendly and occasionally meet offline). I also took part in the life and development of KC in parallel. At that time, we moved to Pochajna area to our own almost personal premises, KC grew and developed, and I together with it. We experienced the first waves of Covid-19, learned to work remotely, and grew and developed! During that period there were a lot of interesting tasks, a lot of ideas, the realization of which were like a challenge for every Pin-up member! During this period, I got my "graduate" degree in management, and, it turns out, I am that rare case, because I work "on the specialty".

In March 2021, I became head of sales. At that time, we began global scaling, from three sales teams we expanded first to six (we formed and launched AZ-direction), by the fall of 2021 – to nine (we added UZ to the two CIS ones), and since March 2022 – we have got ten full-fledged friendly teams that work as one! During this time, we have experienced many difficult, and yet, bright periods: a couple more waves of Covid, well and... the war, which was a real blow to us. However, in the second week, the first brave Pin-uppers started making outgoing calls, and in a month KC was fully revived. 25% more of us, and in general we have already reached the "pre-war" indicators. One of the things I can boast about is the high-stakes testing motivation! I am wildly grateful to my favorite team of team-leaders who inspired the implementation of this theme!

I joined PIN-UP in November 2019 for the position of online chat operator. At first it was terribly difficult! I didn't understand anything, the product was hard to comprehend, and even at the training stage I had thoughts of leaving. Probably, the support of the trainer played a role in the fact that I didn't leave, in particular, for which I thank him very much.

After three-four months I was fully involved and could even help others – newcomers who came to us.

After about half a year I became a team-leader and after about seven-eight months I took the position of a department manager.

From day one to today, I have never been bored. The ecosystem is dynamic, so you’re always in the tone, there are always 1000 and one tasks:) And, most importantly, the environment is a cool team, people who energize, thanks to whom every morning I start with the thought “how much I love my job, I love what I do”.

I started working at PIN-UP in March 2020 as an online chat operator (L1). At that time, I was in my second year of university and apart from a strong desire to develop in life, a small amount of general theoretical knowledge and a few motivational books I had read, I had nothing else, including actual work experience.

I got used to the position of an operator quite quickly and the work did not cause me any difficulties, but I had a clear understanding that I wanted to move on.

Four months later, at the end of July 2020, I was interviewed by the L2 team (thanks to Dmytro Horovyk for the opportunity) and in August 2020 I started working as an L2 specialist. At that time, there was one team of five people in the L2 department. I enjoyed the work process very much, I learned and studied new things every day, faced problems and dealt with them. After three months on the job, there was my first attempt to respond to the L2 team leader position. I didn't pass. I was not upset, I made conclusions and realized that I still lacked experience and my turn would definitely come. I spent the next 14 months still working as an L2 specialist and in January 2022 the opportunity to take the position of a team leader under a new license to be launched and build a team with 0. At that moment I was absolutely confident in myself, my performance and knowledge were at a high level and I had a clear understanding of what I wanted to implement or change in the workflows. This time, fate smiled on me and Denys Saveliev gave me this opportunity.

I became a team leader and had to build a team from scratch and at the same time take a “School of Managers” intensive course provided by the company. Everything went very well until the launch of the new project, where I was working in tandem with the COM team leader to solve accumulated problems, implement new work processes and get used to the new place.

In February 2022, the project was launched, but the war made its adjustments and the formation of my team was postponed indefinitely. In June 2022, I formed my team from scratch. It is working and showing good results now, there are a lot of plans for its development ahead.

Hi everyone, my name is Antonina and at the moment I am the head of the PIN-UP sales department in Kazakhstan.

Read what I write below and you will understand why I love the company I work for so much.

Two years ago, when the first wave of the coronavirus deprived me of my job as a waitress, I was on the edge of starvation and started sending my resume to those vacancies that seemed interesting to me, and most importantly, which necessarily had the clause: “The company has training”. That's how I ended up in PIN-UP. I still remember with a smile that at the interview, when asked “Why do you want a job?” I answered simply and succinctly “I want to eat”.

And now I’ll tell you about how I went from being a manager to an ROP. The story is quite ordinary – I work well, I strive for results and I really want to grow together with the company and the people in it.

I didn't pass my first interview for a team leader. I applied for the position after five months with the company. And at the moment when I was to be told the results, I already realized that I was not ready then. My manager also knew that. From that day on, I had one goal – to pass the next interview and become a TL. So I worked hard on myself and when my supervisor called me four months later to announce the results of my next TL interview, I knew I had passed.

The work of a manager is not easy, and in fact, any job requires a tremendous amount of effort from an employee, and working with a team is another level altogether. It's not just people with whom you work and set them tasks, it's your family, with whom you live joy, sorrow, victories, defeats, and do EVERYTHING so that these people can not just work, but enjoy what they do. After all, this is the true high of every manager.
I can't tell you exactly what magical qualities you must have to be a leader, but I can pinpoint two that I have and that I believe have contributed greatly to my being in this great country and working with great people. Perhaps they will become useful to you as well:

1. The desire to learn new things and have new experiences. A lot of smart people have already written, and I'll just quote: investing in yourself is the most valuable investment you can make. Think, educate yourself, learn new things, generate hundreds of different ideas! It's far from certain that all of them will materialize, and yet, when even one of them does, it's definitely worth a try.

2. Goal setting. While still in the TL position, I clearly told my manager that sooner or later, I would grow higher. I received a sincere smile in response and the phrase: “It would be strange if you didn't say that”. In life, you need to set goals, achieve them and set new ones (if you want to understand how, start with SMART). And a clear plan will help you look for and find opportunities to realize them.

This is how I grow, by gradually working on myself, with my team and colleagues. Eventually, your aspirations and efforts definitely pay for themselves. This is what happened to me when I received an offer for a position as an ROP in Kazakhstan. This is a big step in my life, and it will definitely bring me unforgettable emotions and experience.

Above is just my story. And do you know how many people like me are here? And everyone is unique, intelligent, beautiful in their originality and individuality! At the very beginning I wrote that you will understand why I love my company, so these are the opportunities that you can get here, knowledge and skills that you can develop here, people, which you will definitely meet here! Oh, and the money, of course. The only way to give your all to your work is with a good income. And I will say this – I do everything to not just give myself, I live this job, I love the company, which gave me so many opportunities, and what is the most important, this love is 100% mutual. And if after reading my story you have a desire to join our magical PIN-UP team – do it! Believe my experience – it will be one of the best decisions of your life!

My success story started a long time ago. Yes, success does not come out of nowhere and all of a sudden. You need to work on yourself and not be afraid of the problems that arise at every stage.

Back in 2007, when I studied at NTUU “KPI” (National Technical University of Ukraine
“Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”), being a second-year student and living in a dormitory, part-time jobs, in order to earn small quick money, bored and I decided that I need to try something permanent. In the end, I tried my best. Routine and monotonous work did not scare me, so the free schedule and remote work did their job.

After getting into the essence and specifics, in a few months I reached the upper limit of my productivity and realized that it was necessary to automate and optimize my workflow. For the employer, the volume and quality remained at the same level, but my work, which I used to take six-eight hours a day, first turned into four hours, and after a couple of months it took one-two hours a day, while with automation I increased the volume and earned more than at the start.

Getting away from the topic of the story, I would like to say that I spent at this job for more than ten years, working in parallel offline in offices at my main jobs. And only when I came to PIN-UP I decided to give it up in favor of productivity at my new workplace.

Let's get back to the story. University was over and the first office job continued my vector of direction towards content. I optimized and automated every workflow in order to increase productivity. The rule of thumb is to do more, faster, but by no means at the expense of quality. Having reached the maximum without the possibility of growth in the company, I moved to another firm to the position of the same content manager.

And in the new firm, with my approach to work, I grew up to the head of the content department in one year. I had eight people under me. Everything worked like clockwork, but there was one thing... There was no possibility of growth.
And then, talking to one of my acquaintances, I learned about the online gaming sphere. I had never seen or heard of it before. I had a dream to get into this sphere, whatever it would cost me. I converted the dream into a goal, the goal into a plan and began to realize it.

I chose to consciously downshift with the goal of getting into the sphere. After turning down a management level, facing a recruiter's misunderstanding in an interview, I was hired by a gambling company. Hired for the position of chat operator).
And then it was business as usual. You have to do more, do better, think not only about yourself, but about the company first and foremost. After all, you are part of the company, part of a big family.

A chat operator grew into a night VIP manager, then into a second line support employee, then into a team leader of the same second support line. And eventually I became the CTO of the contact center. All the technical issues, integrations – it's all mine.

But. But severe burnout as a consequence of incorrect management pushed me to leave the company.

And that’s when PIN-UP came into my life. It was an ambitious plan to launch a contact center, with writing its own CRM-system for the work of future employees. Building working processes, thinking out the smallest details as much as possible, and as a result, in a few years allowed to grow from an “idea” to the largest division in the PIN-UP.

I am the deputy head of the contact center for technical issues.
A lot has changed during these five years of operation. PIN-UP regularly adapts to the realities of the market and always goes one step ahead to be not at the level, but above.

As part of PIN-UP, I don't just fulfill my responsibilities, I adapt with the team, coming up with new tools and processes to increase performance and profits.
From the first day of work in PIN-UP I started to study absolutely all available information, read technical documentation, and go with a lot of questions to understand all aspects of work. This allowed me not only to correctly write TOR for CRM system realization, but also to think through all technical details in the work of the department, which later turned into instructions and regulations. There is no chaos, there are processes. And they work.

Building up the correct communication allowed us to get up-to-date information on all plans and innovations, which gives the opportunity to flexibly prepare for the launch of new projects and build interaction with other departments.

Constantly automating work processes, coming up with new technical solutions, interacting with IT teams, generating ideas and testing them in practice. Making informed decisions and weighing risks. Analyzing statistics and getting feedback. Regulations, processes, meetings, correspondence, searching for answers to questions, solving problems, new challenges... (Everyday my head is boiling). And it's cool!
It is cool that you do not go with the flow, but increase the wave, change the vector of direction! You develop, learn new things, analyze the past, form the future!
Is this the limit? – No. Success is not some achievable point, because there are always more successful people. It is a relative concept that characterizes the current state in relation to the past and sets the vector of development for the future. And only self-development and desire, with the absence of fear, allow me to achieve success.

Epilogue.
One should not be afraid to experiment, to fall, to transform, to change. One must be flexible, adaptive, open and courageous. And I got into PIN-UP not by advertisement, but because of the result that I achieved by the goals I set.

I joined PIN-UP on March 21, when the SMM Team consisted of four people: SMM leader, SMM manager (who thought he had been a leader before the real leader came), moderator and graphic designer.

During this time, I went from a middle to a leader who managed to build a small ads team consisting of two targeting specialists and me 🙂

Every day, in 11+ different countries, we launch 20+ posts in promo.
At the same time, we run separate campaigns to increase the number of followers.
At the same time, we fight against regular bans of advertising accounts.
For two years, the fb ads team has been working in all social networks of the ecosystem:

• new followers: 172К+.
• engagement (likes/comments/shares): 3.2 million+.
• total coverage: 45 million+.

I am proud of what we do and the fact that we use non-standard approaches to achieve our goals.

If you see a lot of PIN-UP activity in your line, it's our work.
If not, refresh your *mic drop* page.

I was on a search. I had already approved an offer from a niche company, and then a former colleague who worked as a CHRD at PIN-UP wrote that they had a new position open then – SMM team leader.

What followed was a short 15 minute interview with the CMO.
He turned out to know my case from the previous job.

At the time, there was no SMM team. There were a couple of managers with almost complete freedom from different countries as part of the marketing team.

I started from scratch: there was no strategy, no structure, no processes, etc.
After three months I got a promotion – head of SMM.
And now I have been in PIN-UP for two and a half years.