What is your favorite travel memory?
Wow! A tough question. There are a lot. Visiting an Old Believers’ village in Siberia, zip-lining in Thailand, going to Zhanjiajie in China, home of sandstone pillars that inspired the ‘floating peaks’ in “Avatar”, seeing the world’s largest complete dinosaur fossil collection in Ulaanbaatar and exploring coral reefs in the Philippines are some of them.
I’ll probably tell you a story of visiting Yunnan Nationalities museum in Yunnan, China. It covers a huge territory, and you can spend a whole day there. I saw homes, clothes and customs of over 50 minorities in China. This diversity struck me, even taking into account the big size of China.
It gets one to think about the world as an incredibly rich place, with hundreds of different cultures on the planet. We are truly lucky to see that.
How have you changed/grown since working for your current company?
As an educator with 14 years of teaching experience, years of ESL management and teacher training, I always knew what being a second language learner or a new teacher was like.
However, I was never part of the journey students take after the course is over. This job gave me a chance to learn about another side of the sphere I work in.
It turned out to be very exciting, and as education is one of the fastest developing spheres of life (including the breakthrough of blended learning and international education that we observe nowadays), there’s always a lot to learn.
If you could go on any program that your company offers, which one would you choose and why?
That would most likely be Teaching in China. This would be one of the most rewarding jobs ever. Chinese students are extremely hard-working, and they are motivated, too.
Kids are familiar with interactive approaches to learning from the young age, and hundreds and thousands of adults, who you’d think would be set in their own way and use more traditional study methods, challenge themselves in order to become more successful.
Besides, there are always professional development opportunities, and as teaching is a many-sided career, China an educator’s heaven.
What do you believe to be the biggest factor in being a successful company?
I’m going to say, successful companies always develop. They need to be proactive and open to new opportunities, but they always remember why they are there and what their goal is. Not every company can change the world, but every company can become best at what they do.
They value their people, because each of them can contribute to the company’s greatness. You never know what (or who) will become a new inspiration for you, your customer or the company.
Prioritize your external and internal customers, be attentive to details, keep learning and trying out new things and surround yourself with people that share the same passion, and you’ll become successful. Greatness is in simple things.
