As Airly, we create a diverse team full of extraordinary personalities. Our new intAIRview interview series aims to show our team members from a professional and more private side. Time to find out who is behind the mission to repair the air.
Today, intAIRview’s guest will be Marta Steiner, our Product Strategist.
Who are you and what is your role at Airly?
I am a person who loves puzzles, analysis, research and development challenges. I also like to connect the dots and notice connections that are not visible at first glance to create something fresh that makes the world a better place.
At Airly, I am a Product Strategist and this role gives me a wide range of creation – I am responsible for creating, releasing and developing products that meet the needs of users from various segments and markets. In other words – together with my team, I release products to the world that allow Airly customers to achieve their business goals, develop and make me grow too.
What drives you to work with Airly?
Certainly a mission focused on repairing what is beautiful and important, but damaged or broken, and this is the air in the world. I also like the ambitious vision of the global operation of Airly, because it makes the whole team focus all their powers on repairing air in Poland and in several dozen countries around the world. It is a challenge that requires long-term, multi-faceted activities and often leaves your comfort zone. This is a vision that I identify with.
Privately, I am an eco-geek. My children know very well how to segregate rubbish, why it is worth reusing a water bottle instead of a plastic one, why food should not be wasted and why things should be reused. After hours I run a small blog Geeksforplanet.com with my friends, where I publish content about nature protection. I’m on my way with Airly.
What is, in your opinion, the recipe for a real improvement in air quality around the world?
I think that the key word is the mentality of societies around the world and of each individual. I really dislike when the blame for the progressive degradation of nature, including polluted air, is put onto someone else or an undefined crowd. The air in Poland is polluted mainly with suspended dust from domestic heating sources, in the UK the cause of pollution is, among others, other transport, including road traffic. It’s not a million people sitting in one car, only 1-3-5 people sitting in a million cars. Each of us has an impact on air pollution and there are many actions we can take to reduce it.
I am very proud of the new Airly platform launched in the SaaS model, which allows you to measure and analyze sources of pollution in place and time and take targeted reduction measures. The new Product that I have the opportunity to create and develop has a built-in mechanism for tracking community behavior. This tool connects local governments, businesses and large corporations with community groups and ordinary people around the world. Thanks to Airly, these two groups have a chance to meet, understand and act as part of the common mission #RepairTheAir.
What is a person working as a Product Strategist striving for?
A Product Strategist strives to maximize value. Such a sentence can be found in guides for specialists in the field of Product Management. But what does that even mean? For me, it is striving to fulfill the mission and vision of the organization in such a way as to provide user groups with value that they will notice, appreciate and thanks to it will start to achieve their goals, while generating value for Airly. This generated value may be revenue, brand recognition and its best reputation in the market, well-established competitive advantage or acquiring a new segment of recipients.
The strategist selects resources and solutions in such a way that the implementation of the mission is possible in a given time, without unnecessary costs, while maintaining the good condition of the teams and high-quality products.
What is the biggest mistake a product strategist can make?
I think there are many mistakes that can be made in this role. One of them is creating a product strategy without being firmly connected to the mission, vision and strategy of the entire organization or contrary to its values. Another mistake is forgetting that in this role you have to look around you very broadly, study the market and accept that it is constantly and rapidly changing.
The only artifact of the company that should not change is the company’s mission, because the mission includes values that the company wants to deliver or support. But what initiatives it takes to deliver these values depends on many factors, including those beyond the organization itself. Repression of change, striving for it not to occur or the fear of change is a mistake in the processes of strategy implementation.
What are you passionate about outside of work?
I have a lot of passions, but I do not want to give up any of them, which often makes me feel overloaded. I write children’s fairy tales in prose and verse, I hope to publish them soon. I am very interested in phenomena in nature and animals that I write about on my blog. I am learning to play the guitar, sailing on Polish lakes, I love camping in the woods and hiking in the mountains. I photograph plants and learn to recognize them since I discovered that I probably didn’t study biology very diligently at school.
I also love my work and the field of Product Management, which I learned on my own, starting as a journalist in Wirtualna Polska many years ago. I am attracted to so many things that the art of cutting off ideas and cravings seems to be the biggest challenge, because there is never less of them.
What’s the most surprising thing you’ve realized lately?
With every experience in life, I am just as amazed at how much depends on our attitude and the way we view the world and people. Similarly, I am very surprised to discover that the process of human maturation never ends and there is no such thing as “reaching maturity”. It may sound a bit philosophical, but that’s what I have in mind.
What surprised you the most when you became part of the Airly team?
People – curious, open-minded and passionate. But also people who work hard and still learn to effectively change the world and do not give up. I know what the work ethic is and I am not letting go, so we fit together perfectly.
What’s your next biggest dream?
Recently, I’ve had a very simple dream – I dream about peace in the world and people finding inner peace.