Michaela Stoyanova: Junior Brand Manager at FICOSOTA

🎤 Hi, сould you introduce yourself?

Hi, My name is Mihaela and I like to dream, make people believe in themselves, smile at strangers. Currently, I am a Junior Brand Manager for West Balkan countries in a FMCG company. Last year, 2019 I graduated from the American University in Bulgaria with a Business and Marketing degree. My biggest passion is fashion design and my biggest goal is to create my own company that combines fashion with the business/tech industry to drive change and innovation where a circular economy is much needed.

🎤 What are you working on?

An online marketing news blog/platform

🎤 What work experience do you have?

I have worked in several industries including hotel management, fashion sales and development, brand management (mainly consumer marketing) for FMCG portfolio.

🎤 How did you get into your field?

Still trying to get into. The first time I was exposed to the Tech world was in my university.

🎤 Describe your first project and what is your role in it.

My first relatively big project was to create a new website for the hotel I was working for. It was all going pretty well, the implementation of the new website was about to happen once it was all done and complete, however things got a little bit out of control when I somehow managed to delete the one we were using at the moment. Yep, I left the hotel without a website for couple days until I finished the new one, connected it with the rest of the booking, mailing and payment systems. In few words, my first real and big project went unexpectedly and it brought many surprises which I haven't had anticipated.

🎤 What difficulties did you encounter along the way?

The biggest difficulty was aligning the systems which usually should not be such a huge problem but only when it is done in an appropriate way and time doesn't pressure you to do things in a different but smooth way.

🎤 Які поради ви б дали тим, хто хоче увійти в сферу?

Read from reliable sources - articles, research papers, books. Listen, listen, listen and ask the right people, the right questions. Try to participate as much as you can in all kinds of projects even if it means that it will be for some time all voluntarily with no payment. The more you take part in, the more people and opportunities you will attract.

🎤 What are your career aspirations?

I am still in the process of clearing this whole vision. Although, I firmly believe that there's not a single idea that is capable of capturing career aspirations, but narrowing down the options and the desires is helpful. As I mentioned, I aspire to bring change in the fashion industry which is the second industry in the world that is polluting our world the most. A business degree, persistence, hard word, lots of reading on technology and innovation + the huge passion for fashion and positive change should bring progress.

🎤 What IT books, resources, and blogs do you read and recommend to others?

Read online magazines and platforms that are the most renown in the sphere you work in. For example, I read the Economist, Bof (Business of Fashion), the posts from the American Marketing Association, I listen to the Reid Hoffman podcast - Masters of Scale and the research from the most interesting source- WGSN - the biggest trend forecasting company.

https://mastersofscale.com/
https://www.wgsn.com/en/
https://www.economist.com/
https://www.ama.org/

🎤 What’s the best way to keep up to date with what you're doing?

LinkedIn: @mihaela-stoyanova