Welcome to our coffee Q&A series, where we sit down with Advapay team members for a conversation and insights from the field of digital banking. Today, we’re with Natalia Suurtee-Pavlova, COO of Advapay, to discuss the challenges and triumphs of working closely with customers, managing stakeholder communication, prototyping products and features, and collaborating across diverse teams.
HOST: Hi NATALIA! Great to have you – thanks for taking time out of your day to do this. We’re excited about this new series. Since we’re taking a coffee break, let’s talk coffee. What are you drinking right now?
NATALIA: Hello! Sure, yeah. Thanks for having me. You know, this is one of my favorite coffee drinks; a latte with oat milk. I drink it almost every day. When I’m on vacation, I sometimes drink Turkish coffee.
HOST: Could you tell us about yourself? I’d love to hear about your professional journey and what you do outside of work. What are your interests and passions?
NATALIA: Absolutely. I started my career 17 years ago at Skype, which Microsoft later acquired.
For 8 years, I worked in various positions from technical support to web development, then localization, and finally in content management. After leaving Microsoft, I joined Eesti Media as a project manager and worked on a variety of interesting projects there. The work I loved the most was associated with social events such as Eurovision, elections, etc.
I joined Advapay in March 2020, just one week before Estonia started implementing closures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. So, really, I just had one week in the office to get to know the team before everything went into remote work mode.
[Laughs]
Now, talking about my interests outside of my job, I’m always aiming to balance my time with family, work, and personal activities. I love playing tennis and I usually have two trainings every week. Playing in tournaments is often a big part of my weekends.
HOST: That’s awesome! We’d love to hear more about your background. Could you walk us through your experiences and how they shaped your career path on your way to Advapay?
NATALIA: Yeah. As you can see from my career background, I love learning new things. I love to meet new people. These passions have brought me into software development, media, and now a career in fintech.
HOST: What motivated you to join the Advapay team? What aspects of the company’s vision and culture resonated with you?
NATALIA: With where I was at in my career, I wanted to try something totally new. The fintech area looked really cool. When I first met Gustav Korobov at the office (Head of Sales and a member of Advapay’s board of directors), I was impressed with Advapay’s cozy, family vibes.
The culture was refreshingly different from the big companies where I worked before.
HOST: Speaking of work environment, are you more productive working remotely or in the office? Why?
NATALIA: I’m definitely more productive working remotely. In the office, a significant amount of time is taken up by meetings and conversations with coworkers, which can make focusing and completing reports and tasks more difficult.
However, I also value office time for its role in facilitating communication and problem-solving, since it provides the best opportunities for collaboration and brainstorming.
HOST: While we’re on the productivity topic, let’s pivot to talk about your responsibilities at Advapay.
Managing the product backlog is crucial for effective development. How do you do it? How do you prioritize everything to ensure that the most valuable features are delivered to customers in a timely manner?
NATALIA: Ok, first off, just so we’re all on the same page, I should clarify that I work with several customers and each customer has a dedicated backlog. This means I’m always simultaneously navigating through several different backlogs all the time.
To prioritize effectively, I work closely with our customers. I seek to understand their needs and expectations through regular weekly calls, short everyday chats, etc. I’m always liaising with internal stakeholders, the engineering team, and so on. This helps me prioritize items based on customer feedback and Advapay’s goals.
HOST: That’s interesting, and it makes sense. On that note, can you discuss your approach to gathering and analyzing requirements? Requirements elicitation, analysis, and specification are essential for understanding customer needs. How do you ensure that the final product meets those requirements?
NATALIA: This part is really important. It’s much better to spend more time on analysis then it is to invest time on a feature that doesn’t actually meet your customer’s requirements, right? Yeah. So collaborating closely with stakeholders, including both customers and internal teams, going through the prototyping and iterative feedback processes, all of this helps me ensure that every requirement is understood and appropriately documented.
HOST: Yes, as you know well, business process modeling plays a big role in understanding and optimizing workflows. How do you use business process modeling techniques to improve efficiency and effectiveness in product development?
NATALIA: This is, again, all about communication. Personally, I don’t want to just develop the feature a customer is asking for without addressing the underlying problem. I want to address the problems they’re facing and provide the best solution possible. This is the same approach I ask for from internal team members.
HOST: Since stakeholder management is critical for project success, then, how do you engage and collaborate with stakeholders, both internal and external, to make sure there’s alignment and everyone’s needs and expectations are met?
NATALIA: Communication and engagement with stakeholders is essential. Including regular calls, progress updates, and potential challenges. We need to be active listeners engaging with stakeholder needs and concerns.
HOST: You’re a liaison between the development team and the business unit. How do you facilitate communication and understanding between these two groups? Can you share an example of a successful collaboration between the development team and the business unit?
NATALIA: Well, one of my goals is to make sure everyone understands each other. I translate between the tech-speak of devs and the business language folks in the business unit speak, and vice versa. They’re definitely different ‘languages’ at times, but they can be translated into verbiage the other team understands.
HOST: Let’s talk about another role of yours, project management. How do you ensure projects are delivered on time, within budget, and according to quality standards? What are your favorite project management methodologies?
NATALIA: I believe in Agile and the Kanban approach. I combine methodologies to suit the specific needs of each project and customer.
HOST: In your role, what are your typical challenges? How do you navigate these difficulties to achieve success?
NATALIA: My role has many challenges: risk management, resource management…operational efficiency. Personally, I find change management to be the most difficult. It’s successfully implementing changes in, for instance, the organizational structure of a company or a team.
HOST: Given that latent errors and technical challenges are inevitable in any project, how do you address them? Do you see these as opportunities for improvement or innovation?
NATALIA: Yes! Long story short, it’s having clarity around your project goals, timeline, budget, risks, and mitigation planning. You need to monitor the process against milestones and have the right commitment from your team.
HOST: Speaking of teams, team collaboration itself can be diverse, especially when your team spans multiple countries and nationalities. Could you elaborate on your experiences working with multicultural teams and how you approach communication and collaboration?
NATALIA: Sure. Essentially, it’s my goal for every team member to feel supported and valued regardless of their background and nationality. And I hope they do feel supported, genuinely. I’m always available to assist, discuss problems, and find solutions together. I encourage open communication among team members. I promote empathy and understanding, doing my best to lead by example.
HOST: What strategies or techniques, then, do you use to keep your team motivated and engaged in their work? Since it’s so necessary for morale.
NATALIA: There are so many ways to motivate team members. I try to find the best approach for each individual employee. Some value public recognition the most, for instance, while others really value having a sense of autonomy. Personally, for me, the biggest thing is celebrating success. Whether it’s a cake in the office or a big party somewhere, celebrating success is almost always effective!
HOST: As Advapay grows, scaling becomes a priority. How do you scale your team and find new team members?
NATALIA: Every company faces this challenge, but I think we’re handling it pretty well. In the past two years, we’ve brought on several new employees and everything’s gone smoothly. Personally, I believe soft skills are essential for every team member.
HOST: Thanks for sharing that with us. That wraps up our questions for now.
NATALIA: It’s my pleasure! Let’s do this again sometime.
Thanks for joining us – tune in next time for more coffee with Advapay to get an insider’s view of who we are, what we do, and what we’re doing next.
To learn more about our solutions and how they align with your needs, contact our consultants for a live demo and interactive session.
Advapay at stake:
How can Advapay can assist you in launching your fintech business?
• Assistance in EMI/PI licencing in the EEA/UK
• Registration of MSB company in Canada
• Delivery of a comprehensive Core banking system encompassing back-office and white-label applications for end-users
• Assistance in payment infrastructure development
• BaaS-solutions in collaboration with our partners – EEA/UK licenced EMIs and PIs
