People @ Proxiad: Taisiya Yanbastieva
Meet Taisiya Yanbastieva, Team Lead of our Trading Partner Services (TPS) teams within the Customer Success Services division of the world’s biggest enterprise technology company. She is responsible for the personal development of each teammate as well as for the deliveries of the team. She also reports to the internal and customer management, takes care of staffing and assignments of projects to the team members, looks after projects compliance and auditing process, and joins interviews when hiring new team members.
She has been part of the company since 2018 when she started as a Supplier Catalogue Specialist. Isi’s passion, dedication and organizational skills define her as a professional and as a person. But she is passionate not only about work but also about dancing. Learn more about where she finds the balance between her hobby and work life in our new People @ Proxiad interview.
Let’s start from the beginning of your Proxiad journey. Can you tell us how you joined our team?
The answer is simple – pure luck. The story begins on the same day I just submitted my leave notice to my previous employer and booked tickets for a one-month trip to India. A friend of mine, who worked in Proxiad SEE, sent me a text, which stated “Send me your CV”. Nothing more, nothing less. But still, I did it.
On the next day, I received a call from a recruiter – we had a nice conversation and I was invited for an interview. Two days later I met my manager – Chrissy Markova. In another 3 days, I received a call with a job offer and my story in the company started immediately after my flight back from the trip to India.
For the last 4 years, you’ve been a part of the Proxiad SEE team and you’ve transitioned through different roles. What led to those changes and how did they reflect on you as a professional?
Shortly after I joined, our team grew rapidly after a big business demand from the client. That drove the need for someone to actively work on overseeing and improving the delivery of the team. A new position for Delivery SME of the catalogue team was opened and after applying I was selected for the role.
The time spent in this position helped me understand the client, the product we are working on, the technologies we’re using and most importantly – the needs of the project. I think one of the main things that I learned during this time was to overcome my fears of sharing ideas, especially when I think they can help with the improvement of processes.
A few years later, there was an open position for a Team Lead of the TPS teams within Proxiad SEE. As you may guess I filled the role and have worked in the position for almost 2 years now.
Besides being a Team Manager at Proxiad SEE, you’re also a devoted dancer and choreographer. How do you manage to juggle your work life and your passion for dancing?
Well, this is a difficult question. I just know that I can’t imagine my life without dances. They are and always have been a very big part of my life. I’ve been dancing since I was 3 years old. Initially 10-year classical ballet and rhythm gymnastics, then modern dancing. I was also a professional swimmer for 6 years, but I chose the dance hall before the pool.
Later on, I found the dance school, where I’m currently a teacher and choreographer – “uMove”. As I like to say – that’s the place and the people who have changed my life!
Managing both work and the dances was never an issue. I might have missed a couple of team-building events, but I’m always in the office for collaborations with the team.
We even did a dancing choreography in the office not long ago. I recommend you watch it!
What lessons from your background in sports and dance help you in your day-to-day tasks?
Well, the discipline, of course. It helps me always to lead the tasks to the end and not stop in the middle of the process. Sports have thought me also to do everything with a specific goal.
These lessons I learned during my 6 years of professional swimming career. Back then I always had a specific goal ahead – either winning the prize of a championship or becoming a part of the junior national team. And this concept is now an inseparable part of every aspect of my life.
Same as here at work, I always set goals I want to achieve – both personal for me and my whole team and I don’t stop until we realize them together.
With the dances, on the other hand, there is always a new project, show or concert. One thing is done, and the next one is in line. This made me realize the importance of planning – you need to be able to plan your resources, your capabilities and where you want them to be. After I plan my next steps, I use my discipline to achieve the goal.
As a Team Manager, you’re in charge of a lot of other people who need to all be in sync with each other. Can you tell us what are the elements of а good team choreography in the IT services sector?
Let’s start with what are the elements of choreography. You have the music and the moves, the costumes, the background… But what is the purpose, what is the idea? What is the story you want to show, share and emphasize? After all, you are not doing a dance which you will be keeping in your basement. We always want to share something with the world and that’s why we have to find the perfect combination of all these elements to properly share our message.
But this is not only applicable to dancing. Shakespeare once said “Life is a stage and we are all actors in it”, didn’t he? I would paraphrase it as “Life is a choreography. Everyone is managing their elements to pass on the message they want to show to the world during their lifetime.”
So, the same applies to good IT team choreography.
1. What is our music – the product we are working with;
2. What are our moves – our day-to-day activities, our dos and don’ts;
3. What is our idea and why are we doing this – the impact of our job on the whole process of our customer.
When we answer all these questions, we can create the perfect choreography.
What is the thing that people don’t know about Proxiad but you think they should?
Proxiad is a company that cares not only for you as an employee, but as a human being, for your personal development. Here you can grow and develop your capabilities. Whenever someone shows interest or a hidden potential in some aspect, the company is willing to provide everything it can to support this. And there are already so many cases in which I have seen this philosophy come to reality.
To have an employer who takes you as a person and focuses on your development, you can take a lot of interesting opportunities that life presents to you. There’s something I always say “if you are not useful for yourself, then you are not useful for your employer, as you will not be satisfied by what you are doing and it will affect your whole existence. Not only at work. Everywhere.”
I do think that this is something that not a lot of companies have and this is why I am doing my best to maintain this philosophy of the whole organization and pass it on to the whole Ariba TPS team. 🙂
