Women of the C-Suite: Vera Modenova of Flowwow on Five Things You Need to Succeed as a Senior Executive
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Not everyone wants to climb the career ladder and you need to recognize it. Throughout my career, I have encountered several cases when a person took a managerial position and did not want to go higher professionally as they were okay with their current level. It always hurts me that it is not possible to unlock a person’s entire potential, but sometimes you have to accept it: it is much more important that a person enjoys the work they are doing.
As a part of our interview series called “Women Of The C-Suite”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Vera Modenova.
Vera Modenova is a 28-year-old COO of Flowwow, who started her journey when she was 21, handing out leaflets at the exhibition. Vera transformed from an inexperienced student into an ambitious COO with a “growth hacker” mindset. Her perseverance and burning desire to help local brands thrive is what drove her to grow the international team from 6 employees to 150, build the customer support department from scratch with a 98% of customers’ satisfaction rate, and manage operational processes to expand Flowwow internationally.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Since childhood, I was an energetic girl with tireless curiosity and creativity. As a 14-years-old, I strived to earn extra money; I was eager to be a professional photographer at the time. From being a sports photojournalist at football matches to selling photos on riverboats and leading corporate photoshoots, I received genuine satisfaction from the process. At the age of 16–17, I would run away to nightclubs without telling my parents: not to hang out with friends but to work as a photographer. In my student years, I was still on the lookout for part-time photography gigs as I wanted to be independent.
Perseverance and determination were the core elements that have contributed to my career and brought me to the COO position: Flowwow is a place where it is possible to fulfill my boldest ideas and ambitions.
Even now, when I am on maternity leave with a month-old child, I am involved in the working processes because I know a lot of exciting things are coming, and I want to direct my energy towards achieving them together with the team.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
It was at the start of my career when I joined Flowwow in 2014 as a 21-year-old student. My friend and I worked at the exhibition, handing out leaflets. One day, the company’s founder was looking for a person to cover a support manager position for a day — we played “rock, paper, scissors” with my friend, I lost and was the one to help out in the office. This exhibition became a turning point in my career: this is when my Flowwow chapter began. From that moment, I poured my heart and soul into the company; combining work with studies and exploring a whole new world of Flowwow, I have learnt how to lead projects, what conversion is, why unit economics is important, and much, much more.
I have been working at Flowwow for 8 years now: I have built a customer support department from scratch, and we have expanded to 24 countries with the team. It is just the beginning, and I am extremely grateful to all the people who believed in me and gave me a chance to fulfill my goals.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
If the following situation has never happened to you, you might know a colleague who had their microphone on at the wrong time during an important meeting. Once I participated in an interview while taking my dog to the dog wash. When I was at the reception, my microphone accidentally turned on, and everyone at the meeting heard me saying, “I have an appointment for grooming.” The interviewee did not pass the test, and I now check a hundred times whether my microphone is actually off.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I joined Flowwow as a student with no relevant experience, and there was one person who influenced me and greatly contributed to my development: Andrey Makeev, Flowwow’s co-founder. Working odd hours, I spent days with him; Andrey introduced me to a world of startups, unit economics, metrics and the product. Brainstorming the startups’ development, working 24/7, coming up with ideas to improve Flowwow during our get-togethers at the bar — it was a fascinating time that contributed to my growth as a COO and a professional. I am pleased to say our relationship with Andrey has transformed into a lifelong friendship.
Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader?
When forming a new department, I had a choice: hire a new head or promote a team leader. The team lead did not want to move up as the new range of duties did not interest him much, so we proceeded with hiring a new team member. Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to each other after half a year because we had a mismatch in values and an approach. By that time, the team lead changed his mind and decided to take on new responsibilities. He has built a new department from scratch and has been actively developing it for more than a year.
Looking back, I reckon I could have made a bit more effort in promoting the team leader to the department’s head position; however, I realize it was a good lesson that helps me fulfill my employee potential as an executive.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Most of our readers — in fact, most people — think they have a pretty good idea of what a CEO or executive does. But in just a few words can you explain what an executive does that is different from the responsibilities of the other leaders?
I believe the key factors that distinguish a C-level executive are a strong sense of responsibility and tireless initiative. For instance, I’m eager to help my employees grow within the team, but I often see how they are afraid of making independent decisions, even when it comes to completing the simplest tasks. In some cases, it is enough to have an encouraging chat and reinforce the idea that one should not be afraid of making mistakes. That being said, I get very upset when it is not possible to help the person unlock their full potential.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a CEO or executive? Can you explain what you mean?
I often came across the thought that a CEO/executive is a God who cannot be disturbed. A good C-level executive, in my opinion, is a person who knows how to find common ground with their employees and build trusting relationships. If your manager is an unattainable link in the company’s “communication chain,” you should reevaluate your choice of a workplace.
I do my best to have open communication with the entire team: whether it is a technical support specialist, a leading backend developer or a marketing director, my approach stays the same. If the head of the department does not share the same attitude, they will not stay in our team for too long. We followed this rule when there were 5 of us, and we continue to follow it today — when there are 150 team members.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women executives that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
To be honest, I did not notice any particular challenges to this day. I was lucky enough to be in a supportive environment where men taught me how to run a business, manage operational processes, and lead a team. I am a believer that, if you have the determination and skills to build the departments from scratch, achieve new KPIs, and expand the company globally, you will become an executive in a man-dominated industry.
What is the most striking difference between your actual job and how you thought the job would be?
I have a feeling the COO position is one of the most absurd ones in our industry. On the one hand, C-level executives are expected to have primarily managerial skills: it may seem that C-level is all about delegating and focusing on your responsibilities. In reality, however, you tackle various tasks regarding the product, data, and team on a daily basis; you are at a C-level because you can effectively solve unconventional issues and adapt to the changing environment. Beware: if you do not have hundreds of employees, and the company has the startup spirit, you will not be able to delegate 100% of the tasks.
At the beginning of 2022, I was sure I would fall out of the usual work pace as I was expecting a child in the third quarter. Even though I hired new people and delegated tasks as much as possible, I found I could be in a “supervisor” mode only for the first month.
As we are entering new markets, workflow requires the most of my attention: it is essential to have a C-level person who knows all the operational processes inside out, from backend development to the marketing strategy.
Is everyone cut out to be an executive? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful executive and what type of person should avoid aspiring to be an executive? Can you explain what you mean?
Talking about traits, I will start with perseverance — for me, it is the core of any business leader. When I started my career at Flowwow, I was not the type of person who could sell anything. When you start building a product, it is essential to gather feedback and implement it to meet customers’ needs; however, you should know how to work with complaints and not take negative feedback personally. When I was responsible for attracting new customers, our co-founder would always address mistakes I made during cold calls. He even wrote them down on sticky notes and put them on my laptop. No jokes! I found it to be an insightful approach that worked for me. Then I moved on to selling: making a sale after 20 calls brought me into a euphoric state. I am 100% sure it was perseverance that helped me keep plugging away at my goals.
Always talk with your colleagues. I have to be frank with you: I do not particularly like communicating. In my ideal world, people are substituted by robots, whose work is analyzed based on reports and profound analytics; however, it would not work for a lot of positions. You should help every employee dive into the processes until you realize they have outgrown you in the field; it is particularly relevant if your employees are managers with soft skills.
Trust. Since it is impossible to replace 100% of people with robots, it is important to trust people. You cannot be everywhere and supervise each task. Your team must work independently — and for this, it is necessary to give them freedom.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
Throughout my experience, I have come up with several pieces of advice that could have assisted me in my job when I started:
- Not everyone is like you. In my world, responsibility and initiative are a must for any person; however, I soon understood that people are divided into performers and independent workers. It is important to accept that you need both. In some situations, it is easier to formulate a transparent technical task and give it for execution, but sometimes you need a person, to whom you can say: “Mari, you need to do it — I do not know how, but you need to.” Then, a person will take over and come up with an incredible result.
- Back up words with numbers. I had a relevant case that was very painful for me. I hired a sales manager who did not show any results for half a year. He wrote reports of such beauty and confidence for months, which I read — however, I did not delve into the operational part of the department he was building. As a result, we lost six months and, eventually, an employee. The new department was a complete mess, and all the processes had to be rebuilt. However, it was a lesson for me to back up beautiful words with beautiful numbers.
- Not everyone wants to climb the career ladder and you need to recognize it. Throughout my career, I have encountered several cases when a person took a managerial position and did not want to go higher professionally as they were okay with their current level. It always hurts me that it is not possible to unlock a person’s entire potential, but sometimes you have to accept it: it is much more important that a person enjoys the work they are doing.
- Delegate. I reckon it is a common problem for all managers. If your company is not a startup, and you still spend 12 hours a day at work, you need to urgently revise the processes. Even if everything suits you, the team may experience serious issues during your week-long absence. That is what has happened to me: I handed over 95% of my tasks, and within a week there was already a backlog of cases for several days ahead. It is important to distribute cases and objectively estimate your resources so as not to be a bottleneck in the entire company’s development.
- Finding a good team is the bane of your professional existence. Believe me on this one — if you have a professional team that you trust, take them with you to new projects.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
My husband is developing a business that lies at the intersection of IT and medicine. That is why I know perfectly well how unideal the healthcare industry (in any country) is and how much can be changed to save lives and increase the average number of years lived, not to mention their quality. Most likely, I would start a movement to fight the most common cause of death, cardiovascular diseases. A simple installation of defibrillators in places of large social gatherings with an accessible manual can reduce mortality from an unexpected cardiac arrest by 30%.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
I would be incredibly happy to meet with Erin Meyer, author of “The Culture Map.” Flowwow is currently making its first steps in entering markets in other countries. Whether it is about uniting sellers from different continents or making friends with customers all over the world, we strive to find common ground with people from various countries and backgrounds — and make them fall in love with our service.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Women of the C-Suite: Vera Modenova of Flowwow on Five Things You Need to Succeed as a Senior… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.