From a PhD in neuroscience to product management at Ledgy, we had a nice talk with Marina and got to know her a little bit.
Hi, Ermias! I feel lucky to be part of an innovative, productive and friendly Ledgy team. I am looking forward to learning and new adventures!
When I was a child, I loved spending time in the forest, and asking “how” and “why” questions. Later on, books on psychology and philosophy made me ask similar questions about human behavior and the biological processes that drive the behavior. Thus, I studied biology and tried to gain as much practical and theoretical knowledge on neuroscience as I could. This led me to Friedrich Miescher Institute where I investigated neural computations needed for perception of the environment in the group of Georg Keller.
Working with mice was more emotionally challenging than I thought, and I could no longer imagine myself doing it after my PhD. At the same time I have realized that programming has meditative effects on me - even when debugging! The rest was fairly simple: I applied for an internship at Ledgy to become a software developer, but the founders thought product management would be a better fit. And I completely agree with them! I love problem solving, communicating ideas and being creative.
Yeah, at one point it seemed like I was trying to join a circus. I discovered acro-yoga, aerial silk dance, swing yoga, speleology, paragliding and bouldering. It started with acro yoga and learning how to completely trust a stranger, and became sort of a quest for movement in all three dimensions. I needed to prioritize and quit some of them during my PhD, but I am hoping to return and happy that Ledgy has flying enthusiasts and a fellow paraglider.
Hopefully, I will be successful at supporting the further growth of Ledgy as a product manager and be a person that my teammates can rely on. In three years, I hope my programming skills will be sufficient to be able to help on all fronts.
By democratizing equity, we enable dreamers to put their ideas into action. Equity can be overwhelming for founders, and through Ledgy, they can have one less thing to worry about. Ledgy serves as a source of all important information for investors and by managing stock options for employees, enables startups to become more visible to the best talents on the market. I like to think that, by being part of Ledgy, I am working for each startup we support, and providing a base for ideas to evolve around the world.