Feedvisor via Carnegie Hall: An Interview With Nir Veledniger

Tell me about your current position at Feedvisor.

My position changed about two months ago. Right now, I manage a team of account managers. I have a team of five account managers here in New York and one is in Tel Aviv. I’m currently based in Tel Aviv and I’m going to be moving to New York in the next couple of months. Before I was promoted two months ago, I was a Customer Success Manager.

I hear you have an interesting, and sort of unexpected, professional background.

Yes, I was a professional dancer for about nine years. I was mostly based in Europe, but I danced all over the world in different companies.

Wow! So, how did you transition from being in the dance world to working at Feedvisor?

Well, I loved dancing, but after so many years, I wanted to do something different. I went back to university in the Netherlands and got my Bachelor’s and Master’s there. I studied Economics and Management and loved it.

After I finished school, I heard of Feedvisor from the sister of someone I knew from the dance world. She and I met up just so I could learn more about the company. It sounded so exciting. I ended up getting an interview for a Customer Success Manager position, but they were worried about my lack of relevant professional experience since I was just out of school. The woman whom I’d met convinced them to meet me in person.

Once I was with the team in person, I suppose I was able to show them that I was hard-working, independent, could learn quickly, and was incredibly disciplined (you have to be all of those things, as a dancer!). I seemed to fit in well with the group. My manager really took a chance on me because she saw potential that could be developed at Feedvisor.

So, what was it like to start at Feedvisor?

It was a bit of a roller coaster, in a very positive way! As I was learning the ropes, the company was growing so quickly, too. Everything was changing at once, and I had to learn very fast. But I found my way. I wasn’t shy; I asked questions to my colleagues like crazy for the first couple of months. I’m sure I drove them nuts, but they were very, very supportive. At a certain point, I had to be thrown into the deep water, so to speak. But I knew my colleagues would help me swim.

The environment here gives you confidence; you know you’re being supported. You know you’ll make mistakes, but that it’ll also be okay. I was also learning constantly, being exposed to the collective genius here right away. Not everyone starts at Feedvisor with the same knowledge about Amazon, for example. But after months of interactions with your team members and customers, you become an expert on the platform. You learn every single day.

What are you looking forward to in your future at Feedvisor, now that you are a manager?

I’m excited about so many things! I’m excited to keep working with my team. I think that I have an amazing group of people and I want to get them even further. They are all very talented in different ways. My goal is to bring them to a whole different level of success.

I am all about personal development. I want to make sure my team gets the attention they need not only to excel at their daily tasks, but also to look to a further horizon: what do they need to do their job better, in general? What do they need to truly develop, not just in terms of knowledge about the company, but in terms of their growth as people?

We’ve started doing skills exercises as a team. These exercises help us with specific ways of working with our customers, but they also help us become more creative, more open, and less judgmental about ourselves and our processes. I want my team to not have any barriers for how they are able to contribute at Feedvisor.

Do you have a favorite Feedvisor memory?

Oh, yes. I remember my very first solo call with a customer. My team was just so supportive. They stood behind me while I was on the call, and pointed out things on my screen that I needed to say. The minute I got off the call, everyone cheered, “Nir’s first call!” and handed out drinks. It was the end of the day, so they were maybe just looking for an excuse to have a drink [laughs]. But no, they were really just super supportive. That’s a really great memory.

Another great memory is when I was sent to Los Angeles at the last minute to do a presentation for our conference for Amazon sellers. The person who was supposed to go couldn’t make it at the last minute, and although I had only been working here six months, they decided to send me. It was really great to be trusted like that, to be given the tools to prepare for and succeed at a new level of work. I got to meet some of my customers in person for the first time. It was wonderful to be given that opportunity and to have the confidence of my managers and team.