Women should think big and seize every opportunity. On October 2, Partner Evita Lune addressed the 2020 LIDERE forum, an event aimed at inspiring women to reach greater heights of achievement. Evita shared the floor with Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the first female president of Latvia, Ilze Viņķele, Latvian Minister of Health, Laura Keršule, Vice-President of LMT, Lotte Tisenkopfa-Iltnere, founder of MADARA Cosmetics, and Gunta Jekabsone, CEO of Circle K. The event was attended by 1,000 live participants and 98,000 streaming.

Some of her key ideas:

- Women in developed markets have more #leadership prospects than in emerging markets, where basic human rights can be as scarce as economic means
- In many places, local traditions impede full and free female participation in the economy
- Yet when the firm fulfils CEO search mandates in Europe, almost all likely candidates are men, indicating that other factors inhibit female leadership
- This is particularly alarming in IT, which is now vital in all fields: business, sports, medicine, education, arts
- Evita’s work with student incubators shows women developing ideas that are too humble, too local, and with no global vision
- Women must be encouraged to think big and seize every chance to lead their best personal and professional lives!

Riga, Latvia - Evita Lune, Partner at Pedersen & Partners, interviewed Anastasija Oleinika, Chief Executive Officer, TWINO Group, for Riga TechGirls. Anastasija is the CEO of the TWINO Group, a Latvian FinTech which focuses on p2p lending. TWINO investors come from all over Europe, and it offers loans to borrowers in Latvia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, and Russia. TWINO employs over 400 people, with 70 working at the HQ in Riga, and has issued more than EUR 1bn in loans since launching operations. Anastasija is listed by Forbes Latvija as one of their “30 under 30”.

Evita: So, Anastasija, a great opportunity to meet you in person. Obviously, I have heard a lot about you – not only from TWINO founder Armands Broks, but also from the public – about your new role, and your achievements in the past. It’s quite amazing how many top-class certifications you have achieved. Starting with the Riga First Gymnasium – which we all know is highly competitive, with ten applicants for every place – then again at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, the CFA, the Corporate Governance Institute and so on. Can you tell me what motivated you to take all these challenges and get all these relevant certifications?

Anastasija: It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Evita, and thank you very much for being here. Talking about my qualifications, my motivation has never been the end result of hanging certificates proudly on the wall. What interests me is the complexity of the process. Due to my competitive spirit, I often think “Hmm, others have failed at this. This is going to be a challenge, and it’s going to require hard work. Am I up for it?” My first reaction is usually that I’m scared to fail, but then I think: “So, what if I failed? Then at least I will have tried, so let’s try this.” I have to admit that maybe I’m an unusual case, because I have been lucky enough not to have experienced any major failures to date, so I might feel a bit bolder than some.

However, I’m sure that if I hadn’t got into SSE Riga on the first attempt, I would have used that moment to either accept that I didn’t get in, or to take a year out to do something else and then try again, and not define it as a failure at the end of the day.

Evita: Excellent! So, you were ready to accept failure, but it never came to you, and I hope that it never does come to you.

Anastasija: It is more about not stopping when the first attempt doesn’t work out. You can say: “Fine, I failed,” or you can keep pushing, keep doing.

Evita: And what are your goals in general in your professional life? Did you strive for the CEO role or did it come to you?

Anastasija: It definitely came to me, and it happened rather unexpectedly. I’ve always been more of a technical person; I like numbers a lot, I like working in Excel, it excites me. I can spend long hours just trying to reconcile the balance sheet! So I always thought that becoming a CFO would probably be my highest achievement, and it would definitely come later in my life. However, I quickly understood that although numbers are interesting, they have no value by themselves. You need to see the big picture, where the numbers fit, and it is only then that you develop an intuition about what you expect to see in the numbers you are working with. At that point, you start to understand how specific analytical factors, product ratios, components affect the end result.

From there, I started looking at business as this huge mechanism that is driven and its success defined by, first of all, the numerical parameters that we set for our product, second, the processes that we have inside the organisation and their efficiency, and third, by our people and their attitudes. A motivated team can deliver in time and overachieve their KPIs – conversely, if you give the same team a similar task but without a clear purpose in mind of why they are doing it and why it’s important, they will keep missing deadlines.

These are the things that excite me. There are so many different angles to business, and you can try out different combinations of things. It’s like a playground. When you have that freedom, you understand that there is always room for improvement, no matter which direction you look in.

Evita: The TWINO platform itself scores pretty high on the Pan-European scale when I look up the different rankings. What’s the reason behind this? What’s so great about your platform?

Anastasija: Yes, we are fourth in Continental Europe by investment size.

Evita: Who are the top three?

Anastasija: The industry leader is Mintos, also from Latvia, with Younited Credit (France) and Auxmoney (Germany) competing for second and third place.

However, we are a little different from Mintos, for example. Their platform works with various parties that are not directly related to their business; they are an intermediary, a marketplace.

Since the inception of the TWINO platform in 2015, we have positioned it a bit differently, offering only loans that the TWINO Group has itself issued in various countries. To grow our volume, we actually need to grow the issuance volume in our countries. We always look at this very consciously, because we need to optimise in terms of product economics and general profitability – we need to be able to reach into a market and find that sweet spot. Obviously, we can increase volumes, but then the total profit may go down. This is why our business is not based on the total volume of demand that we can generate from our investors, but on the supply of quality investment opportunities that we can offer to them. As we only offer loans that the TWINO Group has issued, we can guarantee the quality of the loans and make assurances to our investors that their investment is safe. We also provide buy-back options for loans that perform worse than expected.

I believe that this guarantee of quality, the safety of the investment, the assurance that we (well, our algorithms) have examined each loan that is issued, is the reason that so many investors stick with the TWINO platform. Recently the industry has seen huge spikes in the interest rates offered to investors, with return rates of up to 20%, but we have never offered that. We know that with the quality of the portfolio that we have, the return that we can safely guarantee to our investors is lower, more like 10-12%. If an investor is willing to undertake a higher risk, we say “fine, you are welcome to go to another platform, but our competitive advantage is elsewhere.” What we are offering is the quality and safety of the investment.

We also maintain personal relationships with our key investors. We ask them how they are doing, sometimes they come over to our office to meet the team, we meet them at different conferences and events, just to talk. We gather their feedback about our platform, and introduce changes that make all our investors happier. [...]

Read the full interview here (Riga TechGirls Medium account).

Evita Evita Lune is a Partner and Global Head of FinTech Practice Group at Pedersen & Partners. Out of her total portfolio of over 600 assignments, she has completed over 100 senior level FinTech assignments in over 40 countries. Ms. Lune works extensively with Nordic FinTech clients, bringing effective Executive Search solutions to support their global expansion plans on all continents. Ms. Lune also supports clients in the Middle East and South East Asia, by engaging Nordic talent to drive digital transformation worldwide. In addition to her Executive Search accomplishments, Ms. Lune’s previous experience includes three years with the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga as the Executive MBA Program Director, and six years with Shell in international and regional marketing management functions in Riga, Budapest, and Brussels. Ms. Lune was a speaker at the CEE FutureTech congress in Warsaw – one of the most important business summits in Central and Eastern Europe – and participated in the Blockchain Pre-Accelerator Program at University of Latvia. She is also a blogger for RigaTechGirls, a Jury Member of CEE Capital Markets and FinTech Awards and a Contributing Advisor at the Digital Freedom Festival.  Ms. Lune has been recognised by Forbes as one of the top 25 most influential women in Latvia for two years in a row.

Ms. Lune has a PhD in Social Economy. Evita Lune speaks fluent Latvian, English, and Russian and has passive fluency in German, Swedish, and Polish.

Pedersen & Partners is a leading international Executive Search firm. We operate 54 wholly owned offices in 50 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia & the Americas. Our values Trust, Relationship and Professionalism apply to our interaction with clients as well as executives. More information about Pedersen & Partners is available at www.pedersenandpartners.com

If you would like to conduct an interview with a representative of Pedersen & Partners, or have other media-related requests, please contact: Diana Danu, Marketing and Communications Manager at: diana.danu@pedersenandpartners.com

January 13, 2020 – Riga,  Latvia – Pedersen & Partners, a leading international Executive Search firm with 54 wholly owned offices in 50 countries, is pleased to announce that Partner Evita Lune has been appointed Global Head of the newly-launched FinTech Practice Group. Evita will also keep her position as Regional Head of the Baltics.

Evita Lune has championed Pedersen & Partners’ global FinTech engagements over the course of several years. Out of her total portfolio of over 600 assignments, she has completed over 100 senior level FinTech assignments in over 40 countries. Ms. Lune works extensively with Nordic FinTech clients, bringing effective Executive Search solutions to support their global expansion plans on all continents. Ms. Lune also supports clients in the Middle East and South East Asia, by engaging Nordic talent to drive digital transformation worldwide. In addition to her Executive Search accomplishments, Ms. Lune’s previous experience includes three years with the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga as the Executive MBA Program Director, and six years with Shell in international and regional marketing management functions in Riga, Budapest, and Brussels. Ms. Lune was a speaker at the CEE FutureTech congress in Warsaw – one of the most important business summits in Central and Eastern Europe – and participated in the Blockchain Pre-Accelerator Program at University of Latvia. She is also a blogger for RigaTechGirls, a Jury Member of CEE Capital Markets and FinTech Awards and a Contributing Advisor at the Digital Freedom Festival.  Ms. Lune has been recognised by Forbes as one of the top 25 most influential women in Latvia for two years in a row.

“Evita has been with Pedersen & Partners for over 15 years. During her early tenure, she effectively led our Baltics, Poland, and Belarus teams, developing and growing seasoned teams with substantial bottom line impact. Evita is a globally minded leader known for her relentless drive and client commitment, having driven the development of an innovative holistic growth strategy for our Digital Economy component, and built the foundations of our FinTech Practice Group. She has assembled an agile cross-border team of strategically equipped consultants which has already secured a solid portfolio of partnerships with public and private equity-backed FinTech clients positioned at every level. We’re confident that under her leadership, our FinTech Practice Group will build momentum, drive innovation and ultimately business growth,” stated Gary Williams, Chief Executive Officer at Pedersen & Partners.

“The core competence of Pedersen & Partners’ FinTech Practice is our ability to support challenger organisations – scaleups, attackers, game changers – to fulfil their global ambitions. Our FinTech clients are there to shake up the global financial services ecosystem by applying innovative technologies and business models to cut out middlemen, include underserved market segments, and offer financial services in a much faster, more effective and user-friendly way. Our global FinTech team is able to help our clients to navigate in the global financial services ecosystem, identify market gaps, and advise on the right direction of their international expansion plans. I am excited to start 2020 at the helm of the FinTech Practice Group and secure Pedersen & Partners’ position at the forefront of FinTech Executive Search,” added Evita Lune, Partner and Global Head of the FinTech Practice Group at Pedersen & Partners.

If you would like to conduct an interview with a representative of Pedersen & Partners, or have other media-related requests, please contact: Diana Danu, Marketing and Communications Manager at: diana.danu@pedersenandpartners.com

FinTech Practice Group

The core competence of the Pedersen & Partners FinTech Practice is our ability to support challenger organisations – scaleups, attackers, game changers – as they fulfil their global ambitions.

Our FinTech clients are there to shake up the global financial services ecosystem by applying innovative technologies and business models, which can cut out middlemen, include underserved market segments, and offer financial services in a much faster, more effective and user-friendly way. 

For our “Leader’s style” section, we talked with Pedersen & Partners Global Partner Evita Lune about leadership, fulfilment and ambition. Evita will be a speaker at the “Leaders 2020” forum in May, on the theme of inspiring women not to fear reaching their goals.

Evita is convinced that women in Latvia have great opportunities to grow professionally, but constrain their own development unnecessarily.

Latvian “How to be happy” lifestyle magazine

Does one need to give anything up in order to succeed in a career?

A happy and balanced person should strive for fulfilment in four key areas: personal, professional, physical and spiritual. If any of these areas is neglected, the others will suffer too.

I do not believe that in 2019, there is a happy and fulfilled woman who just sits at home doing a little gardening, or a truly spiritual being who is in poor physical shape.

What characteristics should a leader possess? Do you think leaders are born or raised, or do you think that anyone can become a leader?

A leader should have a strategic vision. She/he should be inspirational and determined. A leader should have natural respect for other people and a passion to notice and develop their talents.

A modern leader sets an example for others, is a role model and works hard. She/he has to be successful herself/ himself, walk the talk and be well-educated and highly disciplined.

Many of these qualities are passed on to us by our parents, by their example and upbringing – but outstanding leaders must develop and educate themselves throughout their lifetime!

How can you increase your faith in yourself and your abilities?

You need to set ambitious goals and do good things. Your joy and pride in your results will motivate you to continue.

What would you suggest to a woman who wants to change her life, but is afraid to do so?

Think with your head, and do not rely on emotions. A rational decision is rarely risky or destructive.

What is the best advice you have heard from a mentor or another inspirational leader?

Do not let anyone distract you from your goals!

What is one principle you follow when making an important decision?

Remember your priorities in life and act according to them.

What is the best way to live with mistakes and criticism?

You need to be able to identify what mistakes and criticism are important in order to grow professionally. Everything else should be forgotten, ignored or laughed at.

Where do you find peace in stressful situations?

As a leader, you must be ready to solve problems and fight for your own ideas.  This will not be difficult or cause stress if the leader is physically and morally mature, so the leader must ensure this and not expose the team to stressful situations.

Evita Lune is a Partner who drives the firm’s Global Digital Economy. She has completed over 100 senior level assignments in over 40 countries within this practice, out of her total portfolio of over 600 assignments. Ms. Lune works extensively with FinTech clients from the Nordics and supports their global expansion plans on all continents by providing effective executive search solutions. She also supports clients in the Middle East and South East Asia with bringing Nordic talent to drive digital transformation in other geographies. Her previous experience includes three years with the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga as the Executive MBA Program Director and six years with Shell in international and regional marketing management functions in Riga, Budapest, and Brussels. Ms. Lune was a speaker at the CEE FutureTech congress in Warsaw – one of the most important business summits in Central and Eastern Europe and participated in the Blockchain Pre-Accelerator Program at University of Latvia. She is also a blogger for RigaTechGirls, a Jury Member of CEE Capital Markets and FinTech Awards and a Contributing Advisor at the Digital Freedom Festival.  Ms. Lune was recognised by Forbes as one of the top 25 most influential women in Latvia for two years in a row. Ms. Lune has a PhD in Social Economy. Evita Lune speaks fluent Latvian, English, and Russian and has passive fluency in German, Swedish, and Polish.

Pedersen & Partners is a leading international Executive Search firm. We operate 57 wholly owned offices in 53 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia & the Americas. Our values Trust, Relationship and Professionalism apply to our interaction with clients as well as executives. More information about Pedersen & Partners is available at www.pedersenandpartners.com

If you would like to conduct an interview with a representative of Pedersen & Partners, or have other media-related requests, please contact: Diana Danu, Marketing and Communications Manager at: diana.danu@pedersenandpartners.com

Riga, Latvia - Evita Lune, Partner at Pedersen & Partners, interviewed Susanne Hannestad, CEO of Fintech Mundi, for RigaTechGirls.

Evita: Susanne, you have held powerful roles for over 18 years now. You have taken on impressive Board responsibilities for various Tech, Fintech and Financial Services companies. So, how did you get here?

Susanne: When I was with Nordea – remember that banks are obliged to follow strict legislation about appointing Board members – I was able to access positions on associated Boards, such as Visa Norway, MasterCard Forum and eventually MasterCard Europe. I believe the position I held in Nordea and my external visibility both contributed to my ability to get other board positions. At Nordea, we innovated a lot over the years, and acted as intrapreneurs. Of course, all the changes we made attracted media coverage – we were first to bring in chip cards in 2004, we were first with many other things going forward, and we started card acquisition from scratch in Norway – and these exposures helped to raise my public profile.

Evita: What about your personal challenges? In order to achieve such a high position, and just as importantly to stay there, you must have held these executive positions for long periods of time. So, what does it take from you in terms of learning, work-life balance, self-discipline, and any other pressures?

Susanne: I was headhunted as a manager when I was 28, and since then I have always held managerial and executive positions. I believe that I connect well with people, and get good ideas from people. I have always been ambitious on behalf of the unit or the company I’m leading, and the people I work with love being a part of a growing business, and seeing it going forward. When I was younger, I played on a handball team, and when I worked together with my team-mates, I always knew what the goals were. I think that this focus is my most important character trait. I have always been a keen learner, whether formally at schools or more practically within companies, and I have always learned a lot from talking to people.  My focus has been on growth in all aspects, lifting the person, lifting the unit, and on being an agent for change, to make sure that we get the growth. Finally, you should always make sure that you have time for yourself in doing what you do.

Evita: What about the innovation aspect that you mentioned? In the field of technology, quite a lot of knowledge is required – were you ever afraid to play with technologies and participate in this innovative growth, driving innovation, creating something new and having people follow you, especially in an area which is changing so fast?

Susanne: Banks are conservative, so I wouldn’t say it’s easy, but it is possible as long as you understand the powerplay and politics within a bank or a larger corporation before you come up with new things, and as long as you demonstrate that your innovations are good for the bank or corporation going forward. I believe that the greatest challenge is to manoeuvre and understand the corporate politics. Technology units usually have a lot of good people, so it is important to get together and make sure to present the ideas in a way that is interesting and beneficial for the executive management or the Board.

Evita: In terms of being proactive and participatory, many people are quite smart but prefer to stay in the shadows. They are often afraid to speak up and say something which might not be received well, or else they just don’t have this drive to be in the frontline and in leading positions. So, did you undergo some discomfort when taking on leading positions? How did you handle this interpersonal part, and did you ever think, “Why should I be the one”?

Susanne: I always make sure that my people are with me. I also make sure that I use my communication skills with both my employees and my bosses, not always focusing horizontally. When I communicate upwards, my strength comes from knowing that my team is on my side and has my back. It is vital to share achievements and celebrate; every time we had a launch, we would cheer for each other! It is also important to make sure that my community – the people around me – are happy that we are moving forward successfully, and this encourages them to buy into the innovations. Of course, you will always have laggards, but eventually they will see the light if the unit continues to move quickly and reach milestones.

Evita: And now, let’s talk about your newest project, Fintech Mundi. What motivated you to establish it?

Susanne: I was with Nordea for 10 years until I left in 2012, but I became a chair of the Fintech company Zwipe three years before that, although the word “fintech” did not exist in 2009! This worked out so well that they wanted me to be their Executive Chair, so I left Nordea and worked for Zwipe until 2015. While at Zwipe, I realised there are so many Fintech companies out there, that Fintech was becoming a global trend, and that many Fintech companies were going to escalate in volume. I got in contact with a South African in London, a Briton in Tel Aviv and an Irish person in Dublin, and we discussed the ways in which we could help Fintech companies to scale with our experience and networks, building up companies to create a Fintech ecosystem – back then, accelerators and incubators were still in their infancy. That was the start of Fintech Mundi. What also motivated me was the entrepreneurship. Banks are conservative, and at this point they were still stuck in the financial crisis and caught up in the recession. But at the same time, there was all this innovation with the Fintech companies always in front, growing, with younger people, very tech-savvy and so forth. As a kind of facilitator, I thought that was very interesting and it gave me a lot of energy. Of course, I love the international space – the wider, the bigger, the better for me.

Evita: Perhaps you could highlight the hottest Fintech companies from Norway – no, not Fintech Mundi yet, that will be my next question! But in terms of what our readers should know about Norwegian Fintech, which names would you mention?

Susanne: There are several! A few niche bankers such as Aprila, and an older one, Bank Norwegian, which is doing interesting things with consumer lending. I would also like to highlight Huddlestock, which is more investment-focused. They have a dashboard and sell into bank markets, it’s B2B and kind of a white label, ever since they realised it’s easier to do B2B than B2C. Another B2B fintech is Quantfolio, selling mostly to banks. Finally, I would like to mention Neonomics, which provides open banking – they have more than 1,300 banks in 25 European countries, and are growing fast. There is fierce competition in the open banking arena.

Evita: If you could highlight a little bit about Fintech Mundi now, what are the interesting start-ups that everyone should know – in particular, are there any that have especially high potential or a nice objective?

Susanne: Fintech Mundi operate across the Nordic and Baltic states. I would highlight the up-and-coming Finnish company – Cloud Asset – a month ago, they won an award in Finland at the Forum. Two others to watch are both from Sweden – Acuminor, which is a credit risk assessment company, and Doconomy, a company that offers sustainable banking – and I believe that each of them offers something unique, something different.

Evita: Now I will ask just one question related to the gender aspect. Why should girls and women stay close to technology and develop their careers there, either as specialists or as leaders or as entrepreneurs?

Susanne: Entrepreneurships are fun, risky and very rewarding and we need both genders and diversity. I’d say that the Nordics are quite liberated, but women need a little bit more incentive to invest and found companies, so the awareness is there. We need to have a balance of all categories of diversity.

The majority of students in law, medicine and business are women, way above 50%, but in technology it’s a little bit lower, although I think that is changing. You need all aspects; even if some women and girls are afraid of math, science or technology, we need all types of professions to build tech companies. We need leadership, and girls and women are good at leading. They just need the confidence and understanding, and maybe they need a role model to understand. This shouldn’t be a hindrance – it’s a mental barrier, both individually and in society, so Go Do, Go Make!

Collaboration is the new innovation. It is important for so many aspects of business – for Fintech, and also for banks – because as a leader, you can’t stand alone, you need to collaborate. In technology, you see that there is a need for your product, but you also need to make sure that you interact with the customers, and that your functionality is appropriate. In the past, people thought knowledge was power, but now we know that sharing knowledge is even more powerful.

Evita Lune is a Partner who drives the firm’s Global Digital Economy. She has completed over 100 senior level assignments in over 40 countries within this practice, out of her total portfolio of over 600 assignments. Ms. Lune works extensively with FinTech clients from the Nordics and supports their global expansion plans on all continents by providing effective executive search solutions. She also supports clients in the Middle East and South East Asia with bringing Nordic talent to drive digital transformation in other geographies. Her previous experience includes three years with the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga as the Executive MBA Program Director and six years with Shell in international and regional marketing management functions in Riga, Budapest, and Brussels. Ms. Lune was a speaker at the CEE FutureTech congress in Warsaw – one of the most important business summits in Central and Eastern Europe and participated in the Blockchain Pre-Accelerator Program at University of Latvia. She is also a blogger for RigaTechGirls, a Jury Member of CEE Capital Markets and FinTech Awards and a Contributing Advisor at the Digital Freedom Festival.  Ms. Lune was recognised by Forbes as one of the top 25 most influential women in Latvia for two years in a row. Ms. Lune has a PhD in Social Economy. Evita Lune speaks fluent Latvian, English, and Russian and has passive fluency in German, Swedish, and Polish.

Pedersen & Partners is a leading international Executive Search firm. We operate 57 wholly owned offices in 53 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia & the Americas. Our values Trust, Relationship and Professionalism apply to our interaction with clients as well as executives. More information about Pedersen & Partners is available at www.pedersenandpartners.com

If you would like to conduct an interview with a representative of Pedersen & Partners, or have other media-related requests, please contact: Diana Danu, Marketing and Communications Manager at: diana.danu@pedersenandpartners.com

Miss Kaya is a lifestyle and financial platform for the modern woman. Miss Kaya got the chance to speak with Evita Lune - Partner at Pedersen & Partners, and one of Forbes’ most influential women in Latvia. She specialises in Fintech, is an advocate for the application of smart modern technology, and actively works to support women in their professional development. Given her success and active support in empowering women, Miss Kaya wanted to understand what it is that keeps her going in her everyday life and career, as well as any tips she has in keeping her finances in shape.

1. Tell us more about what you do.

I am a Global Head of FinTech Practice Group and Global Equity Partner at Pedersen & Partners, a leading international executive search firm, active in 53 countries.

2. What drives you to do your best in life and at work everyday?

I have always been a very ambitious person. I have tried to achieve the most that I can, either at work or outside. Achievement always lies outside one’s comfort zone, so I have been exposing myself to learning and development in different areas of life. And I have hopefully become a better professional, wife, sportswoman, mother and friend over the years.

3. Outside of work, what do you do and enjoy in your free time?

Waterski slalom is my main hobby, I practice it 4 – 5 times a week during summer months. During winter I do downhill skiing and yoga. I am also spending quality time with my family, exploring the nature and meeting friends in Latvia and abroad.

4. What advice do you have for other women who are trying to establish their careers and seeking fulfilment in their lives?

A happy and balanced person should look for four main areas of fulfillment: personal, professional, spiritual and physical. There is none that is more important than the others, and only the person that has a balance of all four can contribute the best in all areas.

5. You have been very successful thus far in your career. What were some main challenges you faced along the way, and how did you overcome them?

I come from a small country. Latvia has only 2 million inhabitants. Moreover, there are lots of stereotypes connected with post-Soviet countries. Breaking into international business arena has not been exactly “a walk in a park for me”. There are many “glass ceilings” that I have broken and many that I am still to break. I am blessed with having fantastic partners at Pedersen & Partners which have given me a great global platform to develop my professional skills.

6. As a lifestyle and financial platform, Miss Kaya believes that having a control over our finances is key to leading the type of life we want. Can you share with us some habits or tips you have in keeping track or growing your finances?

Growing my own competence and professional development have been key reasons for being able to continuously increase my welfare. I am not focusing on running after money at all. Instead, I try to become better and better every day and to deliver the value to my clients, above their expectations.

On the cost side, as a person, I do not need any luxury lifestyle, and I do not care much about demonstrating anything to others. So I am not under any pressure to satisfy some luxury standard of living.

7. Any pearls of wisdom that you go by?

If you want to change the world for the better, start with changing yourself!

Evita Lune is a Partner who drives the firm’s Global Digital Economy. She has completed over 50 senior level assignments in 29 countries within this practice, out of her total portfolio of over 600 assignments. Ms. Lune works extensively with FinTech clients from the Baltic sea region (Scandinavia, Baltics, Poland) and supports their global expansion plans in all continents by providing effective executive search solutions. As a team leader and regional director, she manages Pedersen & Partners teams in Poland, Baltics and Belarus. Her previous experience includes three years with the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga as the Executive MBA Program Director and six years with Shell in international and regional marketing management functions in Riga, Budapest, and Brussels.

Ms. Lune was a speaker at the CEE FutureTech congress in Warsaw - one of the most important business summits in Central and Eastern Europe and participated in Blockchain Pre-Accelerator Program at University of Latvia. She is also a blogger for RigaTechGirls, a Jury Member of CEE Capital Markets and FinTech Awards and a Contributing Advisor at the Digital Freedom Festival. Ms. Lune was recognized by Forbes as one of the top 25 most influential women in Latvia for two years in a row.

If you would like to conduct an interview with a representative of Pedersen & Partners, or have other media-related requests, please contact: Anastasia Alpaticova, Marketing and Communications Manager at: anastasia.alpaticova@pedersenandpartners.com

Riga, Latvia – Evita Lune, Partner for Global Digital Economy at Pedersen & Partners interviewed Marili Merendi, Associate at Karma Ventures.

"We believe that one can only scale by hiring great people that bring true value and know-how on scaling and making a company stronger and better.”

 

Evita Lune is a Partner who drives the firm’s Global Digital Economy. She has completed over 50 senior level assignments in 29 countries within this practice, out of her total portfolio of over 600 assignments. Ms. Lune works extensively with FinTech clients from the Baltic sea region (Scandinavia, Baltics, Poland) and supports their global expansion plans in all continents by providing effective executive search solutions. As a team leader and regional director, she manages Pedersen & Partners teams in Poland, Baltics and Belarus. Her previous experience includes three years with the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga as the Executive MBA Program Director and six years with Shell in international and regional marketing management functions in Riga, Budapest, and Brussels.

Ms. Lune was a speaker at the CEE FutureTech congress in Warsaw - one of the most important business summits in Central and Eastern Europe and participated in Blockchain Pre-Accelerator Program at University of Latvia. She is also a blogger for RigaTechGirls, a Jury Member of CEE Capital Markets and FinTech Awards and a Contributing Advisor at the Digital Freedom Festival. Ms. Lune was recognized by Forbes as one of the top 25 most influential women in Latvia for two years in a row.

If you would like to conduct an interview with a representative of Pedersen & Partners, or have other media-related requests, please contact: Anastasia Alpaticova, Marketing and Communications Manager at: anastasia.alpaticova@pedersenandpartners.com

Riga, Latvia – Ieva Riekstina, Consultant at Pedersen & Partners spoke with Claire Linley, Chief Communications Officer at cloudyBoss

Read the whole interview here.

Ieva Riekstina is a Consultant at Pedersen & Partners, based in Riga, Latvia. Ms. Riekstina is an HR management and recruitment professional with over twenty years of experience in the Technology, Telecommunications, Banking, Insurance, Finance, Plant production, and FMCG sectors across the Baltics. She has placed C-suite, management, functional, and operational executives across these industries. During her extensive career in the MTM industry, she collaborated with several local and international IT companies where she worked as HR and Administrative Manager, Senior Consultant, and IT recruiter and was in charge of HR strategy, recruitment, policy development, process redesign, and talent transformation. Prior to joining Pedersen & Partners, she served as an IT Recruiter for the Latvian branch of Accenture, the biggest IT company in Latvia, where she supported the corporation’s expansion to over 10 countries through highly-specialised IT positions recruitment, training, and integration.

Riga, Latvia – Māra Pudāne interviewed for Riga Tech Girls by Evita Lune, Partner at Pedersen & Partners.

Māra Pudāne is a Scientific Researcher at Department of Artificial Intelligence and Systems Engineering, part of the Riga Technical University (RTU). Māra has a BA and Masters degrees of Engineering Sciences in Computer Systems from RTU and a wealth of publications and research in Artificial Intelligence. Her current focus is on developing affective computing systems to simulate human group behavior which would eventually be used to assist people with emotional challenges.

Evita: Your research also looks closely into crowds and predicting their behavior, is it just one part of your work or your main focus?

 

Māra: It’s not my main focus but it is a part of my research. A crowd as a structure is a bit simpler than a group of people who know each other, let’s say, co-workers. A crowd has a basic structure and it’s easier to predict its behavior. 

 

When people pass emotions from one to the other, there are several ways for this to happen, which I call mechanisms. When it comes to the crowd, there are just one or two mechanisms involved in passing emotions, while in the work groups there are five mechanisms. 

 

For example, a simple, yet effective mechanism to pass an emotion is to express it verbally; this is a direct manifestation of how you are feeling at this moment — we often use it with people we know.

 

In a crowd, direct emotion expression does not work. Instead, we use a mechanism based on mimicry. People tend to mimic the emotions of others: if someone smiles, we tend to smile; such behavior is coded in our low-level social behavior models. This mechanism is called emotion contagion because it occurs exactly like a virus.

 

It’s much harder to predict the behavior of the coworkers because coworkers have relationships, i.e., a social structure, and have common things that they need to accomplish. More importantly, they have the ability to communicate if they like or dislike the behavior of another person. Therefore, predicting their behavior is so much more difficult. This is why current models that I have were first applied to crowds. Nevertheless, we are also working on scientific research and publications that cover other types of groups.

 

Read the whole interview here.

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Evita Lune is a Partner who drives the firm’s Global Digital Economy. She has completed over 50 senior level assignments in 29 countries within this practice, out of her total portfolio of over 600 assignments. Ms. Lune works extensively with FinTech clients from the Baltic sea region (Scandinavia, Baltics, Poland) and supports their global expansion plans in all continents by providing effective executive search solutions. As a team leader and regional director, she manages Pedersen & Partners teams in Poland, Baltics and Belarus. Her previous experience includes three years with the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga as the Executive MBA Program Director and six years with Shell in international and regional marketing management functions in Riga, Budapest, and Brussels. 

 

Ms. Lune was a speaker at the CEE FutureTech congress in Warsaw - one of the most important business summits in Central and Eastern Europe and participated in Blockchain Pre-Accelerator Program at University of Latvia. She is also a blogger for RigaTechGirls and a Jury Member of CEE Capital Markets and FinTech Awards. Ms. Lune was recognized by Forbes as one of the top 25 most influential women in Latvia for two years in a row.

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Pedersen & Partners is a leading international Executive Search firm. We operate 57 wholly owned offices in 53 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia & the Americas. Our values Trust, Relationship and Professionalism apply to our interaction with clients as well as executives. More information about Pedersen & Partners is available at www.pedersenandpartners.com

If you would like to conduct an interview with a representative of Pedersen & Partners, or have other media-related requests, please contact: Anastasia Alpaticova, Marketing and Communications Manager at: anastasia.alpaticova@pedersenandpartners.com