The Commons Digest (04/07/2022)

The COmmons Insider Newsletter

Welcome to the latest issue of The Commons digest!

This is our bi-weekly round-up of community news, relevant content and anything that can help us level up together.

As always, reach out if you have any feedback or if you’d like anything featured in here.

Now onto the update 👇

Insight We're Pondering 💭

If you're asking yourself "what should I do next?" then you might want to consider the following factors: people, experience, life and alignment.

That's the gyst of what Commons mentor Andrew Yeung calls the "Career Decision Matrix."

All too often, our career decisions are fraught with complexity and anxiety. With so many variables to weigh, for example, how do we know what to prioritize?

The first step is to find out exactly what's important to you, and Andrew's matrix is a great place to start. The four pillars are:

  1. People — the community and networks that you can build relationships with
  2. Experience — the skills, impact, and knowledge that you'll be able to learn
  3. Life — the job factors that can enhance your happiness
  4. Alignment — the values that enable long-term conviction

Of course, the relative weight of each pillar will depend on your goals and where you are in life. But that's precisely the point: you can use them to answer those very questions.

Andrew recently published a broader article on finding one's next thing, which you can check out here.

Community Members Spotlight 💡

Today we’re featuring Angelina Lu, a Product Manager at Wealthsimple and a long-time member of the mentor team here at The Commons.

Angelina is someone we often point to when community members ask about opportunities beyond consulting, as well as what it’s like to work at the intersection of fintech and product management. Angelina started her career as a strategy consultant at McKinsey before moving into Product Ops at Revolut where she got to beta launch new markets as well as products like international remittance. As a product manager at Wealthsimple, her team is involved with everything that has to do with money movement.

In other words: if you’re interested in product and/or fintech then Angelina’s career path is worth studying:

Angelina is also a fount of wisdom when it comes to strategizing a job search process, or choosing the best offer from an array of options. She was kind enough to share some of her frameworks with us, which you can check out here.

P.S. Angelina is also co-leading the upcoming Revenue Growth Sprint (see below). If you want to learn the ins and outs of fintech directly from her, as well as what it's like to work at the intersection of Product and BizOps, you should definitely apply.

Apply Now: April Sprints 🚀

We're running two Commons Sprints in April: Revenue Growth and Product Operations.

Our Revenue Growth Sprint is led by Angelina (Product at Wealthsimple) and Si Jia (Product, Crypto at Revolut). They created this Sprint to get you up to speed on what you need to know to succeed at early-stage Fintech companies, in roles at the intersection of BizOps & Product 📈

The Product Operations Sprint is led by Wafic El-Assi (Product at Uber), who will help you learn everything you need to succeed in Product Ops roles and level up to nail an interview ⚙️

Both Sprints kick off later this month. Remember that applications are first-come, first-served so we recommend applying earlier rather than later if you want to secure a spot.

Apply Now - Revenue Growth

Apply Now - Product Operations

Questions? We've got you covered. Just reply to this email and we'll be glad to help.

Apply Early: May and June Sprints 🌟

If you're reading this, odds are you self-identify as a strategic thinker. That means you probably like to plan ahead of time 👏

To that end, we've quietly opened early applications to three Sprints that will kick off in late May and early June: The Commons Core, Strategic Finance and Product Strategy.

Applying early is the best way to secure your spot in that we'll have more time to review your application. All of our March Sprints, for example, filled up before we could even finish processing all of the applications.

Dozens of community members and other smart business professionals have already enrolled in these Sprints. You can join them by applying below👇

Apply Early - Core Sprint

Apply Early - Strategic Finance

Apply Early - Product Strategy

Events @ The Commons 🗓

  • Monday April 11th: We're kicking off our first The Commons: Keeping it Candid series—a panel where 3 community members will dive in on a community-driven topic, share their experiences, and open the floor for some honest, unfiltered discussion.
  • Our first topic will explore 🥁….Life as a Digital Nomad! Hear from Sushant Bhardwaj, Mitch Titsworth and Conor Ryan as they get candid on how they balanced nomadic life with work, the pros and cons, and how to make the most out of the lifestyle. Community members can sign up at the link in the #general channel on Slack 🌎
  • Wednesday April 13th: Mentor Timothy Chen will be leading a community speaker series on Building a Product Ops Organization from Scratch. Why this topic? Well, you've heard of Product Ops, a burgeoning field at the intersection of Product and BizOps. You might also know that the best companies are already leveraging these teams. But who is responsible for building them, and when? Enter Timothy, who is going to lend us his expertise ⚙️
  • This is open to community-members as well as the public! You can register 👉 HERE 👈

#community-wins 🥇

We celebrated several hiring announcements and promotions!

  • Abdi Hersi joined Wealthsimple as Senior Manager, Regulatory R&D, Payments 💳
  • Eric McClelland was promoted to Product Operations Manager at Clariti 🔎


  • Alice Marson was promoted to Strategy & Operations Manager at DoorDash 🚲


  • Zafer Zeren was promoted to Lead Analyst, Business Operations at Homebase 🕑


  • Katy Culver was promoted to Director of Customer Success at Dover 🤝
  • Bruno Rodríguez Aramayo joined SumUp as Head of Growth 📈
  • Peyton Harrison joined the business development team at Instacart 🥕
  • Christopher McLaren joined Borealis AI as a Senior Product Manager 💻

Please be sure to reach out with a word or two of congratulations on Slack!

One (Community) Thing 💚

We recently had the pleasure of welcoming some new mentors to the community ✨

We're excited to have you all aboard Jon, Megan, Fernando, Sunain, Georgia and Ross! And big thanks to mentors Max, Ujwal, Allan and Anna for giving them an incredibly warm welcome!

***

That’s all for now ✌️ If you’d like to access more news and content before the next update, you can hop on over to Slack.

P.S. please give us a follow on Instagram - we’re bringing the community directly to your feed :)

See anything your friend might find interesting? Feel free to forward this issue! This community grows stronger and more valuable to everyone in it the more smart people - i.e. folks like you - learn about The Commons. Sign-up to receive all things The Commons right here.

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