I work at a company called KappaZeta. We’re a group of scientists, engineers, field experts, salespeople, and other great people who work with Earth observation data and develop machine learning models to extract insights about the land from that data. I joined the company almost three years ago as chief operating officer. Immediately after joining, I made it my first mission to just take as much administrative burden off the board members as possible. I was surprised to find myself soon overseeing the company’s finances, creating HR documents from scratch, pitching in for project proposal writing, and the list could go on for pages. As the team grew, the need for workforce scheduling became more and more acute, and my next big goal was to start allocating the time resources of the team in a way that would ensure timely high-quality deliveries to clients, while also avoiding burnout of our employees. Recently we’ve grown to 26 employees (compared to 13 when I joined), and that demanded implementing a completely new system for sprints and meetings. Since we’re a growing startup, I’m sure my role will keep evolving faster than I can keep up with!

I was a law student back in 2014, not particularly interested in becoming a lawyer of any kind. A dear friend, who has had a significant influence on my life, invited me to join the ESTCube student satellite team. Normally, I would have found a reason to decline any similar seemingly ridiculous offer, but I couldn’t. I was unable to say no, even though I had no valid reason to say yes. After that, I spent my nights studying every abbreviation I could find (EPS, ADCS, OBCS, etc.) and learning the basics about satellites. My friend brought me to a brainstorming session about the ESTCube-2 and ESTCube-3 satellites happening at Tartu Observatory in Tõravere. I sat at a table surrounded by about 20 satellite developers and introduced myself: “Hi, I’m your new project manager!” Around the table, I could see pleasantly curious faces and definitely some skeptical ones too. One of the founders of the student satellite programme asked me: “What makes you think you have what it takes?” I replied: “I’ve taken a human resources management course during my Erasmus studies. And I’ve never failed anything I’ve started.” I was definitely naïve at that point, and overly courageous considering my actual abilities, but here I am, still working in the same field over 10 years later.

I guess this is a weird answer, but I love problems. It doesn’t sound half as strange when I specify that I love solving problems. Some of my favorite moments have been mediating conflicts (almost always mere misunderstandings) between employees and helping colleagues solve issues that seem unsolvable. Fortunately for everyone, but somewhat unfortunately for me, I haven’t been able to put these skills to use in a while! These days, the most fun I get to have is resolving scheduling conflicts between projects. But resolving the interpersonal problems is where the real fun is. I think conflict resolution is a valuable non-technical skill that benefits our company, and something that might not come so easily to those more inclined towards STEM disciplines. While pinpointing the source of problems between others isn’t too difficult, the skill somehow doesn’t extend to my own issues, and I need my colleagues to also help me from time to time. Learning something new from your colleagues every day is a big bonus of working in a space company too!