Teamwork makes the dream work, and we'd be nowhere without our talented, dedicated team of employees.
To give you a glimpse into the day-to-day happenings of our team, and give you a chance to meet the brains behind the operation, we're highlighting a new Beautiful.ai employee each month. Every employee brings their own unique ideas, skills, and perspective to the company and contribute to the overall business in different ways. To show you a behind the scenes of each department, we're interviewing members of the team on all things presentations, remote work, and everything in between.
For this month's interview we caught up with Steven Talafuse, Director of Account Management & Partner Growth. Steven helps grow the Beautiful.ai business by driving sales and partnership efforts forward with his extensive knowledge and experience. Today it's his turn to tell his story. Let's get into it.
Q: How long have you worked at Beautiful.ai?
A: 9 months technically, but that’s 8 years in start-up time right?
Q: What is your role and what does it entail?
A: Two main areas for my role: 1) Lead the team that is responsible for retaining and renewing & expanding our current clients. 2) Help grow our partner ecosystem
Q: How do presentations play a role in your day-to-day responsibilities?
A: It’s critical to the way that I communicate; both internally to my team and externally to clients and partners. We are all storytellers, and Beautiful.ai lets me focus on crafting my story without worrying about the details.
Q: What do you love most about working at Beautiful.ai?
A: The passionate and amazing people that constantly amaze me on how they can build a product to disrupt the presentation landscape.
Q: What is your favorite Beautiful.ai feature?
A: It’s a close race between Shared slides & Themes. Shared Slides means updating something once and having it pushed to every deck it lives in; makes staying current painless. Themes help me customize presentations in one click to any number of audiences to save time and personalize the look and feel of every deck.
Q: What is something exciting you’re working on right now or something work-related you’re proud of?
A: We are building out the structure, process, and long term vision of the Account Management team. It’s exciting to see this side of the business grow to support all the fantastic clients that our sales team is getting on the product!
Q: What was your first job?
A: Blockbuster Associate - yup that Blockbuster.
Q: The best career lesson you’ve learned so far?
A: You have two ears and one mouth: listen more and talk less. (Thanks Grandpa for that one)
Q: How would you describe your job to a class of Kindergarteners?
A: If you ask my own Kindergartner: I help people draw pictures and tell stories that look pretty.
Q: Favorite remote work activities?
A: The #random slack channel and jokes/memes on the #salesonly channel
Q: When you aren’t working, what do you like to do for fun?
A: Spend time with the family & catch a Premier League/La Liga game!
Q: What is one thing you cannot live without?
A: The gym. It’s become a ritual for me and helps me clear my head and really think of ways to solve problems: lifting heavy things tends to do that.
