Who we are
Manuele Piastra
While packing before a journey what is it that has to be there in your backpack?
Sticky notes!
The more the better.
They symbolise the desire to work as a team, to be inclusive, to listen actively and the desire to work in a fun way.
What was the most impactful, trasformational experience you had, professionally or private? Why?
Moving to London in 2014 was the most important experience of my life, both professionally and privately. It enabled me to have access to considerably more sources of learning in terms of quantity and quality and to meet people from completely different cultures from my own. It has been a very intense change: changing house, language and job at the same time was more challenging than I thought; at the same time, or perhaps because of this, it has been rewarding. Professionally, I have had the opportunity to work in fast paced companies with very complex technology stacks and very ambitious business goals. Personally, I have developed more open-mindedness, more patience and autonomy: I feel “wiser” and more aware thanks to this experience.
List three values on which you base your actions and your life.
- Respect: each person has incredible value in their diversity.
- Empathy: being able to put oneself in the shoes of others and listen without prejudice to what they are trying to communicate, remembering that everyone has tough times and makes mistakes.
- Courage: improvement implies risk, in work as in life; feeling some anxiety and fear of making mistakes is normal, but curiosity and the desire to experiment must prevail.
What is it in your job that you enjoy the most?
Helping people to feel in control of their own performance and to have the desire to do things in a different and better way. I feel motivated by the impact this inevitably has: more value to the business and more motivation to individuals. It’s a job that puts you into different situations, problems and people, so it’s always various and stimulating.
What episode related to your profession would you like everyone to know about? How do you think it can help other colleagues and why?
One episode I am very proud of is when I became an automation expert and built an automation framework using Java, Cucumber and Appium to do automation of iOS and Android apps for IG Index. The flexibility and ability to ‘get my hands dirty’ that I showed earned me credits with the team and the impact was considerable: we reduced the regression cycle from 3 weeks to 2-3 days. I also enjoyed getting back to writing some code!
Add a personal anecdote, the kind you’d put at the bottom of your résumé – or at the beginning, depending on your point of view – under hobbies and interests.
Despite being a bit of a ‘potato coach’, I am surprisingly good at skiing.
Could it be because I’ve been skiing since I was 14? I also really like horror films, which is surprising to many of my acquaintances who ask me: “But how? You seem like such a nice person!”
Finally, an important part of me is my love for music: I like to sing, play the piano and listen to different musical genres, although my default is baroque music.