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Maria | Working across team and cultural boundaries

Maria-C-web Maria works across team boundaries, and in addition to customer work her work also includes a lot of internal development work.
↑ Maria works across team boundaries, and in addition to customer work her work also includes a lot of internal development work.
25.01.2022 | Being yourself is one of Efima’s core values, and Maria Chikitkina thinks it portrays the company’s culture perfectly – the company is full of people whose skills and personalities complement each other.

Maria Chikitkina's alarm clock is soft, hairy, and light orange. The kitten's name is Markus, and he was found on a holiday trip to St. Petersburg, where Maria used to live before moving to Helsinki. When the kitten was found on the street, he was scared, and getting him to Finland was a long process including vaccinations and veterinary visits. Maria's perseverance has since been rewarded, and Markus is getting used to living in Espoo, just like the rest of the family.

Maria is also persistent at work. When her previous job no longer produced enough challenges, she applied for a job at Efima in 2019. She was interviewed by Arto, Pekka and Kai, and right from the first meeting, Maria felt like she had come to the right place. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming, and the men were fun. 

Perseverance was also needed in Maria’s Finnish language studies, which seem to have resulted in great results. Today Maria works fluently in Finnish, for which Maria thanks her former and current colleagues and clients: “At the beginning, it was difficult to start speaking Finnish during client visits, but I had a colleague with me to support me and to help with translations if needed. It's nice to speak and joke with my co-workers in Finnish”, Maria says.

Co-working across team boundaries

Maria works as a Dynamics 365 Solution Architect and enjoys her job at Efima. "Efima has a good combination of digital cloud services and financial management services, and a great spirit among the staff." Maria works across team boundaries, and in addition to customer work her work also includes a lot of internal development work: such as developing new methods, tools, and templates. On the product management side, Maria's work includes keeping up with the version updates of the Dynamics 365 cloud solution, analyzing new features, and sharing information both internally and to customers, including in the form of popular unboxing blogs (only in Finnish).

Maria is originally from Karaganda, Kazakhstan. For the last grade of high school, she moved to St. Petersburg to live with her uncle, as the local high school was good and mathematically focused – her wish was to continue to a university. Already during her studies, Maria started working, first in St. Petersburg, but later she moved to Finland due to her boyfriend's new job. Maria saw moving to Finland as a great opportunity to see the world from a slightly different perspective. “Studying math strengthens your analytical mindset and makes it possible to model almost anything”, Maria laughs and tells about her fellow student who tried to model love.

Investing in your own well-being pays off – both at work and in your free time

The best thing about Finland is its pure nature, which is present right outside the front door. St. Petersburg, on the other hand, stands out for its cultural offerings. Before the pandemic Maria visited St. Petersburg quite often – once or twice a month. “From Efima’s office, Allegro train gets you to St. Petersburg in an instant, as long as the Coronavirus situation calms down”, Maria describes.

In her free time, Maria enjoys nature, yoga, dancing, and skiing – whenever she has the time to. Skiing was a passion of hers already in her childhood and now it’s a dear winter hobby. Her hobbies also include arts in various forms: drawing, photography and playing piano, now that she has a new one.

In terms of work culture, Maria recognizes a few differences between the two countries, especially when it comes to balancing work and leisure. She feels that “at Efima the well-being of employees is taken care of. For example, walking meetings are becoming more popular.” Maria has been thinking a lot about her own well-being: she would give her younger self an advice to balance life in terms of work and leisure better than she once did.

Maria values the opportunity to experience and try new things and to grow as an employee and as a person – as well as being open to new people and new experiences. “Efima has an excellent experimental atmosphere – we dare to try new ways and techniques”, Maria concludes.