Instead of walking into a new company and laying out her vision for things, she knew it was important to find out what employees felt the current vision was as well as how things were going, what things were working, and what wasn’t. When she first started as CEO of TaskRabbit Ania made it a point to meet with every single employee inside of the company-she went on a listening tour, as she puts it. She knew she had been working for 20+ years and while she may be a little behind when getting back, she felt that she would still be relevant and would be able to catch up quickly.Īnd sure enough, one week after returning to the U.S.
Taskr abiit careers full#
While some people would be worried about leaving their career for a full year and getting left behind, Ania wasn’t too concerned. And to be able to take a breather and really reevaluate where you are and what you want to do and who you want to be when you grow up- I ask that question to myself all the time, still today-and to have that space to think that through. And this is this changing a job to something else before you change it into a new job. We're all capable of doing something else. And it's just unfortunately not true, for most of us. And it really shows you that sometimes you kind of feel like oh my god, if I'm not at work, like the whole world is going to fall apart. When talking about the experience she says, “ I absolutely feel that if you can at all swing it, it is life-changing, it's transformative.
/images/2021/07/30/woman-taskrabbit-contractor.jpg "taskr abiit careers")
She says it was an amazing experience to really step back from everything and to get away from the day-to-day race to really think about what she wanted her next step to be in her career. For a whole year, Ania and her husband stopped working and really took that time to be together as a family, explore a new culture, and talk about the future. And I think that that's a sort of a great analogy to think about my career.”Ī couple of years after leaving Airbnb, Ania, her husband, and their kids took a gap year to go and live in Argentina. Other times, we may even have an accident and really have to pedal back. Other times, we actually are stuck in a traffic jam and really feel stuck in our careers. Other times, we're on a slow country road. So she talks about how, you know, sometimes we're just like speeding down the highway towards our career and we know exactly what we're doing. She says, “A good friend of mine once used the analogy of a Google map. There were definitely times in Ania’s career where she didn’t get the promotion she wanted right away, but there was always another opportunity waiting that allowed her to meet new people and learn new skills that she could take with her to the next role.Īnia shared an analogy her friend uses when thinking about the course of a career. As Ania shares, it is important to stay open to new opportunities to keep learning and growing and don’t limit yourself on where you have to go next. A lot of times we get stuck thinking that our next step has to be up the ladder to the next logical role-but oftentimes important steps in our career are side steps.
The path to success doesn’t always have to be linearĪs Ania shares, the path to her current role as CEO was not linear, it was very much a zig-zag. And really, the only way to do that, for those of us who are not lucky enough to know from when we're three what we want to be, is to try out many new things and see what really energizes you and motivates you and helps you think about the impact that you're having. So I'd like to think more about finding my passion. But that's really hard because oftentimes, we don't know what our passion is. Ania says, “A lot of times, they'll say, you know, follow your passion.
She has been able to meet new people, experience different cultures, and pick up new skills over the years.Īnother way her unique background has helped is with figuring out what she wants to do in life. She has been able to work across many countries, cities, companies, and roles and that diverse background has taught her a lot. One of the things that Ania says has helped her get to where she is now is her broad experiences living and working in four different continents. She became CEO back in August of 2020, prior to that she held roles such as Director, Head of Courier Operations at Uber, Head of Operations, Host Services for Airbnb, and Director of Strategic Partnerships & Merchandising Strategy at Walmart-just to name a few. Ania Smith is the CEO of TaskRabbit, an online and mobile marketplace that matches freelance labor with local demand.
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