Exploring Your Own Passions: Interview with Anya Ruvinskaya
“Take a break, and take it easy on yourselves.”
Anya Ruvinskaya graduated with an MBA from Wharton and took on the role of senior product manager for Minecraft and, later, for Spotify. She also has a range of experience in managing, consulting, technology, and more. Now she is a freelancer, exploring her own passions as she takes on speaking engagements, advisory roles, projects, and consulting. She is also an instructor and featured speaker at Product School, the world’s first technology business school, where she teaches product management. The Penn Innovators in Business Network asked Anya to share some of the lessons she learned through her career path and lend her advice for undergraduates today.
What advice would you give undergraduates as they seek their future path?
“The first advice that I would give is to take it easy on yourselves. I think especially now there’s a tremendous amount of pressure and a whole new level of expectations that I feel like didn’t exist when I first went to undergrad for my bachelor’s. And you all are doing so much already just by being at Penn. You’ve achieved a lot by getting there, and you will continue to achieve a lot. So take a break and take it easy on yourselves. That’s the biggest piece of advice. And the second, really valuing experience in addition to the knowledge you’re gaining in classrooms: all the internships, all the volunteering opportunities, all the conversations [with alum and other professionals] are super invaluable.”
What skills do you wish you had learned during your undergraduate career or during the Wharton MBA program?
“I didn’t know that I would end up at a tech company, I didn’t know that I would end up working on video games, on music. None of that was in the purview at that time. So I could say I would have focused more on that then, but that that wasn’t the purpose of that time. I think if you try to look back on it after the fact, more often than not, especially if you tend to be an overachiever, you’ll see that everything kind of serves its purpose and leads you to the next thing. A lot of times, you don’t know exactly where you’ll end up, and at times you’ll be surprised by some of the roles and the industries you’ll find yourself in. The best thing you can do is become really good at learning. In this economy, you’re going to reinvent yourselves many times over with industries, with careers, even with your personal life and interests. So if you can learn to be adaptable, flexible, and just love to learn and immerse yourself in whatever new job, industry, topic you’ve landed yourself on, that’s the most valuable.”
What did success look like for you during your undergraduate years? And now?
“A little bit of my background, I’m an immigrant. I was born in Kiev, Ukraine and I moved to the US with my parents to New York, where I grew up, when I was around 10. We come from a humble background. We struggled when we initially came to the country. When I first went to university, top of mind for me was making it as an immigrant: get the best job, make the most money, make our family comfortable. I wasn’t focused as much on job satisfaction, on what career I would actually find rewarding to go to day in and day out. Now, over a decade later, I’ve reached that initial goal of ‘I feel comfortable, I feel like I’ll have job security, hopefully, no matter what happens or where I go. I’ve really started to think more about self-fulfillment. What am I actually satisfied doing? Where are my passions? And I’ve taken the time off to explore those things, which is currently part of the reason why I’m freelancing.”
Do you have any advice for choosing the correct startup?
“Do you believe in the product? Are you super passionate about it? You’re going to be working a lot in an early stage startup, so you really need to love what you’re doing. You need to believe and be interested in the future life of that product. So in any way that you can, get to know the product, but also get to know the founders. Get to know them in social settings, even, if you can. If you can just grab coffee with them, get on a zoom call or a hangout, and [on the more dedicated end of that] work with them for a bit before you decide to fully commit. Maybe spend a month or two, if you can, and intern with them before committing full time. A lot of times you get into the rat race of just wanting to secure a full time job when you’re graduating, and you just want to say you have something. But in this scenario it’s really important to have mutual fit and remember that you’re interviewing them as well. They’ll respect you more for it.”
What is the worst advice you’ve ever received?
“To chase money. When I had graduated undergrad, my first role was in finance, in asset management at an investment bank. I started out as a temp there, and I moved up the ranks, but it wasn’t a full time role yet. And I was under the mentorship of some people there, particularly the director of this one group. My temp role was with the understanding that I’m trying to get a full time position and I want to make this my career and I want to grow there. That’s when I started questioning whether I even wanted to be in finance at all. I hated waking up every morning and going to work, I felt like I wasn’t making any meaningful impact in the world. I started thinking about nonprofits and doing a fellowship in Africa and the Peace Corps, etc. More and more, I actually started applying for nonprofits and other positions. That’s also the same time that he offered me a full time role. So I had a conversation where I told him I’m what I’ve been thinking about; trying out working at a nonprofit or the Peace Corps. I told him that I think I need to try these other things, I’ve realized by working here that this might not be the path for me, but thank you for the exposure. He basically told me I was stupid and crazy for thinking about leaving, especially for an unpaid internship when I could be making real money and on a trajectory to much more. He drew this five or ten year plan, I forget, for how I was going to grow to make six figures or however much and said how could I walk away from all of that for an unpaid nonprofit internship… which is exactly what I proceeded to do. And even that original timeline he drew, I still ended up meeting the financial goals that he had in mind, just through my own path.”
Written by Angie Zhou
