Company Insights: 3 Questions for our Chapter Lead Irina Hey

Hi Irina, please introduce yourself briefly to our readers

Hi. My name is Irina, and I work at OnPage.org since the very beginning in 2012. With many years of experience as a passionate online marketing expert, I'm in charge of our international marketing team and responsible for acquiring new customers for our software products. Furthermore, I published various articles about website optimization in relevant ebooks, blogs, and journals.

What does it actually mean to be a chapter lead?

The primary task as a chapter lead is to run a section of specialists regarding an expert field area (e.g. marketing, design or engineering) and to make sure that the team members have everything they need at their disposal to perform best at their jobs.

Moreover, it’s also part of the job to make sure that the chapter members are happy and love what they do. It’s the chapter lead’s responsibility to help with their personal development, to work on their professional expertise and to offer guidance and advice for their challenges and development goals.

Irina planning this quarter’s marketing roadmap

Which challenges and opportunities does the chapter lead position entail in an agile organisational structure?

A chapter lead is not only responsible for his or her chapter, but also works in a squad like everybody else. That means that while you refine, review and deliver value to your chapter and support your team members, you also have your daily tasks as a specialist at an operational level.

"To spend time on both - your operational tasks and leading a chapter - that’s the biggest challenge." - Irina Hey

The opportunities consist of being an acknowledged partner for any questions regarding your field area, and of witnessing how people in your chapter grow and go their personal career path successfully.

I am also happy to share our internal document for agile with you for more insights of our organisational structure at OnPage.org:

Could you give us an insight into your daily business routine as a chapter lead?

Being chapter lead is like managing a team without being a traditional manager. It’s fun to work on projects with your chapter members and meet them on an equal footing. You have to rely on the opinion of your chapter members, give them advice and identify opportunities on how to implement their ideas.

Daily stand-up meeting with the marketing team

We hold daily stand-ups and weekly chapter meetings to stay updated about our work and discuss best practices on how to build great products. As a chapter lead, I centralise the know-how of the chapter and ensure the consistency of our processes as well as the quality level of our results.

Thank you, guys for the interview! If you have questions, just let me know.