Position Spotlight: Supply Project Manager

In this post, Lillee Tissot, Supply Project Manager, talks about her role in supporting our Destination Managers in the Sales team, ensuring incredible experiences reach our customers, and what it’s like to work in the Supply Excellence team.

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Can you please introduce yourself?

I’m from upstate New York and I joined GetYourGuide in November 2018 as part of the Supply Excellence team in the Content and Supply Operations department. I started out as a Supply Project Coordinator before being promoted to Supply Project Manager in August 2019, less than a year after joining.

Can you please give us a brief overview of your job?

Supply Excellence is divided into a few different areas: Inventory Management, Sales Enablement, Supplier Success and Supply Innovation. I work within Sales Enablement and aim to give the Sales team the tools they need to succeed in their role. This can involve larger projects like our recent redesign of the Sales training and implementation of Fresh Sales, our CRM system, or smaller tasks like supporting our Sales Coordinators based in local offices with operational tasks. One particularly exciting part of my role is traveling to the local offices to lead trainings on Supply Excellence related topics, which ensure that our suppliers deliver incredible experiences to our customers. So far, I’ve led trainings in Bangkok, London, and Paris.

An average day as a Supply Project Manager is divided between three buckets: working on large projects which involve a lot of creative thinking and thoughtful planning, like meeting our quarterly goals, putting out small fires for the Sales team, and managing all hands on deck short-term team initiatives like pricing checks or brainstorming sessions for procedure improvements. {{divider}}

What opportunity for impact do you have in your role?

As Project Manager, I have the opportunity to own projects from start to finish, and I see my impact every day. A good example of this is the Sales training. We took on this project as a team in January and I asked for and received a lot of ownership on this project. I developed the training structure, collaborated with the Sales team on the content, and created an integrated platform of live sessions, recordings, and testing modules. This training has since been rolled-out to all of the local offices and has allowed Destination Managers to hit the ground running in discovering incredible experiences for our customers.

What are the principles your team lives by?

There are three principles that best embody how we work together:

• We maintain a strong feedback culture - As a team, we actively provide feedback to one another, supporting each other’s growth, and helping each other improve.
• We are positive and solution-focused - Our team works on a variety of projects, many of which involve topics we’ve never covered before; we maintain a positive attitude despite this uncertainty. We view coming into a project with little prior knowledge or understanding of what needs to be done as an exciting challenge rather than a hurdle and rely on one another to make it happen.  
• We value diversity - Not only do we have people from all over the world working on this team, but we also have very different work styles. One of the best parts of the team, and what helps us succeed, is how diverse our working styles are from one another.

What is the most challenging aspect of your role?

Setting aside time for the tasks that will have a big impact but take longer to return results. We’re moving fast, so it can be difficult to invest time and effort into something that doesn’t show immediate change, but these long-term investments are just as important. A great example of this is the Base Camp for Sales, which is an online knowledge hub providing sales with the tools and resources they need. It will have a big impact, but it’s effect might not be visible from one day to the next.

What is the most rewarding aspect of your role?

Being able to own and manage my own projects. My manager gives me the tools I need to be successful, but provides me with the autonomy and empowerment to choose the best approach and act from there.

What advice would you have for someone who would like to work as a Supply Project Manager at GetYourGuide?

Since the Supply Excellence team works on such a large variety of topics, stakeholder management skills are key. It’s important to have an understanding of how other teams function and how we can best serve them. As a part of the Sales Enablement team, I work with the Sales, Content, and Leadership and Development, teams on a weekly basis.  Also, come ready to share your ideas and offer solutions. From day one of joining the team I felt like a valued member and was offered the chance to share what we could change or do differently. We are always trying to better ourselves - individually and as a team.

What is your favorite thing about working with GetYourGuide?

I absolutely love the culture we have at GetYourGuide. No matter the department, the people here are happy to come to work every day and genuinely love what they’re doing.

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