Geri Valova: Serial Entrepreneur

S3E6: Geri Valova is the founder and COO of MetaSim Learning Solutions, CEO, and founder of Youbee and co-founder of Magna Club, a club and community for executive women.

Magna Club: https://magnaclub.circle.so/

MetaSim: https://menta-ai.com/

Youbee: http://www.mybookoflife.co.uk/

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Transcript

0:05

Welcome to the Unexpected Career Podcast, where we share stories of real people and the twists and turns they have taken along their career journey. I am Megan Dunford, and as someone who found myself in the payments industry, largely by accident, I'm fascinated by how people's careers unfold and how they've gotten to where they are today. It's also why I'm passionate about reducing the pressure on young people, about going to university, what to take in school, and on getting that right first job Today I am speaking with Geri Valova, founder and COO of MetaSim Learning Solutions, CEO, and founder of Youbee and co-founder of Magna Club, a club and community for executive women.

Megan: 0:50

I'm really excited that you agreed to do this because I've never met anyone who has so many ideas and is always trying to find ways to pursue those ideas. So I think that's really interesting and fascinating and, I think you're my first guest who would be maybe in the category of serial entrepreneurs. That's just so different from my background and so I'm just very interested in the path that got you there. So I'm super excited that you agreed to do this and share your journey with me.

Geri: 1:22

Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure being here.

Megan: 1:25

Awesome. I always start every conversation with when you were a small child, is there something that you wanted to be when you grew up?

Geri: 1:35

Yes. I wanted to be a captain. A captain of a ship

Megan: 1:40

oh, amazing. And back then.

Geri: 1:42

Yes, I was, I was four years old and back then there were only two women in this role and I wanted to be the third one, the third captain of a ship a woman captain of a ship. And why I wanted this, I guess because I was so much fascinated by the vastness of the sea, by me. Ruling this ship and by me being responsible and taking care of everyone around me, the other sailors the whole crew. So yes, I, and of course the uniforms, oh my God. Navy blue. And this, and the hats and special heads with the signs here. Oh my God, they still make me turn my head.

Megan: 2:26

I love that. That was my

Geri: 2:27

first dream as far as I remember.

Megan: 2:29

Wow, that's really cool. And really. Unique because I mean, I think for a lot of us, and I'll speak for myself, the careers you know about are usually quite limited to things like teacher, doctor, you know, this really small list. So I think that's really cool and different and such an exciting ambition to have at four.

Geri: 2:53

Yeah, very unusual for a little girl, four years old.

Megan: 2:56

So with that as your starting point, when it came time in school to make decisions about what to do when you're graduating high school. How did you make those decisions? Did you decide to go on to university or college and if you did, what did you decide to take and what shaped that decision?

Geri: 3:17

So first let me share you about my education. So I have three university degrees. The first was, one is in English literature and it was in the Sofia University back in, in my home, city. So in Bulgaria. The second one is in business administration. And I graduated Thames Valley, university of London. And the third one, executive, MBA, graduated the American University back home in, my home country. What did help me choose all these things? Well, different things. The first one, I chose it because of my interest to become a journalist. That was my second childhood dream. And I wanted to cover interesting stories to research and investigation, and of course, travel a lot. Then my second degree, was driven by my goal to learn a lot about the world, how the world functions how the economy functions. Why? Because I started my entrepreneurial life very early. I started my first company when I was still in the university and this was. I dunno how many years ago already, but it was when, the democratic Revolution happened in my country. And there were a lot of opportunities and of course a lot of chaos in the country. And I just grabbed the opportunity to start my own business. And I needed to know more about how I can manage my business, my company. Mm-hmm. The third degree. I also chose it because of my work, because at the later stage of my professional development I remember I was with my consulting company and it was a very successful one. We were working on different projects funded by UAD, by different governmental organizations and also for new investors, and I needed to know how to better manage this growing company. This actually drove my choices for education. Sadly, I couldn't pursue my dream to become a captain of a ship, and there's a, a very simple reason. I realized that I'm so scared of deep water that I couldn't become a captain leadership. But yes, the uniforms though, still love them these days. I settle for a well cut suit. And a good dress and heels instead.

Megan: 5:41

I love that. And yeah, being a afraid of deep water would be a bit of a problem if you're gonna be the captain of a ship. True. Yes. Yeah. The practicalities aren't always obvious to us when we're four and having these, big dreams. So, so you said you started your entrepreneurial journey while you were still. University, and I know that you're an entrepreneur now. Can you tell me a little bit about that journey? Did you ever work for someone else during that time or have you always worked for yourself? And if you've always worked for yourself, maybe tell us a little bit about your journey in companies and what sparked ideas and things you decided to pursue.'cause I'm personally so inspired by people who. See something, have an idea from it, and then actually action it. I think a lot of us are like, oh, that's interesting, or there's a problem there. But never carry it forward. So super inspired by that. So I'd love if you could share a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey and if you had any stops over at other businesses along the way.

Geri: 6:43

It's an interesting question and a long story. So, my first and only. Time when I worked with someone else was, a long time ago. I was a back in university, studying my, English literature and I started working for a company. I was a secretary of a businessman. I don't even remember what kind of business they were doing, but I remember that all the time I was giving advice. To my boss how to better manage his company. Mm-hmm. And yes, not surprisingly he fired me on the fourth month. So that's my whole experience being employed by someone else. Then I created my own company, my first company, and that was much easier for me. And my first company, surprisingly, was in non ferrous Metals. I know. Wow. It's absolutely not female type of business. That company was an interesting experience for me because I was very young. I was 24 years old. I was imagine 39, kilograms, 24 years old. young girl managing 227 men. That was an interesting experience, but non ferrous Metals, you don't see a lot of women.

Megan: 7:59

Mm-hmm.

Geri: 7:59

So for four years, I was in the management of this company. And I guess this is because I've always been, that's my tendency to lead, always been into directing people and processes, pursuing situations and and everything. Opportunities, which will put me in this leadership position. To be responsible for things, to lead things to. I did things. So I guess this is connected with even with my childhood dream to become a captain of a ship. But yes, so after this, experience with the non ferrous Metals Company. But do you know what non, non ferrous metals mean? These are, I

Megan: 8:32

don't know.

Geri: 8:32

These are these are metals like aluminum. Copper zinc. So we were trading. Okay. Yeah. And we were producing alloys out, out of this matter. So pretty much like hard things

Megan: 8:45

mm-hmm. To

Geri: 8:45

work with. Then I decided that I'll try something else, something totally different. And it happened because, I went to the United States of America for a month and it was connected with elevating my leadership, learn about a bit more. And there I was so fascinated by what I, what I saw there. Their business of business support centers. Where you could go and receive some consultancy or business support services in one place. And I went back home in Bulgaria, in Sofia, and I decided that this is something that I can start and remember. It's still this after socialism period in Bulgaria where everything Was a start. So there was nothing like that existed on the market. So I started the first business center, company type of consulting in Bulgaria. And nothing to be seen at that moment. So it was really interesting, the reaction of the people. Oh my God. I can go there and receive this service. Oh, really? And I can use this and that. It was really interesting. This consulting company evolved from a business center, pure business center with business services to a really good consulting company. Which was actually one of my most successful ventures. It existed for more than 26 years.

Megan: 10:01

Wow. And

Geri: 10:01

we were working with foreign investors with governmental organizations, with, we're working on very interesting projects related to tourism, agribusiness, it just to name a few of them. And it was really interesting for me to work on all these projects because that's my nature. I want to work on a lot of interesting things at a time. Not one single thing. Then after that came a few not so successful ventures, but that's part of the entrepreneurial life of everyone, including a dance studio. So don't ask about that. Then I created, my first health holistic whole healthy lifestyle company. I had two of them. The first was one really successful, so I had a really good exit there. The second one was not so successful. Then we moved to Switzerland because of my, husband's job. And there I wanted to try something absolutely different. I got certified for a wellness coach and nutritionist, and did this because, I wanted to lose weight after the birth of my second child, and I wanted to do this. In a very sustainable, long-term way. So I wanted to learn more and that was the only way to see how it could be done in a proper way. And after graduating this, two year and something program that was a long one in the States, after that, I decided that I'll give it a try and I'll do some coaching. And I started my coaching career. That was only for a year because. I realized that this is not for me because I couldn't see the scale there. And, I couldn't see my, me being doing only one thing. And focus only on one thing. And I decided to go back to my entrepreneurship, my favorite thing to start something post scratch. And that was, right before COVID as far as I remember. Then I started, my two tech startups, they both are still going. One them is in, AI enabled soft skill trainings for the corporates, and the second one is in, mental health for young people, for especially for students. Yes. Again, totally different from what I've been doing so far. And then COVID and then chief happens, and that was a huge story in my life.

Megan: 12:25

Mm-hmm.

Geri: 12:26

I felt that I found my drive, my place, so many inspiring women, like so many, the genuine connections I've built. And when Chief UK closed, I saw an opportunity, my entrepreneurial. Spirit kicked in and I saw these opportunities. Let's do it our way and let's do our own thing and create our own club for executive women. And that's what I'm doing now and my focus is on building Magna the new place for the executive women in the uk. And I'm very proud to be one of the co-founders. Of course.

Megan: 13:02

Of all amazing journey and obviously I am particularly excited about Magna and we're certainly missing chief and it's left a hole and so it's very exciting, the work that you and the co-founders are doing with Magna and how you're taking what we had with Chief and. Doing it in a way that really builds on what we learned and our experience there. So I'm obviously personally very excited about that. But I love your journey too, and it's funny'cause yeah, on the surface a lot of these businesses seem quite different, but I definitely hear some connections. Even in your tech startups, there is connections to your consulting business before and even, I'm sure the things you learn from doing coaching really inform, both of those startups. So I think that's, really amazing. And that's what I love about, people's journeys is, there's sometimes you're only taking one brick from something that came before, but it is contributing to what we build in the future. I think that's super interesting. When you look back, do you see some common threads, whether through the businesses, but also just even common threads for yourself of when in retrospect you can. See how the journey makes sense and how those decisions came about and how things connect a little bit.

Geri: 14:27

you know what, there's something interesting happened this year to me. I was, diagnosed with a ADHD. I didn't know until that moment that I had this. And, it happened because, we diagnosed my daughter and I said, coach, he said, maybe you have it. And from what I see, you definitely have it. And then after that I realized a lot about myself. I actually saw. How it is in my life and why things happen in a certain way. And one of the things I realized after this diagnosis is that. In order for me to perform and excel I need a challenge. Mm-hmm. I need a competition. I need challenge, I need variety and that's definitely my A DHD wiring. I can do miracles, like living miracles for a very short period of time. I can focus into miracles, but only if I'm doing something which is of interest. Something which is like complex, something which is new, connected with something that I can learn totally new things. So yes, learning is the biggest driver in what I'm doing. Mm-hmm. And I'm not afraid, not scared at all to try something, which is totally new to me. Totally difficult for me. Like, I remember one of my projects in my consulting times was connected with, with insulation materials. P-S-X-P-S. I still remember these things, but I had no idea what it is about. I mean, this is, this is installation materials. It's construction business. Mm-hmm. I'm nowhere near to the construction business. I'm a consultant, but I had to learn all these things and I had to dig so deep that I had to learn all the, all the wordings, the whole language. And that project of ours was really successful. And I still can now, when I'm doing the renovation for my. For my place back in Bulgaria, I ask them very good questions because I know a lot about installations. But yes, the challenge and the learning, these are the two drivers that I have and. And also, I remember in my childhood, when I was six, I had this challenge and I couldn't find a solution. and it occupied me for quite long a quite long period. I started reading at four and at six I, I was, a member of this, library and I was trying to calculate how fast I could read versus how many books arrived. At the library each week, and I couldn't figure this out. And that bothers me, bothered me so much. So my goal was to read all the books. That's why it's too ambitious. I know. But that's the curiosity and it still runs me. So this is the common thread,

Megan: 17:07

that story about the library, I can hear both the curiosity and learning, but also the challenge of not only do I wanna read all the books because I'm interested in them, but I wanna read all the books to be the challenge of reading all the books in itself. And even that story you had about when you did the training and nutrition again, that's a really great example of seeing both that kind of curiosity and learning and challenge, because a lot of people, go through oh, you know, I'd like to get fitter or lose weight, et cetera, and they'll go to someone else and I mean, even for a period of time you were that someone else, but for you it was like, no, I have to learn it myself. Like I need to get into the details and get the course. Same thing with the business degrees you had a successful business, lots of people would just be like, yeah, this is good. I'm gonna keep running it. But you again, wanted to add to that learning and get that next level of knowledge and language and fundamentals, which I think is really cool. So yeah, I definitely see that completely throughout the journey. That's really amazing. And comes through very strongly. So staying in that, looking back if you spoke to 15-year-old or 16-year-old, Geri, what do you think she would think about where you are today and what you're doing now?

Geri: 18:28

I'm sure that she'd be amazed where we are at the moment. And I should really remind myself of this more often, and as I mentioned, I grew up in socialism. Where we weren't supposed to dream back at all just to obey, and I was raised in this, imagine this gray little Bulgarian town and block of flats, all these gray block of flats. I'm sure you've seen this somewhere in the movies working class surroundings. And now I'm in London. One, the World Centers world's biggest centers, cities building an executive women's prime, network. I really hope that she'll be very proud of us.

Megan: 19:10

Yeah, I'm sure she would be. And that picture you painted is amazing. Along the same lines, if you could go back in time and. Give yourself a piece of advice, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

Geri: 19:25

I have a lot to tell her. it's not only one advice, one piece of advice that I have for my younger self. I would start with, calm down. This is the most important thing. Just calm down. You are a bit too intense for everyone and you are losing friends. You scare them off, and you're alone. There's no good reason to worry so much because life is good. Enjoy it. Enjoy it more. Get out of the room. Leave. The books and play more with your friends. As I mentioned to you earlier, I started reading at four and it's a good thing and a bad thing at the same time because my life was in the books I was living in with, the Native Americans, tribes with the queens and castles, with the Muskateers, tears with and hook. So I couldn't enjoy my childhood and I missed it. And I, even now I realize. That this was the reason that I'm not playful at all. Even now, I cannot play with small kids. I cannot play with, with my kids. They, when they were younger, I couldn't play with them because my husband was playing with them all the time, and I was just looking there at them. I was like I don't see, as a fun activity at all. So I sort of miss that bit of childhood in the process. The last piece of advice for my younger self would be. Don't underestimate yourself, you achieve much more than your classmates. Even the most popular ones, it's not that I was not popular, I was sort of popular, but only alone because I was a strange mix of flux brains and intensity, and that was very confusing for people. It's much easier. Now, of course, I've learned to embrace this combination, but I want her to know this, that she's absolutely fine and she's amazing.

Megan: 21:15

That is, such amazing advice of enjoy the journey more participate in the journey especially when you're young'cause that's when we are learning and experimenting and so I love that advice so much. And also your last piece of advice really ties to what your younger self would probably think of what you are today she might be surprised because, you are so successful you live in London now. It's just so different than maybe what she could have imagined. You can really see that kind of learning that you've gone through of enjoy the journey, it's gonna be okay. Calm down a little bit. And then the proof is, in the reality of where you are today, which maybe was beyond the scope of what you could have imagined or dreamed when you were younger. Yes.

Geri: 22:07

Unfortunately it's easy to say that you can give this advice, but no one at this age listens. I experienced this with my 16 years old daughter. I try to give her exactly the same pieces of advice, but then I see that she needs to experience this from herself or for. So, yeah, advice is here, but who will listen to it?

Megan: 22:26

That's a good point there are some things you just need to learn by doing them. I suspect it's even harder to hear that kind of advice from your parents, When you look forward,'cause we've done a lot of looking back at the journey and what has brought you to where you are today, but when you look forward, what's your vision or your hope for the future?

Geri: 22:52

I love thinking about that. I like talking about that. I'm open to suggestions. As you may guess for the next few years, I have a pretty, good occupation. So my focus is clearly building Magna into the executive women's club. It's exciting, it's demanding, and so much rewarding, fulfilling. So my focus is this right now.

Megan: 23:12

Mm-hmm. But

Geri: 23:14

I know myself will become successful, I'm sure. And then I will need the new challenge in my life. So I'm hoping for any suggestions. After that, who knows? I'm interested in longevity and biohacking for one reason because I have a goal to live 120 years. Why this particular age? Because I want to have enough time to fulfill all my dreams, to do everything that I want to do, but also to witness. Everything that will happen in this world because I'm so curious what will happen with all this technology flourishing with everything that is happening, not only with ai, with everything. I know and I'm sure that miracles will happen in the world and being so optimistic. I believe in humanity and I think that we will start making smarter choices and rise above. Everything, which is a noise right now, and reach another level. That's my belief. That's why I want to live 120 years to witness this and be part of it. An active partner.

Megan: 24:23

That's really cool. And something I've never heard from anyone. Outside of maybe in the news but well articulated of why.'cause sometimes you hear things in the news of people, oh, they wanna live a long time, but there doesn't seem to be any vision or reason for it really. And I love the optimism. So obviously there's a lot of, as you said, noise in the world right now. And I think for a lot of us that's pulling us down a little bit, but I love that really optimistic view of what's possible. there are negatives and I think we see the negatives of some of these things, but the opportunity of them on the flip side. I love that and I think that's a great way to think about the future.

Geri: 25:10

Yes, I'll connect it with the person you are with your nature. I prefer and I choose to be positive in this world.

Megan: 25:18

that's awesome just the way history works is there's ebbs and flows, and we might be in a noisy period right now, but we will come out of it. And so I think it's a good reminder. And I love also that connection you made back to the curiosity. I think that's so true. So if you are a naturally curious person, which is such a strong thread through your whole journey., You're not stuck in the well this is the way things are. It's like, no, I wanna learn more. And the more you learn and expand your worldview through that curiosity, then it's hard not to see the opportunities and potential. So I love how you just wrapped it all up in a bow there how that, connects back to your full journey. So I think that's really cool.

Geri: 26:11

Thank you. Thank you. That was a very pleasant conversation. Thank you so much.

Megan: 26:17

Yeah, I really enjoyed it. And as I said off the top, I am personally super inspired by people who see opportunities, have ideas, and take action. I think a lot of people, myself included, it's a slower journey And there's can be safety, working for other people. And it can be quite great for some personality types. But I am super fascinated by people who are just like, no, I'm gonna grab it with two hands myself. And you know, figure this out. Try it, make this idea work. Take the advantage of an opportunity. thank you so much for sharing your journey and the many diverse things you've done. And yeah, obviously as I said before, I'm super excited and personally invested in what Magna could be. And so yeah, I'm super excited what you and the rest of the team are doing with it and where it's gonna go.

Geri: 27:16

Thank you so much, much. We are very happy to have you.

Megan: 27:19

Thank you.

27:20

Geri always inspires me with her energy and ideas, and I loved hearing her journey as a serial entrepreneur. Three things I took from our discussion were, one, embrace your skills. Geri leaned into her natural instincts to take the lead, and even in her one stint working for someone else, she couldn't suppress her desire to lead and her recent diagnosis with ADHD has helped her embrace and leverage her strengths even more Two embrace curiosity. To me, there's a defining thread of curiosity through Geri's story, and she follows that curiosity and desire to learn things for herself, and she has created her own opportunities as a result. But that curiosity also informs how she thinks about the future. Three, embrace opportunities. What I'm always fascinated about with serial entrepreneurs is not only their eye for opportunities, but their ability to pursue those opportunities. And that is something you see throughout Geri's journey and stems from that combination of her leadership skills, her need for challenge, and simply following that curiosity. And lastly, Geri's advice to get out and play feels even more important today with the draw of our screens keeping us rooted at home. Thank you for listening to the unexpected career podcast, please follow, share and rate on your favorite podcast provider. The unexpected career podcast is produced, edited and hosted by me, Megan Dunford. See you next week.