190: Advocate For and Believe in Yourself, Elitsa Zaimova, Sales Director at Preply

When Elitsa and I spoke, we had many stories about competent
women in sales and leadership roles who wait to get the "tap" on
the shoulder to be promoted. Our male counterparts TELL their
boss that they expect to be promoted many times and they initiate
introductions with some of their C-level leaders, heads of other
teams in their company and proudly state their
accomplishments. 


Are we too shiy to also do that, or is it in how we were raised -
"don't brag," my dad would tell me. 



Today in 2025 we say, "It isn't bragging if it is true." 


Listen to Elitsa share about her career. Born in Bulgaria, Elitsa
visited the US a number of times, going back and forth, then
moved to the DC area in 2011 and started working for CEB (which
became Gartner later). She got great sales training (these were
the "Challenger" folks) and really fell in love with sales. 


Due to an opportunity for her husband, she moved to Ukraine back
in 2015 (no hint of a future war then). What was amazing was that
when they did hear of turmoil happening at the beginning of 2022,
they had to immediately leave Ukraine - while she was quickly
building a virtual and in person sales team AND was six months
pregnant. Any one of those three things is tough, but all
together is incredible. 


Listen to her story, and also how she created her original role
at Preply by giving feedback to the CEO. 


More about Elitsa:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/elitsa-zaimova-a238a31a/


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