Diana’s journey to Community Operations Manager

Diana Urian started her journey at Uber from the cornerstone of Uber’s Krakow Center of Excellence (COE) and never stopped. Encouraged to move around and explore new roles and teams, she transitioned from a Customer Support Representative role to leading teams.

“I consider myself extremely lucky to have started working at Uber when our Center of Excellence was just being set up in Krakow back in 2016. This gave me the chance to witness Uber’s transformation throughout the years.

I started my career as a Customer Support Representative on our French support team. Back then, I was the only non-native French speaker and the only female too, but that was surely not a blocker. On the contrary, I became the first Team Lead 6 months later, a journey as challenging as it was rewarding. My previous experiences as subject matter expert and trainer in different companies were also an important factor which allowed me to quickly grow within Uber. 

As our COE grew further and more teams were created, after 2 years in the Team Leader role I was successful in obtaining the Senior Team Leader role, which allowed me to learn even more about people management. I was able to refine my communication and persuasion skills, while the exposure to a varied set of stakeholders allowed me to grow my business acumen. Since 2020 I have been working as a Community Operations Manager, managing a very diverse set of talented teams, who handle support for multiple markets, anything from cancellation fee issues to safety and compliance matters.”

“I am responsible for everything from ensuring proper team capacity and planning, to team motivation and performance, to building relationships with stakeholders.

I believe the most important aspect of my work is to make sure we have the right people in the right place at the right time. In order to achieve this, I rely a lot on building trust and long-lasting relationships with my team members, trying new things (sometimes with the risk of failing), and encouraging my team to step outside of their comfort zone – which is the best way to learn, in my opinion!”

“Our diversity. This team is incredibly unique, not only in terms of nationalities but also in terms of background and personal aspirations. I’ve met people with incredible life stories, who have lived in multiple countries, who studied amazing topics and who have exceptional hobbies. All this contributes to a very non-homogenous group of individuals, who can have very different approaches and mindsets, but who are all united by the same mission and the same work values.”

“Our Krakow COE is very representative of one of our company values, Great minds don’t think alike. We are one of the most diverse Uber sites, with more than 15 languages spoken and 26 nationalities represented. This alone makes it an interesting place to work. On top of that, our people are a rare blend of talented, creative and incredibly adaptive, and we can clearly see this through how the teams have evolved and developed in time. Since I joined Uber, many teams which existed back then have been transformed and modified, while new teams have also been created.”

“One of the reasons why Uber is such a great place to work is that we keep our people top of mind across everything we do. We have numerous initiatives across EMEA that allow us to connect with each other, to build strong relationships and to drive the change that we want to see in the world together. There is a strong focus on mental health and wellbeing, with multiple events and tools available that allow us to maintain a good work life balance and to be the best version of ourselves every single day, both at work and at home. We are also driving recognition programs across EMEA and globally to make sure that great work is receiving the visibility and praise it deserves. Career growth is also something very important to us, and initiatives like “Drive your Growth week” are just one example of the opportunities that we have as employees to grow and develop. In my opinion, these are the types of things that allow us to thrive as a team and bring the best possible results.”

“By treating them in the exact same way as I would treat their male counterparts. In my opinion, in order to thrive in an organization, we simply need to be considered based on our skills and competencies and not on anything else. That being said, most of my direct reports are women. What I always encourage them to do, is to speak up and share their opinions, as they are very talented, knowledgeable and what they have to say matters, not only at Uber but also in the “outside world.”

Interested in joining our Community Operations team? Explore our open roles →