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In our last ‘5+1’ interview with Aiways, we would like to introduce you to Nataliya Shvaykovska – Director Digital Transformation Europe. We had the pleasure to talk to her and ask her 5 questions. You will learn more about Nataliya‘s job as Director Digital Transformation and what drives her, her career path from media and marketing to IT and lastly to automotive, about the biggest challenge in connectivity and UX Design and how Aiways is implementing it. In addition we get to know from Nataliya what Aiways is doing in supporting diversity and she gives us a piece of advice for the next generation of women. Last but not least she shares with us her opinion on how mobility will change within the next five years.

1. You are Director Digital Transformation Europe at Aiways. What does your job involve and what is it that drives you?

It is quite a wide spectrum – from IT infrastructure to our digital applications. I work a lot with connectivity, in other words with the customer applications and also our website. So customer-faced applications are my responsibility. With regards to connectivity, I also work together with our UX designers, who design our app and our website. For our car, which is our main product, we have our own UX designers and I collaborate with our engineers. What drives me here at Aiways is the wide spectrum of challenges that we have. I like to optimise the user journey – so for our end customers but also for our colleagues as we also have a lot of internal applications. Being responsible for the user journey is my main task.  

2. Your background lies not only in IT – you started your career in media and marketing. What drove you to the IT branch and finally to the automotive industry? 

Actually, I started on a very technical site and dealt with the Unix infrastructure of a radio and internet service provider. Afterwards, I switched to the media landscape and worked as an editor, then deputy chief editor, where I dealt a lot with marketing topics. After that I combined my technical and marketing knowledge and switched to the digital field and started to work in the automotive industry here in Germany. So for five years now I have been working in this industry. What I really admire is that I can use and combine all my gained knowledge. At Aiways, a broad spectrum has to be covered from very technical IT to digital topics. And this is what I like here. I don’t think every company in the automotive industry is like this, but Aiways is very special. I don't need to stick to one function as is normally the case in big companies. 

3. E-mobility and digitization are closely connected. What is the biggest challenge in connectivity and UX Design at Aiways and how do you implement it? 

The challenge is to make everything very easy for the customer, e.g. they shouldn’t think too much about charging and where to charge. It should be very easy and convenient for them. We have a nice digital solution to eliminate that process of planning, thinking and looking for stations. We have a collaboration with a small startup called PUMP. So if you plan to go somewhere, you just enter the destination and the app suggests reliable and attractive charging stops on the way and tells you how long your car needs to charge for. So basically, the idea is to make life simpler. 

Next to it, our vehicles remember who you are. So when you approach a car, the car knows you, your preferences in seating etc. We are not trying to be a software development company, but we collaborate with smart startups and partners. What we do on our site is that we adjust in a way so that we are very flexible in the collaboration with them. 

4. How can more women be encouraged to apply for the IT branch? What is Aiways doing in supporting diversity? What is your personal advice? 

I think that nowadays women have enough courage to do things. Here at Aiways, we don’t care about the gender. We are looking for special profiles, who would fit the position. Our team is very diverse and bright. What you can see here at Aiways is that many head of departments are women. Gender is not a topic, but social and emotional intelligence of the employees, because that’s important when working in a very global and multicultural environment, when you need to dig into other's minds. 

My personal advice for the next generation of women is to dare. And to not hide your voice. Be Louder. And to be honest, I don't think that women are afraid of something. At least not here at Aiways. 

5. How do you think mobility will change in the next five years? 

We cannot not predict anything specific, but we see some tendencies. What is very important is to pay attention to the context and what constantly changes around mobility. You cannot just develop a car. You need to pay attention to what is going on in the market related to electric cars, about charging and so on. And, then it's like one organism and you adjust constantly and you need to be ready for that. We will get more electric cars and it's going to be a challenge for cities, for urban planning. We just need to be very open to new ideas and accept those startups, with a new and innovative concept that are coming on the market. And yes we have to be open to collaborate with them. 

And the +1 question from Nataliya to you:

“Thinking about the connected environment of tomorrow, what link between your phone, your home, your urban ecosystem, and your car is the most expected?“

It was a pleasure for us visiting Aiways at their European headquarters in Munich and getting to know three inspiring, strong women. The start of our interview series was made by Nicole Chen, followed by Alejandra Cruz and lastly by Nataliya Shvaykovska.

We experienced Aiways as company with a very open team culture and a high level of internationality, even it’s a Chinese company. Men and women are being seen totally equally. The best gets the job no matter what nationality, gender or origin. We could definitely feel the team spirt, the great working atmosphere and culture. Thanks Aiways for having us.

Pictures: Aiways for ellectric