From Finland Marketing to Strategy & Operations in nine countries – the Wolt career of Kirsi Soldan (so far)

When Kirsi Soldan sits down to discuss her role as a Regional Head for Wolt’s Consumer Business, it doesn’t take long to realise you’re in for an interesting and informative conversation: this is someone who’s dynamic, sharp, and clearly knows where she’s going next. (In this case, it’s a meeting with her DoorDash colleague in the US.)

Kirsi slowed down her pace just a little to share her career story so far. Her six years with us makes her a veteran, or what we often internally call a dinosaur at Wolt! Kirsi started from leading and building our marketing team in Finland, before moving to a pioneering role overseeing Wolt’s customer experience across nine countries. That’s given her a front-row seat to Wolt’s rapid growth from hundreds of employees when she joined to over 14,000 globally in over 30 countries and 1,000+ cities.

So, how did she make the jump from marketing to a first-of-its-kind job in the company? What exactly does a Consumer Business Regional Head do at Wolt? And why is the company looking for more people like Kirsi as it continues its brisk expansion into new cities and countries? Well, who better to tell us than Kirsi herself?

Hello 👋 Tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do at Wolt?

“Sure, I’m Kirsi, and I live in Espoo, Finland, with my husband and young son. I’ve been with Wolt for six years and work as the Regional Head of Consumer Business: North Region. This means that I’m responsible for the consumer agenda in nine markets in Wolt’s global portfolio: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Luxembourg, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.”

That’s a good start! How did you get to where you are today?

“My background is in marketing. I studied it in school and started my career in marketing back in 2009. I’ve worked in various types of positions in the media agency side, in B2B marketing, and digital service development.

I joined Wolt in the spring of 2019 as the Marketing Director for Finland and led the team for a few years. When I joined, there were only a few hundred employees globally, while now we’re over 14,000 people and counting! So it’s been quite a ride.

We grew our Finnish marketing team from three to 15 when I was heading the team, and it was exciting to see the business and complexity grow over the years. I went out on parental leave for around a year, and when I returned, it felt like a good time to expand and explore different options, and that’s how I ended up in the Consumer Business team. I have been in my current role for a little over a year now.”

You’ve seen a lot in six years at Wolt! Do you still remember how you got in?

“I was a Wolt customer before I joined, and I enjoyed the customer experience. So when I was approached to join Wolt, I remember being intrigued by the great user experience and growth potential that Wolt had already back then. But it was the interview process that really drew me in.

What spoke to me was that all the people I met during my interview process were incredibly passionate about what they did. I got the impression of really high ambition, fast speed of work, and it felt like this would be a place where you’d get a lot of ownership. I’ve been very positively surprised since joining — Wolt has truly lived up to these expectations! The image of a company you get in the recruiting phase doesn’t always hold true, but in this case, it really did.”

Right, let’s get down to business – namely, the Consumer Business Team at Wolt. What do you all do?

“The Consumer Business team focuses on driving growth and best-in-class customer experience - our North Star is to build an App for Every Moment. As a growth team, we’re part of the wider Growth, Brand, and Advertising function at Wolt. In day-to-day, we work closely with our counterparts in Product, Engineering, Data Science, Design, Finance, Analytics, Comms, and Legal.

In the Consumer Business Team, we have a set of levers that we work with. These include, for example, Wolt+, our subscription service; Wolt Rewards, our loyalty program that we’re gradually rolling out to customers; consumer pricing and incentives, as well as the full app experience from discovery to checkout and post-order experience. The Consumer Business Team works in all these domains across the full customer lifecycle. We constantly optimize these different pieces of the puzzle to drive Wolt’s growth.

My job is actually quite new – I was the first person in Wolt to be working in this type of regional role, so I had to figure out what to focus on and where I could bring the most impact.

Our regional team works with many stakeholders like the Global Consumer Business Team, aligning on which global initiatives to roll out in specific markets; with other regional functions, such as Marketing, Operations and Support; with our Regional General Manager and Country General Managers; and with many other teams from Product to Brand to Legal. There’s a lot of teamwork with different people every day!”

Sounds like a lot of juggling! Can you give some examples of what your team might work on?

“Sure! So with Wolt+, for example, my team works on building it into the best membership program in our market. We ask questions like: How can we improve the value proposition? What are our users looking for? What are they satisfied with vs. what don’t they like — how can we meet their expectations better? Do we need more exclusive deals, for example, or other new benefits? How do we ensure we have all the best merchants in the program?

Our team is very hands-on involved in making things happen in close collaboration with our stakeholders, and it’s exciting to be contributing to Wolt’s business targets so concretely. In our work, we have clear targets at a country- and region-level. It’s my team’s role to figure out the concrete actions that will get us there, so it’s very operational!

Whatever we do has an impact on different functions. Let’s say we roll out Wolt Rewards in a new country. Naturally, we need to have Legal on board, our Support team looped in in case of customer queries, we need Marketing support to communicate the program, and so forth. So it’s a lot of continuous, constant teamwork!”

All good! So, what does an average day look like for you?

“I’m just checking my calendar now! For example, today I met with regional and country management to discuss growth initiatives. What’s been done, what needs to be done, and aligning on the next steps.

Given I’m looking after nine markets, results can vary across the region. Some initiatives and results can be similar, but there are differences too – they’re tied to market maturity, our position in those markets, and the selection and pricing per country. There are a lot of moving pieces to take into account.

After the first meeting this morning, I spoke with our Product team to align on different improvement needs for a pilot we’ll be scaling up to other markets. Then, in between meetings, I was working on our operational plan for H2 and aligning with our global teams. And after our meeting, I will be catching up with my DoorDash colleague in the U.S.

As the old saying goes, no day is the same, and I love that I get to work with such an international bunch of people from a variety of domains. It keeps things interesting!”

That’s a busy day! I guess it’s safe to say you still like it at Wolt after six years?

“Yes! It’s hectic, and there’s pressure, but it’s fun. I’ve worked in international work environments before, but Wolt is definitely in its own league. For me personally, it’s the speed. I love that we’re always thinking ahead and laser-focused on initiatives that make an impact. It’s motivating that we can see our initiatives yielding results. The concreteness of it all.

I also enjoy the balance of responsibility and freedom. You’re given responsibility, but you can figure out the best way to get to your target and are given a lot of trust. If you believe what you’re doing is the right thing to do, you can go and do it. But, of course, you then own your projects end-to-end. When something doesn’t go to plan, you own it and fix it. It teaches you to focus on things that drive impact and are measurable.

We still have many of the same routines we had before joining forces with DoorDash. Since coming together, the biggest changes for me have been around reporting practices, terminology, meeting cadences, and getting a lot of good learnings and best practices from there!”

What do we look for in someone who’s joining our Strategy & Business Development team at Wolt?

“You need strong people and project management skills. On the analytical side, you need to be able to understand and interpret data. This is a role where you need to inspire others and get people to work towards the same goal. For my team, we need help, support, and collaboration across different functions and different teams. We need to make an impact, and can’t do it alone. So it’s important to be able to take others on the journey with you and get everyone to work towards the same goal together.

You also need a strong sense of ownership. At Wolt, you’re in the driver’s seat. You need to make things happen without being asked. We look for people who are results-driven, good at identifying what the big needle-movers are and finding the best solutions for those challenges. Focus on what is impactful and what will make a difference.”

Last question: How is Wolt as a place to grow your career?

“I think one of the strengths we have is the variety of opportunities we can offer our people. This comes from our fast growth, which means continuous hiring and therefore also new, interesting roles we’re hiring for as we expand. I’ve seen lots of career paths at Wolt - people advancing into more senior positions in their teams, but just as many horizontal moves from, for example, Finance to Product, or like me, from Marketing to the Consumer Business.

We’re continuously introducing new services and new ways to use Wolt, which means new roles and people to fill them. Often, roles might not exist today, but they might exist in three months’ time! So Wolt’s a very exciting place to be and grow your career.”