A Headteacher Interning at a Start-Up – Only in Estonia!

Veriff’s team recently welcomed a new member, as Siret Paasmäe joined our ranks. The always cheerful and positive woman found her way to the Veriff team through the unique Educational Leaders’ Internship Program. For the second year running, school leaders are undertaking full-time internships in companies with well-established management cultures like Veriff. And no, the school will not lose its leadership as Siret has found an acting headteacher who will take over the position while she is interning at Veriff. 

Siret has been a school leader for 15 years at Tallinn Järveotsa Gymnasium, a school with more than 800 students and around 70 staff members. Education has always been her true calling and she wants to give back through her experience and knowledge. The internship program at Veriff provides an invaluable opportunity for this. 

Siret’s mentor at Veriff is Tiit Paananen, our VP of Engineering. Tiit has had his share of diverse experience of being a mentor before thanks to the awesome companies he's worked with in the past. 

We spoke to both Siret and Tiit about how things are going with the internship so far. You can watch this short video (in Estonian) to see Siret and Tiit talking about the internship, and read the English text of the full interview below.

Welcome to Veriff, Siret! How has the start of your internship been? 

The main keywords describing my experience so far are intensity, a steady flow of information, and leaping into the unknown — everything's new and exciting for me. 

I really enjoyed the 5-day onboarding program for new team members which I participated with 4 other people joining Veriff’s team that week. During the onboarding program each team introduced their role and explained what they're doing at Veriff. After all, I didn't know much about Veriff initially, I knew that the company existed but not much about its daily operations. 

I’ve already had a brief discussion and a kick-off meeting with my mentor Tiit and we've decided to set up weekly meetings. Currently we are working mostly remotely from our home offices and the majority of the meetings are virtual. My initial impressions are that Tiit is a really impactful and firm leader. 

What kind of leader are you yourself? 

I believe other people can answer that question better. But I'm glad to say that my colleagues see me as a supportive leader who they can always turn to. It's essential to be a good listener and this is what I have always strived towards. 

I guess you could also say that I've grown into the role of a leader. I started off as a teacher and by the end of my 20s, I became the headteacher and I've remained in this position ever since. I believe I've always had a little teacher in me because since I was a child, I've always known who I wanted to be. It's just been a natural process to grow and develop in this field since education has always been such an important topic for me.

What are your expectations for the internship program? 

I see it as a great new experience - I get to know how a business operates and experience the role of leadership across the organization and teams. I believe effective leadership is important regardless of the organisation – whether you're a headteacher of a school, working in the private sector, or elsewhere. 

I'd like to contribute to education, share my advice and knowledge but also anything I learn from my time spent here in the program at Veriff. Moreover, with the program I can show to Veriff's team the world I come from, draw parallels and find common ground. The end result would be shared experience and mutual development. 

I take people's well-being very seriously - how to support them, keep them involved and motivated, and find the most effective tools and methods for that. For example, recruitment is a topical issue both for the technology and educational sector – finding talent is a challenge for all of us.

What role does technology play in education? 

It’s most prominent in the context of distance learning when we rely on technology. 

Speaking of the COVID-19 pandemic – our process of moving from a contact learning environment to a virtual one almost overnight went well without any major hiccups. We’ve been practising e-learning for a while doing different school assignments from homes. When the first wave of school closures happened, we asked our students and teachers to treat it as one of our regular e-learning days, but it just lasted for more than one day. 

How can schools and businesses work together? 

That really depends on the school and what their ambitions are - whether they have a specific niche to develop or what more they want to do. In any case, cooperation is positively developing whichever way it takes place. 

As the PISA test results show, our children and young people are brilliant. And we are really proud of them. However, I would like our graduates to succeed in life – not to be afraid to make mistakes and pursue a path that makes them happy. It’s important to be humane. Perhaps this is something that schools and businesses working together could pass on to the younger generation?

Tiit Paananen: Intellectual work requires a side-by-side mentorship culture

One of the end results of being a mentor or a mentee should be finding a common language with different people regardless of their background or personality, helping you feel at ease in any situation. The nature of our work – creating or producing something – is intellectually challenging, so the need for a mentor's support is almost natural. 

For example, in software engineering producing something practical is a relatively small part of the whole process. The main focus goes into what, why, and how things need to be done. This is also where processes, methods, and tools involving humans to come into play.  

Mentorship also deals with mutual learning. I take Siret as an additional team member that I am working with. I’ve already had an opportunity to practice and consolidate the techniques concerning mentoring. During our meetings and talks, I’ve been able to create a foundation and structure for our further cooperation.

There are certainly some differences between Siret and myself in our daily work as leaders, simply because we operate in different fields. Education is rather traditional, with history, and the way things have always been done play a larger role, whereas the technology sector is more agile and forward-thinking. All these aspects create different layers to leadership. 

In the long term, this internship program should also get to the school leaders who initially have not shown any interest. The top leaders shouldn't be increasing the gap – instead everyone's competencies and leadership practices should be developed in harmony decreasing the gap also in favour of the school leaders.

In any case, I'm really pleased that we at Veriff are contributing to this program.

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The Educational Leaders’ Internship Program was initiated by the Good Deed Education Fund and Tallinn Education Department in collaboration with the talent agency Fontes. This year, twelve school leaders from four different Estonian towns have become interns with top-level managers as their mentors. The 9-month program aims to develop the quality of school management and give the school leaders insights into the organisation's daily and operational model with a modern management culture. For the first three months the school leaders will work full-time in the companies and then return to their schools to take the knowledge and ideas into practice with the help of their mentors.

Interested in a career with Veriff? Click here to learn more.