Career Path Of A VP Retail Partnerships At Blendjet
Erin's career path, from a double major in English and Spanish with initial aspirations in book publishing, to a VP role at Blendjet, showcases adaptability and a willingness to embrace unexpected opportunities. The journey involved pivoting from sales at Yelp and account management at ClassPass and Square, punctuated by an MBA from NYU which broadened their perspective and led to their current role building out Blendjet's retail presence, a testament to "a pretty winding path."
Career Pivoting, Networking, MBA, Sales & Account Management, Retail Partnerships
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Erin Kristovich
VP Retail Partnerships
Blendjet
Washington University in St. Louis
NYU Stern Business School
Spanish & Other Languages, English
Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)
Sales and Client Management
Video Highlights
1. While a winding path, Erin's career demonstrates that a diverse educational background can lead to success. Her English and Spanish double major, coupled with her MBA, provided a solid foundation for various roles.
2. Erin's career progression highlights the value of networking and leveraging connections. A friend of a friend referral secured her first tech role, illustrating the importance of relationships in career advancement.
3. Erin's experience at fast-growing companies like ClassPass and Blendjet showcases the benefits of working in dynamic environments that offer opportunities for significant growth and learning. This highlights the importance of adaptability and a willingness to embrace change
Transcript
I'm Erin, the VP of Retail Partnerships for BlendJet, a portable blender company. I reached this point in my career through a pretty winding path.
I majored in English and Spanish as an undergrad. I focused on taking classes that interested me rather than seeking classes for a potential future role. By my senior year, I thought I wanted to go into book publishing.
I completed a summer program at Columbia University in New York geared towards book publishing. However, at the end of the program, I realized that job opportunities in publishing were almost all unpaid internships or very low-paying jobs, especially for living in New York.
So, I moved back to LA and lived with my parents for a while. Then, I started looking for jobs in the Bay Area because I had friends there. I searched for any tech role hiring for new grads, as I didn't have significant work experience and hadn't done many internships. I had worked summers in retail at a local bookstore, but otherwise, I didn't have specific job experience.
A friend of a friend referred me for a sales position at Yelp. I interviewed on a Tuesday, was offered the job a couple of days later, and started the following Tuesday. I had to move from LA to San Francisco quickly for that role.
I stayed at Yelp for about two and a half years and wanted to move to a smaller company. So, I transitioned to a role at ClassPass, which was brand new and opening its San Francisco office at the time. It's a New York-based company, and I started in account management there.
ClassPass was scaling up rapidly. When I joined, they were in one or two cities, and a few months later, they were in 20 cities. Now, they are an international company. It was a very fast-paced time at ClassPass, and I learned a lot.
However, I didn't have many opportunities for growth because the company was based in New York, and I didn't want to live there. So, I left that role and then worked at Square, the payment company, also in account management. Square is headquartered in San Francisco.
I had been at Square for a few months and was starting to realize that many people in roles I was interested in had MBAs. So, I began looking into going back to school. The GRE process was brutal, but I got through it and was accepted into NYU Business School.
I studied full-time at NYU from 2017 to 2019. This was very helpful because I had only worked in tech companies, giving me a narrow perspective on different companies and jobs. Attending NYU, a more finance-focused school with people from all backgrounds, was interesting and opened me up to more opportunities afterward.
My current company, a direct-to-consumer blender company, reached out to me on LinkedIn after I graduated from business school. They hired me to build out their retail brick-and-mortar channels. That's what I've been doing since 2020.