Today we’d like to introduce you to Mafalda Johannsen

Mafalda, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?

Named after a cartoon (“Mafalda” from Quino), I’ve been working in sales for quite some time now. My first ever sales job was a 100% commission one (“scary” some people would say) back in Florida (USA) and, from there, I also worked in sales in Belgium and in Germany, B2C and B2B, for different industries (media, tourism, tech, SaaS). Currently, I work as a Head of Business Development for UpCloud – a truly European and GDPR-compliant cloud. I have two sales podcasts that might be helpful for you: one about sales training mistakes (access it here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqfzUqYWJtq47RnqaRvEiq2t-AM5X3ixw) and the other one where I interview Buyer Personas (access it here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqfzUqYWJtq4OZRr20PC9FRI-7ewx8EpC). I’m also writing a sales book in Portuguese – stay tuned! On my free time, I’m in charge of the PR & Marketing of a jazz fusion music band called Plasticine (check them out on Instagram: plasticine.band.pt), and I’m also a speaker and moderator in conferences and events.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?

I don’t think most people have “smooth” roads. In my case, I was the one adding the “bumps” to the road: my interests since a very young age were languages, literature, and arts. However, I studied Business Administration and have worked in business and sales my whole life. I took that decision from a very young age since I was looking for financial stability, so I gave up on my passions (I mean, not entirely) and took the safest road. Studying subjects that are difficult and not very interesting to me (maths, statistics, AI, tech, excel, economics, etc.) was the main struggle along the way. But again: my fault.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?

UpCloud is a European cloud service provider offering the world’s fastest cloud servers on an hourly billed infrastructure-as-a-service from 12 data centres in Amsterdam, Chicago, Frankfurt, Helsinki, London, Madrid, New York, San Jose, Singapore, Sydney and Warsaw. Our customers trust us for our high performance, reliability, and very cost-effective pricing. We help them speed up their time to market, get a reliable production environment, and scale their business forward.
My role at UpCloud is leading the Business Development department. In other words, I manage and train the sales reps whose job is reaching out to prospects and convince them to hear more about what we do.

Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

If you’re looking for a reliable cloud provider, let me know!

No, just kidding: if you would like to understand the business world better, I really recommend you to go for a sales job for a while. You’ll learn more than in any master’s degree.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://upcloud.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mafalda-johannsen-007489a4/