Victoria Baron is a Community Manager who builds tech-focused communities in Berlin. As the founder of IT Zdybanka, a Ukrainian tech community, she connects professionals from the Ukrainian tech ecosystem.

She also serves as Event & Community Manager at Data Natives, with over 100k data professionals worldwide, focused on driving tech innovations. Victoria is also responsible for partnerships for Dataconomy Media; she cultivates relationships with industry leaders. I think that's why we clicked, as we both have experience with tech communities and collaborate with Data Scientists, AI Researchers, ML Engineers, etc.

Victoria became a part of The Community Media project as one of the Community Managers from 42 European countries who shared with me their stories. I caught her in Barcelona, Spain 🇪🇸, which will be the first pin on our European Community people map! Yay! Together, we talked about introverted Community people, the importance of partnerships, and the Community Manager's role in society.

Check the interview below! ;)

Alla: It's incredible that we had a chance to meet in Barcelona! I was thinking: I'll spend a week in Spain vacationing and I definitely want to meet some awesome Community Manager. And I'm glad we did it! :) Tell a bit about your Community management experience: how did you become a Community Manager? Are you a switcher from another domain, or were communities the only thing you always wanted to do?

Victoria: My community management experience started about 4 years ago when I moved to Berlin and joined an organisation with an already existing and well-established community of Data Scientists, Engineers, AI developers in Europe - Data Natives. Before that my background mainly was in Business Development,  B2B sales, Marketing in various sectors across IT.

Alla: That’s so cool as the company I was working in in 2023-2024 also organised the ML/AI community in Europe, including several events and activities in Berlin! Now I know whom I will recommend Roosh Circle to collaborate with! ;) What communities are you working with?

Victoria: During my job at Data Natives, I had exciting opportunities to collaborate with absolutely diverse types of communities across Europe - from Startup Founders to LGBTQ+ tech ones. The roots of the majority of these communities lies deeply in the Berlin tech ecosystem. It will be extremely hard to find a community or a co-working space in Berlin that I haven’t collaborated with or organised / pitched an event at.

Alla: What other side community projects do you have?

Victoria: After the full-scale invasion in Ukraine a lot of my friends moved to Berlin. We started to organise informal gatherings in the bars, rooftops parties and charity dinners to collect donations to support Ukraine. As the majority of my friends and their friends too work in the tech sector, long story short, that’s how I came up with an idea to build an Ukrainian tech community in Berlin - IT Zdybanka - and take our gatherings to a new professional level by organising IT meetups in the offices of the leading tech and consulting companies in Berlin.

IT Zdybanka event. Photo credit: Victoria Baron

Alla: Awesome! Within this project I usually ask Community Managers about their latest achievements. Maybe some cool milestone: big or small, everything counts. What is yours?

Victoria: IT Zdybanka already exists 3 years and has 700+ active members. Our mission is to support and empower each other through collaboration, sharing expertise, giving advice, showing initiatives and providing mentorship. This year our community reached an import milestone as we’re becoming part of the bigger organisation - Ukrainian IT cluster in Germany. I am sure there are a lot of thrilling opportunities and collaborations ahead.

Alla: Congrats! That’s amazing! What are your core responsibilities as a Community Manager?

Victoria: As the Community Manager, I think my main role is to continue providing a safe space & platform for our community members to grow, reveal their talents, and develop their skills. It’s very important to protect the values of the community and not allow outsiders (those who do not correspond to these values) to undermine it from within.

Another important part of this role is to establish the right partnerships with other communities or organisations that can foster new opportunities for our members.

Alla: Can you elaborate on your perfect day as a Community Manager? I mean, the day-to- day tasks you like to do and doing anyway in the company you are working?