Behind the Screen: Meet Lyndsay Reyn, Product Specialist

"Challenging, fun and fresh" - When someone defines working in your company with those words, you know you must be doing something right!

Meet Lyndsay: She's someone who likes to swim in the ocean before having her morning coffee, soak up new experiences and delight her friends with the art of a good cocktail. She's also our Product Specialist superstar. Lyndsay has been on board since the early days of Explorate and has seen the Operations Team grow from two to nine. Today, she manages our product roadmap and makes sure our platform and services stay at the forefront of the freight forwarding industry, as well as attracting the next generation of logistics guns.

1. Can you tell us a bit more about your journey to your current role at Explorate?

I started at Explorate two days per week, helping the Operations team (which was a total of two). In any start up, 'your role' tends to change as the company grows. I came on board full time within a few months and started asking questions, scoping out processes, sinking my teeth into projects that excited me. I wanted to use my project management and process improvement skills to assist the team as we grew. I am currently Explorate's Product Specialist, with a side of marketing and HR.

2. What does a typical day look like to you?

That all depends on if I am in the head office (Brisbane) or at home (Sunshine Coast) - if I am on the coast, I try and go for a swim, then it's straight for my caffeine hit. My days are a mix of product scoping, managing the product roadmap, pitching the product (marketing), servicing customers, and making sure the staff are upbeat.

3. What are three words you would use to describe Explorate?

Challenging, fun and fresh.

4. What's been your most memorable project you've worked on at Explorate so far?

Seeing my checklist come to life and have a huge place in our platform internally. Having joined Explorate with no freight experience, I found myself making a checklist for each shipment to ensure I didn't miss anything. My piece of paper is now a task list internally that our Operations team uses for each shipment, from paper to a task list and now integrating with agents and tracking providers to automate key milestones within a shipment.

5. Do you have any advice to people wanting to enter the freight forwarding industry?

Having joined the industry with no experience, or dare I say it, no interest, my mind has been blown by how global supply chains run. I catch myself now looking at container ships and wondering which customer might have cargo on it. There is so much to learn and keep you engaged. The great thing about Explorate is, there are numerous teams and opportunities to join and learn as you go.

6. Something interesting that you've watched, read or listened to recently?

Something small but a great boost and never fails to lift my spirits is an Instagram account called @upworthy. Their purpose is to deliver you the best of humanity every day.

7. How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

At my core, I'm drawn to new experiences, new cocktails, new recipes, new mountains, new beaches. I've recently started mastering the art of a good cocktail. Eating and drinking defines our most important events in life - birthdays, weddings, funerals, graduations - whatever happens, food and drink are involved when families and friends gather. I love helping people make those events the best they can be with great drinks (with and without alcohol).

8. What's a fun fact about you that most people wouldn't know?

I've won an air guitar competition.

9. If you could switch roles with someone else in the team for a day, who would it be and why?

This is a hard one, as I do tend to sit across all the teams at Explorate. If I had to choose I'd switch with Shannon, who is Explorate's first full-time female developer (we have three women in the dev team now). She has an amazing capability of dissecting new features that are on our roadmap and turning them into reality. Her job is hands down more complicated than I have put it, which is why I would love to switch, to understand and learn more about how she makes the magic happen.