The emPOWERed Half Hour

Leading Through Crisis and Innovation with Anastasiia Pustylnyk, CEO at Aimbulance

• Becca Powers / Anastasiia Pustylnyk • Season 1 • Episode 63

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You can be brilliant and inspiring, but your impact is limited without people to challenge and support you.

In this week’s episode of The EmPOWERed Half Hour, we dive deep into strategic marketing, leadership, and resilience with Anastasiia Pustylnyk, CEO and partner at Aimbulance.
 
Anastasiia isn't just a powerhouse in the business world—she’s a beacon of adaptability, guiding her team through the challenges of war, economic upheaval, and the ever-shifting landscape of the marketing industry.

Anastasiia shares her journey from joining Aimbulance as a junior manager to leading the company as its CEO, all while navigating the complexities of a full-scale invasion in Ukraine.
 
Through her story, you'll gain insights into the power of teamwork, the importance of adaptability, and the role of leadership in times of crisis.


Key Moments You Won't Want to Miss:

  • Steering Aimbulance Through War: Anastasiia shares firsthand how she managed Aimbulance’s operations amidst the chaos of Ukraine’s full-scale invasion, focusing on practical strategies for navigating crisis and uncertainty.
  • From Junior Manager to CEO: Discover the critical milestones in Anastasiia’s journey from joining Aimbulance as a junior manager to becoming its CEO, including key decisions and growth opportunities.
  • Building a Supportive and Challenging Team: Learn about Anastasiia’s approach to creating a team that not only supports but also challenges ideas, and how this has been instrumental in her leadership journey.


About Anastasiia:

Anastasiia is the CEO and partner at Aimbulance, a strategic marketing agency, the COO at Anima.help, and a Business Partnership Consultant at INSCIENCE Business. She is also a student at Harvard Business School, the youngest visiting professor at Kyiv Mohyla Business School, and a jury member at Effie Awards Ukraine. She is also a curator and mentor at a program "Be" which helps women who lost their jobs during the War in Ukraine to start new careers in the IT and Creative Industries

With a passion for driving business growth, Anastasiia specializes in delivering outstanding results that exceed client expectations. Through collaborative leadership, she inspires a creative and motivated team to push boundaries and achieve remarkable outcomes.

Connect with Anastasiia Pustylnyk: 


Mentioned on the Show:

  • Take care of your mental health, decode your anxiety, and check yourself at 

Anima.help

Follow Becca Powers:

Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies

Becca Powers: Welcome to another episode of the empowered half hour. And I am so excited to bring you today's guest. She is one of my business partners or business vendor partners. Cause I have my business partner, but anyway, same thing. And, she's also become a friend. I have with me the CEO and partner of, ambulance.

Anastasia Pustanek. So Anastasia, welcome to the show. Hi 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. 

Becca Powers: I'm so excited to dive into this conversation, but I'd like to give a little bit of a backstory of how we met. And, cause I think it would be really cool for the listeners to know that. So as, Linnea and I have been building the business.

we needed two years ago, we needed some help with website, not even like branding and like website ideas and just really trying to stand up our initial phase of Hey, we're coming out world, we're a business now. And, it happened to be around the start of the Ukrainian war. And, I formerly was at Riverbed Technologies and one of my contacts through Riverbed kept sharing that you guys needed projects.

To support your teams and to keep working during the start of the war. And I had solved probably about four posts and it looked, I'm like, they've been with tech and they'll understand me and then I can help and whatever, it all felt really great. And then we met and I was like, Oh, this is going to be a really good thing.

And, the elements of you guys being under war to, was interesting from my perspective because it really brought realism to the situation, outside of what in the news. Like the, you guys are real people going through a really shitty situation. And then also on the positive side of that, the spirit and the perseverance that you guys have and the optimism that you still show up.

And I could cry about it right now. I've seen it so many times and it just made me feel so connected to you. So I don't know if you want to tell the audience a little bit about that experience and then we'll go into your background and what you do. 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: Yeah, absolutely. And I remember that when we met on that first call, we cried.

And yeah, and I remember those first months we were like, I was pitching every day for 18 hours, different clients trying to find a new, let's say flow the project flow for team to keep working because we didn't want to stop. And of course all the Ukrainian projects were imposed because, No one knew what's going to happen and what's going to be and to work on something, help to somehow stabilize the situation within a group, within a team.

And for them to realize that they can still do something in order to help. And so when you reached out, I think there was a match and the click from the very beginning of the conversation. And then we started to work together and it was extremely exciting. and yeah, and we never stopped ever since.

Becca Powers: Yeah, exactly. So let's get to your background a little bit. How did you end up at Ambulance? then how did you end up in your role as CEO? Share the back story a little bit. 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: I was Ambulance for, Six and a half years already. And then join as a junior manager. I had a friend working at ambulance and they invited me to try and apply for the account manager position.

And I was like, yeah, why not? I like to deal with people. I like to arrange things and all of that. And I had no background in marketing, like a professional background, but I've read a lot about advertising, Ogilvy and so on, like seeing some courses. And I was like, yeah, that was something that always.

Excites me. So I was like, why not? And then through years, I started to grow, take more responsibility. And eventually when the, full scale invasion started to my business partner for now, Roman, he offered me a partnership and the CEO position, which allows him and our other partner.

And this is another project and the, our baby that we're working together to start a neuroscientific startup. Because I was taking care of the agency and that allows him to focus on something new. And, yeah, never stopped ever since. And, we're doing exciting things. we have different types of clients, projects.

We work with UNICEF. We work with USAID. We work with big companies, such as MasterCard, top, Ukrainian businesses. And, so you're not only doing marketing, but you're changing The behavior patterns of different target groups. And that's exciting. And that's what I love about what I'm doing. 

Becca Powers: I can feel your enthusiasm when we work together too.

You're like, Oh, I'm getting my hands in it. Yes. Yeah, that's the best part. That's cool. let's, just for the listeners to have a little bit of context, why don't you share a little bit more about what you guys do and specialize in, and then we'll get into some more questions about, you and your story.

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: Yeah. So we are at Ambulance. We help businesses and organizations to grow by making their products and services sexy. That's how we say, but, if to be serious and for real, we are evidence based marketing agency. So in order to develop any type of marketing product, we do a really hard research to analyze the category, analyze the user was in a category, analyze how they behave and what they are looking for in terms of the category and how business or the organization or service can.

answer to those needs, to those questions and build their own value propositions and all the products based on customer needs. So that's what we do. And we do experience that from, marketing strategy to business strategy. Sometimes we do brand strategies, we create brands, we create applications, websites.

Becca Powers: So whatever business need in order to achieve their goals. awesome. And I can attest to that. we are wanting to start some marketing campaigns, media, website design, there's, always so much work to be done, but, we are really trying to think outside the box and you guys have really showed up and did exactly what she's talking about.

The backend strategy showed us. A lot of our, like people in the similar industry, what they're doing, how we can position ourselves to be successful, but have a different message. it's been really cool, but I want to go back to focusing on you. So you started this journey with Ambulance.

You've been there several years. What were, I always like to talk about like trial to triumph stories. So let's start with what are some of the challenges? and you guys are in an active war too. So whatever, if you want to talk about business challenges or the actual, like working through what you guys are going through, I'll leave it up to you.

But what are some challenges that you have had to, work through? 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: I think when it comes to business and entrepreneurship, you don't have challenges anymore. somehow in a way you learn that. Everything is just a task that needs to be done. And then you sit, you decompose it and you try to figure out how to make it happen.

But of course, when I started to, and there were things that I were doing for the first time, they were like, Oh my God, I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to figure that out. But in my scenario, there was always. very powerful team with me that we were working together. So I always knew that I have someone to ask or brainstorm or just to check an idea and that helped.

And we also always knew that every, let's say, fuck up is a lesson. Yeah. 

Becca Powers: We 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: always just sit together and This very room because I'm at the office now and just talk about it and to see what is good to have, and we're taking to the next project and what is just a lesser learn, and we would never try to do any kind of mistakes like that ever again, because that will just be very destructive.

But, 

Becca Powers: I think really good way to look at that, not to interrupt you, but, for the listeners. It's like whether you're looking at this through the lens of life or business, that's a really good perspective to have is that they're all just lessons, right? 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: Yeah. And moreover, it become a habit that whatever new challenge or.

Something happens on your way, you're like, you're looking at it from the excitement part, and it's Oh, this is something new that I need to figure out how to do. Nothing less, not just, oh my god, I've never done it, I'll just stack somewhere in the middle, I don't know what to do. But on the contrary, you just look from the, discovery perspective, and you're just like, oh, this is something new.

I've never done it before. That's exciting. How would I do that? 

Becca Powers: what's really cool about you saying that is, I have a author teacher friend who, teaches principles on purpose about, finding your purpose and living in your purpose. But one of the things that she says is stop making decisions and start making discoveries.

Because when you start making discoveries, that's when the unfoldment happens and you get to advance and find your solutions. And I just thought like you just said discoveries that made me think I'm like, Oh, I actually had someone give me like a one liner recently that I really liked. 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: And, like from the discovery perspective when it comes to our business model, whatever we do, we just try it out first and then If it works, we would label it.

That's how we were like operating for the past. I think four years. So we've changed the business model right before COVID, which helped us a lot through the COVID time because we were like pretty good and we adjusted and it also was a good rehearsal for the full scale because we were just continue to do what we were already been doing.

And that also helped us. We just changed the market that we were operating on. And so when, after that went to Harvard, they introduced us this. known, unknown. 

Becca Powers: That's right. She was at Harvard just saying, she says, finish, finish some leadership. 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: There. Yeah. And they introduced this really nice concept known, unknown, and known, So the business that you are at the moment, it's your no known. So basically, whatever you have, the unknown, Known unknown is something that you can find on YouTube. Let's say predict that might happen. And that's your risk management. And then goes unknown, those black swans that can happen in your life.

And you need to, it can like, 360 change, whatever you're doing. And when I was listening to it, I realized that, our life in Ukraine is the constant unknown, Oh, wow. So whatever you're doing, whatever you're trying to plan the next day, everything can go like 360 and you can just sit and making you plan.

And again, that become a habit and you don't stress that much over it anymore because that's the reality. You just do it. And I was like, okay, this plan didn't work. Let's have another plan. And that also helps. Because I think, the most powerful skill that anyone can have that this era is this adjustability.

It's how we adjust, how we can change, it's how we can evolve. Because if you're not changing throughout the time, you're just adjusting. Stagnating and you're slowly dying, basically is we need to evolve. And that's something that I've learned not only through the books, but through the experience by living.

And I know that's something that really works when you simultaneously doing it. 

Becca Powers: Wow. Wow. That's really powerful because we, as humans, we don't naturally like change. 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: So that's it. 

Becca Powers: But if you learn to leverage it and you learn adaptability, even through difficult times, you can have really magical moments and find more of yourself and creativity opens up and when you don't expect it.

so I understand what you're saying. That's really. Really powerful. 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: Yeah, absolutely. 

Becca Powers: all get into another question. what's a lesson like you just shared one, but I want to ask in case another one pops up. What's a lesson or, an aha. So either one, but it's a lesson or an aha.

That's up for you right now 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: is that you can be Oh, I'm sorry. Extremely smart, powerful, intelligent, inspiring, and so on. But if you don't have people around and it's not always like minded, no, but the people around who will either challenge your ideas or support and make it happen together with you, you're nothing.

Becca Powers: That is really powerful because I think so many times. It's just I'm putting myself in like the position of a listener who may have dreams and goals or something that they're looking to do and maybe are sitting there afraid to do them or afraid to share them with other people because of judgment and things like that.

But, where I'm going with what you said to someone who may be listening to this is build a team around you. And go for it. I think back to when I first wrote my book, Harness Your Inner CEO, and I wrote it in a group. I joined a writer's group. And so I had some support there, but I was writing it really in solitude.

I didn't even know if I was going to publish it. And, I was afraid to share this dream, this thing with the world. And then as I said yes to myself, and then I'm going to do this thing, then I realized, shit, I need an editor. I need a line, I need a developmental editor. I need a line editor.

I need to hire a company to help me with design. I need to figure out how to get it into the world. Then I met Lynnae I was like, crap, I need a project manager. And then all of a sudden. My dream needed a team, and my team needed people with different skill sets.  so I love what you said, and I just want to, give that back to the listeners.

A lot of times for your dreams to come true, you need to build a team around you. And I'd like to ask you, Anastasia, what kind of thoughts do you have on that? 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: I a hundred percent agree with you. And I think the team that I have now is the most incredible people on earth. And I can, vote for that, a hundred times and there is a tricky point to that, because, if you will build a team of like minded who are like, yeah, this, idea is amazing, this idea is amazing, eventually you can lead yourself to a point that you are not seeing half of the picture because everyone is just starting to see it through lens.

I guess also from the leadership perspective, like not the hierarchy, from the classical point of view, but, still there are these things that something would be kept untold and so on. But what I managed to do is that Within our team, we're open to talk about anything good and bad. If we don't like any ideas, we can openly discuss it and challenge one another in terms of find a solution that will work the best.

And that is something that I really cherish in the people that I work with, that they are not afraid to, speak up for themselves. And if there are some problems, they would openly talk about it because there are. Things happen every day because we work as a people with people. We don't produce tangible things.

There are really rare moments when we actually produce some prints, something, or do like actual events. Most of the things that we're producing are digital. So you cannot feel this moment of, ah, this is something that we got. And that's also creates this, sometimes, feeling that you are not doing anything because you don't see the tangible results of what you're doing.

It's a tricky moment. And so in order to, have this constant discussion of what is good, what is But, and of course, to cheer for one another when we're achieving something or we're completing project, or if some problems are on the way, but again, together. That's something that you need to do because leadership is lonely.

higher you get, the lonelier you get because all the decisions are coming from your way. But when you involve your team to make those decisions together, they feel that they're a part of it. 

Becca Powers: Yes, 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: and they're willing to be part of it. They're willing to just an extra mile to make it happen because they know the value and they know what's coming next.

Becca Powers: Yes, that's awesome. That's awesome. And I believe that so much too. I think that, so many times we're afraid to, how do I want to say this? We're afraid to look at what's negative or what might not work. and that sometimes we miss the biggest idea unfolding. Yeah. And I'm a very big advocate of that too.

I'm like, let's go, let's talk about it all because, it gives everyone on the team an empowered voice. And, I learned too in, the business of having a personal brand. If I make a decision, which I can, cause I'm like, Hey, at the end of the day, Linnea would support me too. if I was like, Hey, it's my brand.

I want to do this. Boom. But, at the end of the day. I have a business partner. I have, three people on our team. We have a whole bunch of contractors and you've seen me work too. Like I'd rather bring everyone together. Let's brainstorm what works, what doesn't work. I only say that to reinforce your point is that sometimes the best idea comes from the shared ideas.

 like you said, one person on your team might say that not work. And then in the challenging of it. Oh, someone gets a light bulb to go off and throws out something that could be like the innovative thing that pushes you to the next level. So it's just such a cool thing to, a cool point to reinforce with the listeners is sometimes the thing, maybe don't want to have those weird conversations with family, friends, or business members.

But if you like, give it a safe place. Then, and people feel safe. It's you need the psychology safety, right? But as long as the psychology safety is there, like magical things happen. So I think that was a really cool share. the next thing that I want to ask off that is if there's some leaders listening to this or people with an idea that need to leverage team thinking, 

 How could this concept empower their journey forward? 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: I think there is also another important part of making that happen is for the leader to allow this kind of discussion to happen, because everything goes from the leader. And for me, it took a while to get there, because, when the word started, the full scale, like, everything was manual.

I was making a lot of micromanagement just because I needed to support and actually hold everyone to make sure that we're not only doing the work, but everyone is all right, because you cannot imagine when someone will be just out of the, context because they saw the news or something happened.

You cannot predict it because on those days, the situation were like changing Extremely fast. And yes, there were a lot of micromanagement and everyone gets used to this super tight content, the contact. And for me to have the separation moment when I can see and already allow the team to make the decision themselves.

And that was a hard part, but I've got lucky because I've traveled to us to study and it was physically impossible to be with a team all the time because of the time difference because of the. You'd think that I was, at school all the time. So I needed to just step out and they were so proud of me being abroad, like representing us, we're going to do it like you do your thing, we're going to perform and.

That was an amazing experience. because they've managed to take on board several new clients. They've launched to the projects. Like they were doing perfect, just perfect, just amazing job. And the most important thing was for me when I'm coming back, not to jump in back to the same route, but. to still, stay aside and allow them to continue work that, and there was a work in progress and cannot say that it was, just done perfectly.

No, I was like immediately jumping and I was like, yeah, I can keep here. I can help there. It's just this tiny thing. And then I was just like, okay, I'm stepping out and allowing them to do it. And you will make mistakes. That's absolutely fine. We will figure it out after. And so I think allow this concept to work for a leader, you need to be okay with the fact that it's a learning process, which requires making mistakes.

But making mistakes is not something bad, it's something that you learn from. And the most important thing is that you learn from it. Not making it twice or three times in a row the same one. No, not a good thing, but to allow those mistakes to happen and to like pinpoint on what we do with it after.

And just to understand that it's the discovery, as we mentioned is a learning process is something that not necessarily to be part of some frame. That will work a hundred percent. No, can have some baselines, but just improvise all the time. 

Becca Powers: Yeah. 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: Adapt adjust. And then that is the moment when something magical is happening.

Becca Powers: I love that. So we have time for one more question. Why are you passionate about the industry that you're in? 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: because it allows me to work with different types of businesses, categories, And that means as we're doing a lot of researches, you basically have an access and a huge amount of information and you understand how the world works because you see the patterns of human behaviors through different categories.

you understand why people behave that way. You understand how you can impact. Those decisions. And that's something that you're really changing the customer experience of the whole industries. And that's exciting. That's the one part. And another is that we as an agency are in a position that we work with a strategic partners, such as USAID.

UNICEF on some projects such as anti corruption projects, media literacy for kids and different types of, groups, on the explosion risk management and those kinds of things that are unfortunately On a very high demand at the moment. And in that case, you can help and make world, a better place, help people in need.

And this is why 

Becca Powers: we end up crying on calls because we feel our work so much. 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: And that brings the purpose into what you're doing. You're not just making money. But you're changing maybe for a tiny little bit, 0. 5%, but you're changing the world and that's exciting. 

Becca Powers: It gives me the goosebumps.

I'm like, ah, yes. that is a perfect place to like wind down. So what I'd like to do next is if any of the listeners have digital marketing needs, how can they, get in touch with you? 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: they can just Google ambulance. com. It's like an ambulance, but with aim in it, we're helping to achieve the goals and aims of different businesses and to just reach out and to send us the brief itinerary, what they need and we'll take it from there.

We'll 

Becca Powers: have that in the show notes too. If anyone is, looking, or needing digital needs, because we use them, we love them and I can just put my own name , on their work. Not only are you guys, a plus in what you do, but you're very, like I was going to say heartfelt, which is true, but you guys are very into it.

I feel like you're part, an extension of my team and not just a company I'm working with. And that's the part for me that it's so meaningful. 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: Thank you. Yeah. Because it's about partnership. It is. It's not about, client vendor relation. It's about partnership and being a part of making something better.

Otherwise. It will not work, but that's just my experience. 

Becca Powers: same here. Same here. also from a social media perspective. how can they follow you if they want to, if anybody wants to see your journey? 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: Yeah, my nickname is Nastassia or you can follow We Are Ambulance is our agency, social media profiles and yeah.

Becca Powers: All right. So we'll have all of that in the show notes. One last thing before we sign off, what's little like powerful or inspiring, empowering message that you'd like to share with the audience? 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: I think that the only thing that can stop you is in your head. Once you figure that out, you can do whatever you want.

Becca Powers: I love that so much. A message after my own heart. it was so awesome having you on the show. Thank you so much. 

Anastasiia Pustylnyk: Likewise. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much.