Our team is growing fast! Meet the new faces at Soar

By: Cahli Samata

November 25, 2021

Things are moving quickly at Soar. As our company grows, our team must grow with it. In the past 7 weeks, we’ve welcomed 7 new employees to the Soar family.

We wanted to give a quick introduction to the new faces representing Soar around the globe.

Cahli - Marketing Manager

Cahli joined Soar to lead the organisation’s marketing activities. With a Bachelor of Science and postgraduate degree in Communications, she’s sought out and worked in roles that combine her love of science with her communications skills. These include content production, project management, and marketing roles across a range of industries, such as: education, utilities, telecommunications, science, technology, and healthcare. 

Her decade-long career in science and tech storytelling has taken Cahli on all sorts of adventures, crouching knee-deep in muddy swamps to film tortoises, donning VR headsets, and interviewing illustrious researchers and trailblazers in science and technology. While she’s a marketing allrounder, and can point a camera or get immersed in editing, her favourite activity is directing creative projects, such as videos, design projects, and social media campaigns. She’s thrilled to be leading the talented team at Soar and spreading the company mission far and wide. 

“I was immediately excited by the mission of Soar. I saw limitless possibilities for how this product could change the world. I’m enjoying geeking out on beautiful maps every day, working with an incredible, creative team and learning more about the geospatial field as I go.” she said.

Diana - Content Coordinator

Diana joined the team with Jackie as a Soar Content Coordinator. She came fresh out of completing a Graduate Diploma in GIS, keen to gain valuable experience in her field. It was the perfect opportunity to hone her skills and grow as a GIS specialist. 

Diana has been helping users make the most of Soar, offering free 1-1 demo sessions. She’s been running community outreach initiatives and championing our app product Mappt.

“It’s been a great experience working at Soar because I get to practice my new skills in GIS whilst still being in a PR/ Marketing focused role. It’s a harmonious blend of my professional interests” says Diana.

Jackie - Content Coordinator

Leaving the corporate world for adventure, Jackie discovered a passion for the outdoors and the marvels of nature. She was particularly drawn to the appeal of hot molten lava, inspired by the lifestyle of Katia and Maurice Krafft. After 12 years, touring the natural wonders of the world, she finds herself having a moment in Perth, which allows for more study and to work towards her dream of a PhD in Volcanology- which also led her to applying for a position with Soar.

“To pay homage to some moments that led me here, there was the hand drawn map on the isle of Skye, the hip flask of Talisker that kept me warm throughout, the smuggled volcanic rock of Pompeii (which turned out to be aerated concrete), the tents pitched in the French mountains, the paper map of Spain which lead us home to Barcelona after a Moroccan border crossing cost us nothing less than a Harmonica, pre GPS and smartphone, on the road with maps we felt a very Kerouac and Burroughs type of freedom.  

Into today, 2021 and technology within Geology (geographical information systems), a border closure. I traded in my hooded goat hair Akhnif that serves a purpose in the Atlas Mountains for a pair of Havana's and an office in Belmont, welcome to Soar.” she says.

Graham - Product Champion & North America Region Manager

Since he was a child, Graham has loved all things maps, poring over copies of National Geographic in rural Dorset in England. Later in life, he turned that passion into a physical sciences degree with a laundry list of majors and minors, such as hydrology, cartography, remote sensing, and surveying and computing. All while collecting a growing stack of paper maps from travels around the world.

Throughout an impressive 4-decade career, Graham added more digital mapping skills to his belt as paper maps were quickly replaced by bits and bytes. The promise of this rapidly evolving tech was amazing, heralding a new era where maps were online and available to everyone. But while technology improved and geospatial data exploded, the map world remained largely a specialist domain, outside of navigation uses. 

Then while Graham was harnessing the tech and building an open global oceans geodatabase, he met a startup company in Australia, building a platform that also used advanced technology to open up the mapping world to all. He joined the mission as a Product Champion for Soar, rejuvenating his inner ‘map geek’ and reigniting his childhood excitement.

“With a shared passion to break down the geospatial silos, the synergy was obvious and infectious.” says Graham. “The rest as they say is history and, perhaps in hindsight, inevitable”.

Manuel - Senior Front End Developer

Manuel and Nadine joined Soar together as our two freshest faces. Manuel is well equipped for his role as Senior Front End Developer, with over 20 years’ experience in web development. Over his career, he gathered experience in database, backend, frontend, UI/UX, and mobile development.

Manuel found himself bored and restless during the peak of COVID - hungry for an opportunity to learn something new. He decided it was time for a new challenge and started learning React Native for mobile development - and loved it! These new skills helped him land his job at Soar.

"If you don't challenge yourself, you will never realize what you can become," he says.

"There’s always a new challenge to keep you motivated."

Nadine - Junior Front End Developer

One of our most recent hires is Nadine, a self-taught developer based in the Philippines. After working up the ranks in a call centre from Support to Executive Assistant, Nadine started doing freelance web development and design on the side. She found a passion for it and wanted to turn it into a full-time role. That’s when the job at Soar came up and she was thrilled to land it.

“I was very fortunate to have been hired as this is what I've been trying to achieve for so long” she said.
 
“I've learned a lot ever since I started last month and the learning continues. I'm glad to be part of a company that doesn't judge you a lot for your mistakes too. Mistakes here are treated as a learning opportunity.” 

“I am loving it here at Soar. The company is like no other that I've worked with… I am looking forward to gaining more expertise, growing with the team, and being part of Soar's future.”

Ye - China General Manager

After completing his degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in the US, Ye began working in data analytics. After 4 years in the field, he started his own consulting business, extending his focus into business operations. Ye’s business partner told him about an ambitious startup called Soar and it wasn’t long before Ye was applying to work there. 

Based in China, Ye now uses his professional skillset in operations management to oversee Soar’s business relationships with Chinese satellite operators. 

“In Soar, I see energetic colleagues and awesome prospects. Also it’s a brand new industry for me so I am looking forward to the future challenge and opportunity.” he says.

If you’d like to see all the friendly faces at Soar, head over to our Team page.

This press release was written by:

Cahli Samata

Cahli is the Marketing Manager at Soar, leading the company’s marketing activities with an amazing, creative team. She has degrees in science and communications and loves any opportunity to combine the two. Outside work, you’ll find Cahli singing with her cover band, inline skating around the city, and babying her dog.

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