The benefits of upskilling with Sarah Roy, Data & Insights Lead at Airbnb

My name is Sarah Roy and I am a Data & Insights Lead for the Global Editorial Communications Team at Airbnb. Before transitioning to the field of data, I worked as a PR Manager at Airbnb. In my current role, I analyze Airbnb’s internal data to identify trends that inform the content created by the PR team. Additionally, I am responsible for measuring and analyzing press coverage around the world.

I began my career at Airbnb as a PR manager for France. As part of that role, I used data to inform journalists about trends we were seeing on the platform. Initially, I asked analysts to gather this data for me. However, I soon wanted to become more autonomous and do this work myself.

I started by modifying simple parameters like dates or locations within existing queries. Gradually, I became more comfortable with the process and continued to learn through iterations.

Over time, I realized that the projects I was most interested in all had a data component. Additionally, many colleagues started consulting me for their own data projects. I began serving as an intermediary between the PR team and the data analyst responsible for handling the team’s queries. I made the team’s requests comprehensible to the analyst, and I provided context for data that wasn’t always clear to the communicators. It was like a PR/data Google Translate!

It was actually my manager at the time who first proposed the idea of creating a new position for me in the communications team. I had been in charge of press relations in France for six years. During an annual performance review where we were discussing my career development, she noted that I didn’t seem particularly inspired by the “natural” next step, which was to coordinate press relations at a European level.

For several months, I had been managing the interface between PR and data for my colleagues. My manager suggested creating a full-fledged position within the communication team, which is still a rare occurrence. As a result, I transitioned from a PR manager position to a role focused entirely on data and insights.

Moving from one job to the next was a big leap for me. For over 10 years, I had been focused on press relations, building relationships and writing. Now, I spend most of my time working with spreadsheets and writing SQL queries. The main challenge I faced was dealing with a severe case of impostor syndrome because I have to interact regularly with very specialized data experts.

I also had to quickly learn how to write queries since I found myself alone in this subject quite quickly. This meant that I had to get up to speed faster than expected.

Fortunately, I love learning new things, so I began by attending an internal training program called Data University. I also spent a lot of time studying other analysts’ work and reading reports and internal newsletters. This was a great source of learning and inspiration.

In addition, I quickly realized that my experience in press relations was a real asset in my new position. While a more experienced analyst might always be better than me at performing precise micro-analyses, I have a better understanding of what will interest a journalist and how to use metrics that are easily understood by the general public.

In my experience, the best advice I can offer is to consider transitioning to a field that builds upon your current skill set. Without the foundation of my media relations experience, I would never have considered transitioning to the data world.