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A blog that looks behind the scenes at how we bring our mission to life, every day

Joanna Converse ‹ We are EF

Gretchen didn’t have a passport when she first joined <a href="https://www.ef.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">EF Education First</a>. What she did have when she arrived to our North American headquarters in Boston was a passion for helping people—making her the perfect fit for EF’s Office Coordinator position.
“I remember being in the lobby and getting really excited,” Gretchen said about arriving for her interview. “My excitement grew as I met with many different people and spoke with those that had previously been in the role.”
Gretchen immediately settled into her job at the front desk with a big smile and happy-go-lucky attitude. The Office Coordinator position required Gretchen to handle a variety of responsibilities, from greeting staff each morning to event planning and new-hire on-boarding. She met each task with positivity and a willingness to help.
“In that position you are in the center of it all, communicating with staff across our 17 different products, finding out about their work, their trips, their grandmother, and staying connected to so many people,” Gretchen said.
Gretchen’s love for her role and always-positive personality led her to win EF’s Core Value Award for Passion, one of seven awards given to standout employees at the Boston office’s annual holiday party. The prize? Two round-trip tickets to Iceland and Ireland.
“I took my dad with me and we found the family crest,” Gretchen said of the trip, “and on top of that, I celebrated my 25th birthday! It’s crazy that I didn’t even have a passport when I started at EF, and now I prioritize travel. EF taught me that travel isn’t scary.”
It was through Gretchen’s conversations at the front desk that she learned about an opening for a UX Researcher with <a href="https://www.eftours.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">EF Educational Tours</a>. A newly created role, the requirements were very much aligned with what Gretchen was excelling at already—connecting to people—and using those insights to make a positive impact on the business.
“The Executive Creative Director, Nate, asked what my interests were and I told him I love people and data/reporting, which don’t tend to go together! He followed up with that by saying, ‘I have this crazy idea that you would be a good fit for this role we’re hiring for in the Studio [EF’s in-house creative team].’ I’ll never forget it! I returned from my trip to Ireland and Iceland and Nate put time on my calendar to catch up. Seeing the job description was like seeing myself on a piece of paper. I couldn’t have been more excited.”
According to Gretchen, her new role is all about “one-on-one conversations, interviews, and focus groups.” She explained, “we take those insights and distill them into something that people can make decisions from. Anecdotes from our customers are super important regarding how they value the tools we provide.”
Much of the research that Gretchen and her team conducts has led to new features to the EF Educational Tours customer website, where teachers who are bringing a group of students abroad can make changes to their group and get tour-specific updates—simplifying the process for teachers to manage their group and customize preferences.
“We use customer research all the time, in copy or to build out a new feature. I view what I do now as ‘tech therapy.’ It’s an opportunity to ask questions, to listen, and to stay connected to our customers so we can make thoughtful improvements to our business.”
Equally important to Gretchen was staying connected to the people she had met as an Office Coordinator. “It was easy being front and center and having an opportunity to connect with everyone,” she said. “I wanted to make sure that in my new role, I still had my people, so I keep in the loop with the other products by participating in things like the Running Club and the annual Reach the Beach relay race.” Gretchen smiled as she shared her most key piece of advice: “I’ve found that if you express an interest in people, you will always stay connected to them.”
Regarding the recent achievements she’s proudest of, it again comes down to the people—in this case, EF’s customers. “We implemented some customer feedback, and the customer was super appreciative. Keeping that feedback loop going keeps us humble in our designs—if it’s not interesting and it’s not helping our customers, then we won’t do it.”
Gretchen is excited to see what comes next. “The role has definitely evolved since I started. We’re working on bigger projects, outside of the tech teams, on longer studies and market research, and there’s no end of sight. It’s like a goldfish, we’ll grow to whatever size container we’re in.”

Gretchen didn’t have a passport when she first joined EF Education First, but she did have a passion for helping people, a great fit for her role.

The power of connection: Gretchen’s EF journey - We are EF

The power of connection: Gretchen’s EF journey ‹ We are EF

The power of connection: Gretchen’s EF journey

The power of connection gretchens ef journey

Beth’s path to <a href="https://www.ef.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">EF Education First</a> began on the Esplanade in Cambridge, when she joined her sister for a lunchtime run with a potential client. Mark, her sister’s client, worked at EF and the three capped off their run meeting with lunch at Lingo, EF’s in-house cafe.
“We were sitting in Lingo and they were talking business,” Beth explained. “Mark turned to me and asked, ‘what do you do?’ I told him I was an accountant and thinking about moving back to Boston. I went back home, and within a half a day, I received an email from him asking for my resume”.
At the time of her visit, Beth was living in Chicago and working for a large private company. She was thinking about a change, but wasn’t actively pursuing it… yet. As her conversations with Mark continued, she quickly found that EF had exactly what she wanted: an environment that fostered collaboration and the opportunity to mentor a team. “I wanted to have an impact on others,” Beth said.
Soon after that serendipitous meeting, Beth accepted a role as an Accounting Manager with EF in our Boston office. “I was immediately blown away by the aesthetics of the building, and what I could see of the culture—like people running at lunch. Instantly, I thought to myself, ‘I would love to work here.’”
Beth’s team provides internal customer service for a number of EF products within the U.S. They work directly with budget owners and address staff questions about finance and expenses. It’s in this role that she’s able to mentor her team and encourage their growth in providing financial services for the rest of the building.
“Everyone is pitching in to help each other and meeting demands together, based on the volume of what we need to get done,” Beth said. “We chip in together as a team—we help out in areas that might not be related to our direct role. This allows everyone an awesome opportunity to get exposure to other areas of the business.”
The team recently identified the need to improve employees’ expense reimbursement and reporting so it would be a smoother, more efficient process. Beth says her “super driven, ambitious” team was ready for the challenge and had no shortage of ideas.
“My manager has always done an awesome job of asking us, ‘how do we improve things?’” Beth said. “I try to encourage the same thing with my team by asking people to bring great ideas. One idea, for example, can lead to something that can impact all of us, and ideally these great resources can be shared across the organization and with other products.”
Beth’s team did just that, and as a result, they were able to make widespread improvements that benefited both staff and their own finance team. “It’s been incredibly interesting to watch the team develop, working through situations and figuring out the best methods so we can implement them and share them with other parts of the business,” Beth said.
And while Beth’s focus is now on accounting, she hasn’t lost touch with her original EF ally. Since that first encounter with Mark, Beth has continued to work with and learn from him. An accomplished tri-athlete and champion of EF’s Running Club, Mark was both coach and friend during Beth’s preparation for her first half IronMan.
“I actually didn’t know how to swim freestyle when I started, but Mark coached me through improving my lap times! To overcome something like that makes me feel like I can do anything.”
Beth credits her growth at EF—and the success of her team—with the many opportunities available, including the ability to build relationships across the company, like her friendship with Mark. “EF facilitates growth if you’re willing to look for it. All you have to do is be open to the possibilities down the road.”

Beth was looking for a role that fostered collaboration and the opportunity to mentor a team, and she found that at EF.

Open to possibilities: Beth’s EF journey - We are EF

Open to possibilities: Beth’s EF journey ‹ We are EF

Open to possibilities: Beth’s EF journey

Open to the possibilities beths ef journey

Simon has always had a passion for figuring out how things work—he was only six years old when he decided to dismantle his family’s TV to see what was inside.  “My parents were like, ‘ok, if you pull it apart, you have to put it back together again,’” he said. “But that was exactly my intention, to figure out what was going on and how it worked.”
That curiosity continued and inspired Simon to pursue a chemical engineering degree in school. “In my college internship, I was working in the exciting early stages era of productionalized chemicals, which also put me in some very toxic chemical plants.”
Simon eventually decided to trade the toxic chemicals for cold hard numbers, and he made the switch to data analytics. He worked for companies like IBM and Staples before becoming the Analytics Director for <a href="https://www.goaheadtours.com/?popup=slider&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=US_Brand&utm_term=ef%20go%20ahead%20tours&mt=e&utm_group=Brand_Tour&utm_device=c&k_clickid=10b0f606-dbec-4718-8549-f48c7c9ac6e6&invsrc=g.1403&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2Mb9_PWB2AIVgo2zCh1ypA4uEAAYASAAEgI3NfD_BwE" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Go Ahead Tours</a>, an <a href="https://www.ef.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">EF Education First </a>company that provides group trips for adventurous adult travelers.  Simon still gets to satisfy his curiosity every day—just without all the danger.
“My role is to bring the business together through its data,” Simon explained. “It sounds pretty technical, but when we have a consistent measure of what’s working, it makes it easier to align to a common goal, track progress, and motivate us to reach new heights we never thought were possible.”
Part of what Simon enjoys most about his job at EF is the opportunity to explore ideas outside of his job description. “At EF, I’m empowered to reach beyond the role of a traditional Analytics Director. I constantly look for areas for improvement, on both the business and technical sides, focusing on the impact to the customer. I have a responsibility to improve the way we operate, so if I see a better way of doing things, I want to help the company move that way.”
Recently, Go Ahead explored a phone system upgrade to improve functionality for both staff and customers, which Simon saw as a golden opportunity. “It came to ‘how do we get better insights?’ I thought, ‘wow, if we can replace our phone system, make the call center run better, and integrate it with our customer relationship management (CRM) system, we’d be improving the whole customer experience’. That way, when you call in, you get to the right person, quickly. That’s the ideal state, using intelligence and technology to make it a better experience for customers.”
Simon knew of a cloud-based solution that could integrate with Go Ahead’s existing CRM and be up and running within a matter of weeks, so he pitched his idea to the group. The team leading the project welcomed Simon’s idea, and, to his surprise, asked him to join the implementation.
“Typically, a Director of Analytics would be part of the conversation, but not the implementation. But this innate thing that I have to help improve the way things work made me want to take part in the execution.”
“It was a complex challenge,” he said, “but those are the ones that have the biggest impact on your career. If you see something that isn’t working, do something about it. If the window of opportunity opens up, you jump through.”
Go Ahead has since implemented the solution, and while Simon is excited to see the impact it will have on the business, he said he’s not planning on resting on that success for too long. “I’ve gotten some good advice that I continue to live by: ‘You can’t rest on what you’ve done in your career. It’s what you are going to do next that is important.’

Simon always had a passion for figuring out how things work—he was only six years old when he decided to dismantle his family’s TV to see what was inside.

Insights that have an impact: Simon’s EF journey - We are EF

Insights that have an impact: Simon’s EF journey ‹ We are EF

Insights that have an impact: Simon’s EF journey

Insights that have an impact simons ef journey

For Chris, a Tour Consultant for <a href="https://www.eftours.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">EF Educational Tours</a> in Boston, the first international trip he took was one to remember. “When I was in high school, I went on a trip to London and Paris with <a href="https://www.ef.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">EF Education First</a>. I made a promise with two friends of mine that we would go on it together. I recently found my journal and read through all the memories from my first experience out of the country!”
Even without the journal, Chris’s memories of the trip are vivid. “I remember being in Bath and absolutely falling in love with it. At the time, Vanity Fair was one of my favorite movies and it was filmed there for the old London feel. Being transported back like that on tour was a bit surreal for me at the time.”
Chris kept his travel memories—and his journal—in the background as he went on to major in fashion and theater in college while also studying to become a teacher. “My third grade teacher inspired me,” Chris explained. “I wanted to do for students what he did for me. He was one of those teachers who just wanted every student to succeed. He had a quote on the wall from Henry Ford which said, ‘if you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.’ I still live by this quote.”
Chris lived for some time in Manhattan to explore the fashion industry, even trying out for the reality show Project Runway, before landing in Boston to stay. “I had visited Boston in the past, and really liked the personality of the city. It was much more low-key than New York City. You can actually stop and enjoy Boston, and I felt like I couldn’t do that when I was in New York.”
After arriving in Boston, Chris found himself working on the admissions team at a local college. “While working in higher education, I could see that I was making a change and having an impact with the students. I told myself, ‘this is the kind of work I need to be doing.’” After almost three years, Chris was ready for something new, so he started looking for other opportunities in Boston.
Chris says that he never expected to be in sales, but that when he found EF, he was inspired to apply for a Tour Consultant role. “It’s everything I wanted,” he said. “I was nervous to come back to a large office setting, but EF creates a supportive environment where you can be yourself, share ideas, and be innovative. Here, everyone wants to learn from everyone—whether you’re entry-level or a Vice President—and no idea is a bad idea.” As a Tour Consultant, Chris helps teachers prepare to take their students on educational trips—everywhere from Washington D.C. to Paris, France—just like his teacher did when he was in high school.
It’s the opportunities he’s been given from mentors and managers to contribute positively to his team that keep him excited to come to work every day. “Change is consistent, it’s challenging, and its measurable, so I can see my success,” he said.
Chris remembers meeting with a Vice President on his team to discuss a recent challenge the team was facing. “My manager asked me to create a solution. The fall season had started, and I came up with a way to motivate and inspire the team, but it was different than the standard approach we were used to. I used our guiding principles at EF and called them the ‘core values of sales.’ Each one represented an initiative to refocus and refresh our business while giving us the chance to share and implement each other’s ideas.” The idea was a hit, and gave Chris the opportunity to expand on that initiative. “I’ll get to launch a communication strategy that allows our Tour Consultants to share best practices across teams,” he said.
Those best practices help get more teachers and students traveling, which is at the heart of what Chris believes is important. “I went to school to be a teacher. And in my other pursuits, fashion and sales, I’ve found that there is this common thread of wanting to change, impact and inspire people. In my opinion, that’s at the core of what a teacher does. It’s not surprising to me that teachers want to take their students on an educational tour, and that leading and providing learning opportunities is one of the reasons that they go into the profession.”
Chris saw this impact firsthand on a recent tour to Rome with teachers and students. “Getting close with the students and seeing them change is so moving,” he said. “I brought them to my favorite gelato place, Giolitti—it was so exciting! It made the job feel real. And it reminded me of when I was in high school on my first EF tour.”
You can see what Chris is up to (and indulging in) on his Instagram account, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/eatyourglobeout/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Eat Your Globe Out</a>.

As a Tour Consultant, Chris helps teachers prepare to take their students on educational trips, everywhere from Washington D.C. to Paris, France.

Chris kept his travel memories in the background as he went on to major in fashion and theatre in college while also studying to become a teacher.

Helping teachers inspire students: Chris’s EF journey - We are EF

Helping teachers inspire students: Chris’s EF journey ‹ We are EF

Helping teachers inspire students: Chris’s EF journey

Helping teachers inspire students chris ef journey

As a former Girl Scout, Abby found herself drawn to <a href="https://girltrips.eftours.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">EF Tours for Girl Scouts</a>—she firmly believed in the positive impact that travel could have on a troop. “I wanted the opportunity to help girls see their dreams come true,” she says. “Having a long-term goal to work toward not only creates stronger bonds and lasting troop memories for the girls and leaders, it also gives girls a chance to step up and take ownership of something.”
EF Tours for Girl Scouts, part of <a href="https://www.ef.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">EF Education First</a>, partners with Troop Leaders and councils to help Girl Scouts travel abroad. In her role as a Tour Consultant, Abby facilitates these life-changing travel experiences for girls. “The goal is to get young people to experience something that really opens their minds,” she explains. “It’s really relevant in this day and age. We all have a tendency to be cut off from the world, and moving toward this global mindedness, we have such an opportunity to influence young people. And for the Troop Leaders, we help them get over that fear of taking the plunge or planning the trip; we are the helping hand.”
Abby does everything from helping Troop Leaders select their itinerary, to crafting a detailed timeline for planning, to helping them prepare for the experience itself. She’s even created a resource to help leaders connect with one another over social media so they can share experiences, preparation tips, and strategies for what may be, for many, their first trip abroad. “I thought about all the things that were going through my mind the first time I traveled abroad, and what I didn’t know, and thought, ‘how can we make this a more inviting concept?’”
Abby also wanted to give Troop Leaders easy access to her (and other Troop Leaders) when they needed. “A phone call isn’t always possible in the day-to-day schedule of a Troop Leader,” Abby says, “and although email is typically quick, Facebook messenger is quickest. Additionally, I wanted to ensure that a leader who’s nervous about fundraising for a tour is put in contact with a leader who’s ‘been there’ and ‘done that.’”
Since putting more focus on social media, Abby has seen a stronger connection among the Troop Leaders she works with. “As a Consultant, helping a Troop Leader find the perfect tour is my main job, but being able to share helpful tips via social media has made it easier for my leaders to access information when they need it.”
Abby is committed to making sure as many girls as possible are able to get out and see the world. “When I was a Girl Scout, my troop didn’t know opportunities like this existed,” Abby says. “I’m in awe of the hard-work our troops put in over the course of years to achieve their goals. I’m here to be a resource for our Troop Leaders, and to better connect them with other determined leaders working toward the same goal.”

As a former Girl Scout, Abby found herself drawn to EF Tours for Girl Scouts—she firmly believed in the positive impact that travel could have on a troop.

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Joanna Converse

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