“This role gives you many ‘deep-thinking’ moments” - working on Revolut Donations

On 6 February earthquakes devastated Türkiye and Syria, affecting millions and forcing people out of their homes, without shelter. Just when the news had spread around the world, Francesco Bovo, Donations Product Owner at Revolut, gathered the team to come up with quick support for the victims. Today he’s sharing the story of launching Türkiye-Syria donations, and what it’s like to work on such a special product.

Tell us a bit about yourself: where are you based, what’s your mission and day-to-day tasks?

I’m based in London, and I joined Revolut in July last year. My mission is to make it super easy for people and organisations to raise money for causes that matter to them, so that they can realise their own vision of a better world. My day-to-day tasks involve aligning with my team on the new features we’re adding to the Donations product, speaking to new and existing charity partners to strengthen our connection with the charitable world, and keeping an eye on how our customers engage with the product to keep learning and creating the best products from those insights.

What’s it like to a Product Owner in the Donations team? What’s specific about this job?

Managing the Donations product at Revolut has been the most fulfilling role I’ve had so far. It’s very inspiring to work in the ‘helping people doing good’ business, with the talents, resources, and ambition that make Revolut unique. What’s specific: it’s a role that gives you many ‘deep thinking’ moments. It puts you in touch with different realities, which may differ from what you’ve experienced in your personal life. This broadens your perspective on the world and on the many interpretations of ‘doing good’. With such variety, the challenge is to minimise any personal bias from the equation and to put people in the best position to pursue their own vision of ‘good’.

What’s the story behind the newly launched Donations page for Türkiye and Syria?

The Donations product has enabled us to quickly respond to emergencies in the past (think of wildfires in Türkiye and Greece in 2021, or the Ukraine conflict and Pakistan floods in 2022, for example). As soon as we realise the magnitude of what’s happening, we can’t just sit and watch, we need to take steps to lend our support.

It started from the early hours on Monday, 6 February, with some Turkish Revoluters reaching out to us, bringing the situation to our attention. The immediate next thing to do was to get in touch with our charity network to see who’d already activated an emergency response we could support.

After that, it wasn’t  difficult to convince people at Revolut this was the right thing to do. I’ve been really impressed with how quickly people from different teams got together and pushed hard to get our support out of the door as soon as possible. This has been remarked by all the participating charity partners, which were once again really impressed by Revolut’s capability to act fast.

It’s the first charity collection page in-app. Why did you choose this format?

The decision came from observing  how we used to run campaigns in the past. Choosing only one charity partner to support  an appeal limits the visibility we can give to equally great charities , and gives users less flexibility in choosing how to support.

What was the biggest challenge in this project? And how did you manage to overcome it?

The biggest challenge has been coordinating multiple parties to launch as soon as possible. Both Revolut and Charities have quite complex processes behind any launch. The way to overcome it was to get together the core elements that would allow us to launch our support as soon as possible (e.g. having one charity to collaborate with and promote via social media) and then adding layers to it (getting buy-in from multiple charities, create a collection, create and approve campaign assets and PR drafts, etc.)

What were the main factors that helped you  accomplish this project?

Working with excellent people that really embrace the “Get it Done” philosophy has definitely enabled us to accomplish this in due time.

What do you think about launching such a donation within a few days?

It’s definitely extraordinary. Revolut has shown prompt responses to emergencies in the past –I mentioned a few of them above. We’re working on a process that’ll allow us to launch these responses even faster in the future.

If you’d like to join the Revolut Product team, we’re looking for some brilliant individuals! ➡️ Go to the Revolut Product Careers page ⬅️