Meet the FinLeap-Team: Solveig Rathenow, PR Manager

Solveig Rathenow holds the position of PR Manager at FinLeap. She joined the company builder in June 2016.

Before joining FinLeap, Solveig worked on the other side of the spectrum as a journalist. Although the quickness and agility to catch up with news in the market remains, she believes that being the one covering the story is very different from being the one that pitches the story.

Solveig Rathenow joined FinLeap in June 2016 as the newest PR Manager. As such, her mornings begin with a media overview of FinLeap and the ventures. Afterwards, her daily schedules are quite diverse with activities ranging from meetings with ventures to writing press releases. In her schedule, one can find a variety of interviews scheduled for some of the public faces of FinLeap. Furthermore, she collaborates with the ventures on drafting a communication strategy. Solveig brings with her to FinLeap an extensive background in journalism. Before journalism, Solveig completed a dual German and French Bachelor degree at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn and at the Sorbonne University in Paris. After her degree, she came back to her hometown Berlin and got submitted at the Axel Springer Akademie, her first big step into journalism. She has worked for BILD, the biggest german newspaper, covering politics and economy. After four years at BILD, she moved to East Africa for one year to work as a correspondent for different newspapers, mostly DIE WELT. Today, we interviewed Solveig about her experience at FinLeap, her recent projects, and the ventures.

FinLeap.com: Since you recently joined FinLeap, what’s your favorite part of being here?

Solveig: I love the feeling when we do an interview and the coverage turns out to be great – the journalist picked up all the right messages, really understood FinLeap, and we presented the company as an expert in the Fintech field.

FinLeap.com: Can you describe a project you recently worked on?

Solveig: One of the biggest recent projects was Clark’s completion of a 13.2 million Euros funding round. I collaborated with Clark to edit and distribute their press release and was able to arrange a great exclusive coverage in Handelsblatt.

FinLeap.com: How do you collaborate with all the ventures?

Solveig: The easiest way to make sure I’m updated is to meet the founders – it turned out that the implementation of a monthly Jour fixe is the best way for both sides. It makes my job much easier, when the founders are pro-active and give me constant updates about their latest news, because as a PR, I cannot work without input.

FinLeap.com: What is the key to fulfilling every venture’s PR needs?

Solveig: The most productive way is to analyze which media is important for which venture so that we can find the best suited media channels to distribute news. Of course, every mention of our ventures in the big media outlets is a benefit as it makes them more present. The most important thing for my job is to have a good journalist network and to figure out the interesting stories about the ventures. The best part of FinLeap: all of the ventures have one!

Solveig truly enjoys her work, but during her free time, she is dedicated to spending time with her one-year-old son. She says that they enjoy anything outdoors, but particularly going to the lake together and doing bicycle tours.