About me

My name is Karina Danilyants and I am the trainer, coach, and facilitator behind “Unlocking.Solutions” services

Let me introduce myself…

I grew up in Moscow and went to one of the oldest schools that focus on German language and culture as their major subject, along with literature, history, and other humanities. Despite being good in math, up until my last year in high school I wanted to become a National Geographic journalist, travel the world, and get exposed to different cultures and languages. 

However, honoring my family’s tradition, I graduated from the Russian State University of Gas and Oil with a degree in engineering and automation of industrial processes for gas and oil refinery, transportation and storage, and dispatching systems. This degree required a fair share of extensive training in math, physics, electronics, software development, and petroleum engineering. As a student, I was much better in math and analytics than in coding, so in my diploma project, I focused on leak detection systems and the industrial processes behind these solutions. 

Starting my career as a personal assistant to CEO and later as her deputy, while still studying, helped me enormously as I was given a lot of responsibility at a young age and learned how to make decisions, create and shape the customer experience, and do everything else what was needed to run this business. At that point in my life, I was considering a complete pivot from tech and engineering towards customer service design and educational tourism.

Soon after my graduation in 2009, I was offered a requirements engineer position from one of the biggest energy companies in the world as they were kickstarting an innovation and modernization project in the dispatching systems divines alongside a German software provider. Despite being a very conservative institution, this company had managed to create an innovation hub filled with young dynamic professionals, many of whom had impressive consulting experience. I learned and thrived a lot when working in a self-organizing and high-performing team, that primarily resulted from a rare example of natural servant leadership. This experience without doubt helped me to understand the power of leadership and employees’ empowerment.

In 2012, I got hired by a Munich-based consulting company and moved to Germany. Over years to follow, I had gradually moved from being a domain expert for petroleum engineering to a methodology consultant and trainer. As a consultant, I have worked in a range of industries, from insurance to banking, automotive, and public sector institutions. The consulting business really suited me. It required digging in a new domain, understanding terminology and processes, doing research, and then coming up with improvement opportunities and solutions. 

Around a decade into my professional life,  I found myself stepping more and more into mentoring and leadership roles. While I had a solid knowledge and years of experience in requirements and usability engineering, agile frameworks, and running projects, I started to notice the challenge of meeting people where they are, as a mentor and leader. Therefore, I decided to extend my competencies by professional coaching skills and attended the ICF-accredited program “Art&Science of Coaching” at Erickson Coaching International in Lisbon, Portugal. Unsurprisingly enough, professional coaching opened to me a whole new point of view not only on leading and mentoring, but also on agile coaching, facilitation, and the power of fierce conversations. 

In 2021, I started a career as a freelance coach, trainer, consultant, and facilitator, focusing primarily on innovation, agile transformation, ethical leadership, and teams’ empowerment.