Over the last decade, Mirakl has grown from a company with a vision for the power and possibilities of online marketplaces to one offering a full suite of profitable e-commerce growth solutions to companies around the world.
Yet as the business grows and product offerings expand exponentially, the company’s global culture remains entrepreneurial, innovative and engaging.
“There is consistently new innovation in each of our spheres, and for the company as a whole, as we conquer new challenges and expand into new markets. But while all these changes are occurring, not much has changed culturally — which I mean in the best way,” said Sabreena Khan, director of seller recruitment in Mirakl Connect and growth solutions.
Built In heard from Khan and her colleagues Travis Parisi and Fareeha Ali about how the team’s global culture empowers technical innovation, individual growth and collaboration across borders.
MIRAKL’S CORE VALUES
- Work hard together
- Go above and beyond
- Get things done
- Satisfy and empower clients
- Succeed through expertise
An Empowering Startup Culture
Khan was first drawn to Mirakl five years ago by a strong cultural appeal — one that has remained central to the company’s identity.
“Even as we bring on new people and expand what we offer, we have maintained that startup mindset,” she said. “The fact that that hasn’t changed since day one keeps me here and excited about the future of our culture.”
Khan’s colleague Travis Parisi, senior director of solution consulting for the Americas and Asia-Pacific regions in customer success, was also drawn to the empowerment Mirakl’s startup culture offered. After 12 years at a large consulting firm, Parisi’s new role brought autonomy, the opportunity to carve out his own practice at a smaller company and the promise offered by Mirakl’s growth.
“I’ve not only had the opportunity to build this truly amazing team from around the world but also to work hand in hand with every department within this organization,” he said. “I get to work with people from a wealth of backgrounds daily and have my voice heard in client implementations, product-development discussions and new go-to-market offerings.
“It’s pretty amazing to be given that level of trust,” he continued. “To just go out and start building something, then come back to my leadership and say, ‘What do you think about this?’ That’s truly a gift.”
“It’s pretty amazing to be given the trust to go out and start building something, then come back to my leadership and say, ‘What do you think about this?’”
The Autonomy to Grow
When Fareeha Ali, director of strategy and market intelligence, joined Mirakl, she knew the company wanted more market research to help the sales and marketing teams grow the business. A former tech journalist, Ali was ready to apply her strong research skills to help her team understand market opportunities and challenges.
But she was surprised to find that, rather than a mandate for her work, she was given the latitude to define what the path forward looked like — both in her role and for the company.
“They leaned on my expertise to understand what the organization needed to form a competitive market intelligence program,” she said. “I had the autonomy to go to teams around the company to understand what they needed and present those solutions to the company. Over time, my role has evolved from working only with sales and marketing to looking at our broader strategy with product and other teams.”
Parisi, too, found the freedom to grow, collaborate with cross-functional partners and push Mirakl’s work ahead.
“Coming from tech consulting, I was used to being directed to what I was supposed to be doing,” he said. “Often the message was, ‘Don’t bother playing in that sandbox or on that playground, those aren’t for you.’ But here, the culture drives us to think bigger, to think outside the box and to go play in those different playgrounds. We’re asked to take our experiences, align them with our teams and help power quick implementations for our customers, driving for higher client satisfaction rates.”
“The culture drives us to think bigger, to think outside the box and to go play in different playgrounds.”
A Responsive and Agile Approach
That spirit of flexibility, experimentation and autonomy extends beyond Mirakl’s internal team and benefits the company’s clients, as well. By taking a responsive approach to client feedback, Mirakl is able to open up new spaces to grow and find opportunities for innovation.
“We listen to our clients first and foremost: If there are things the client is asking us to delve into, we’re very willing to go into those spaces rather than saying, ‘That’s not an area that we would grow,’” Khan said. “We listen, and we apply the same level of agility that we have internally to respond to client needs. Client feedback makes us able to reinvent ourselves and our product.”
That fearless approach to expansion is part of Mirakl’s cultural DNA, according to Khan.
“We don’t shy away from complexities,” she said. “Oftentimes organizations want to simplify, to find one blanket approach to things, but Mirakl leans into understanding intricacies.”
“We don’t shy away from complexities.”
As a global team with dual headquarters in Paris and Boston, Mirakl’s comfort with complexity makes it possible for the company to adapt its approach to work as needed to best serve clients around the world.
According to Khan, rather than ignore or overlook differences across the global teams, Mirakl has leaned into the opportunities offered by an expansive culture.
“We’ve unlocked understanding about how we approach brands globally and with regional differences, along with the strategies that we can use,” Khan said. “Rather than having pushback, people are open to understanding complexities across markets rather than wanting to be stagnant with a uniform product. The global aspect truly allows us to understand the common threads across all the different regions.”
BUILDING COMMUNITY ACROSS BORDERS
With weekly apéros — similar to American happy hours — held by rotating internal teams, along with a communal lunch culture, a touch of Mirakl’s French workplace culture remains consistent even at Mirakl’s U.S. offices in Boston.
“Lunch can seem like such a small thing, but when you want to sit with your colleagues and have lunch, that’s a huge win,” Khan said.
Keeping teams connected offers benefits for Mirakl’s Paris-centered product team, Mirakl Labs, as well, Ali explained, and continues to keep client needs at the forefront of the company’s work.
“It would be easy for them to just put their heads down and build what they think needs to be built,” she said. “Instead, work is prioritized based on what our clients are asking for. Flow of information is happening all the time, and there have been many times where we thought something was important to build but then we see that we can prioritize something else.”
As Mirakl continues its upward trajectory, leaning into the global and regional complexities of both its team and its clients will only further its agile, responsive startup culture.
As Ali put it, “Our company is uniquely fast moving. We aren’t just embellishing a product; we’re building the future of e-commerce.”
