Meet Katja Serrander

In Sweden, Katja Serrander organizes events and customer presentations in her job as marketing coordinator at SF Media, the company that sells advertising space to the SF cinema chain. Serrander also works with the company's creative materials, which includes film cases to print material for brochures and invitations.

At TransWorld Media in Carlsbad, California, Serrander has taken on new tasks - even if it's still dealing with advertising. Her title is associate production manager and she works with action sport titles such as Surf, Ride BMX, Motocross and Skateboarding. 

"I sit with the production team and work to make sure the ads for the magazine arrive on time, that they're the right quality and that they end up in the system," Serrander says. "I also help the bureau designer with ads along with a lot of other things."

During her GROW experience, the media Serrander works with isn't the only change she's dealing with in sunny California, she also has a different way of working and different kind of office.

"In Sweden, I work more 'hands-on' with events and other projects," Serrander says. "Here I work more 'behind the scenes' which means I have to be super detail-oriented. And here people work in flip-flops and at lunch they take off and go surfing. That would never happen at SF Media. As a Swede, you don't want to miss a second of sunshine, but here people like to sit in the shade. It's also interesting to work in a cubicle since I work in an open landscape office in Sweden. It has its advantages and disadvantages. In the beginning I was unused to how quiet it was during the day."

Serrander has also gotten used to getting to her job in a totally different fashion. "I've gotten an electric bike that I get around with," she says. "It works well and it's nice, but the city is really spread out so you need to plan your bike trips carefully before you start!"

Time flies when you're having fun and the three GROW months have come to an end for Serrander, who is returning to Stockholm this week. But she's bringing back with her new experiences and ideas that she can use at SF Media, everything from design to communication between different departments.

"I'll have a better understanding for those departments that do similar things in Sweden and generally I think it's important to sometimes get a little distance and perspective," Serrander says. "But the absolutely best thing about being here was that I met so many wonderful people. They arranged a potluck dinner with an American-food theme, taken me out surfing, and driven me around San Diego on the weekends. Learning so many new things is really nice, but to get to do it in sunny California has been fantastic."