MBA Students Visit Picsart
2 min readYEREVAN, Armenia — The American University of Armenia (AUA) Master of Business Administration (MBA) program concluded its series of company visits scheduled for the fall semester. This component of the program helps students develop and strengthen their network and fulfills the objective of exposing students to real company practices in action.
This time, the MBA students were hosted by Picsart to discuss employer branding, a crucial theme from both a human resource management as well as marketing perspective. The visit was organized as part of the Human Resource Management and Brand Management courses and open to all MBA students interested in getting a firsthand view of this topic by a company that was on the Forbes’ list of America’s Best Startup Employers in 2021.
Picsart representatives Nazeli Petrosyan (director of People Operations), Knarik Galstyan (recruiting manager), and Vars Vardanyan (director of Talent Growth) introduced the students to the company’s working environment, culture, and internal communication systems. The students enjoyed the opportunity to learn about strategic recruitment and retention processes; the leadership model that instills corporate culture; and the stakeholders involved in employer brand management, how it is measured, and how the company fosters brand awareness as a key driver of success. They also talked about their approaches to managing crises, making unpopular decisions, and tackling organizational challenges that are unavoidable in a dynamic international business.
Picsart is a leading photo and video editing app with a social platform founded in November 2011 by Armenian entrepreneur and AUA alum Hovhannes Avoyan (MPSIA ‘95), together with his former students and AUA alumni co-founders Artavazd Mehrabyan (MSCIS ‘03) and Mikayel Vardanyan (MSCIS ‘04). The company has headquarters in Yerevan, San Francisco, and currently also in Miami, with offices in Yerevan, Beijing, Tokyo, London, Bucharest, San Francisco, New York City, and Los Angeles. The number of employees has reached 1,000 worldwide, the largest proportion working in Yerevan. Picsart has a full free-to-use content ecosystem with powerful tools and inspirations from other creators. In short, it is a virtuous circle of ever-growing inspiration and creation. The app has been translated into 30 languages and is attracting audiences all over the world. At the moment, Picsart has a record of 150 million monthly active users.
The company is backed by top venture capital firms, including SoftBank, Sequoia Capital, DCM Ventures, Tribe Capital, G Squared, Siguler Guff & Company, and Graph Ventures. The total amount of investments into the company is over USD 195 million.
Founded in 1991, the American University of Armenia (AUA) is a private, independent university located in Yerevan, Armenia, affiliated with the University of California, and accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission in the United States. AUA provides local and international students with Western-style education through top-quality undergraduate, graduate, and certificate programs, promotes research and innovation, encourages civic engagement and community service, and fosters democratic values.