The Wise Product Academy Experience at a Glance.

Beatriz Borguesan, Account Product Team: I’m from Brazil and moved to Budapest in 2019 to work at Wise in Customer Support.

From Customer Support, I moved to the Payment Operations team, where I became a Product Specialist supporting the development and implementation of new tools for our Operations teams. After 3+ years in tooling development, I realised I wanted to take the next step into Product Management. When the Product Academy opportunity came up, I applied and was selected for the programme, joining the Account Product team.

Joosep Tõnso, Payment Processing Platform Team: Before joining the Product Academy, I was a Product Specialist in the Operations Tooling team at Wise. In that role, I split my time 50/50 between product work and data analytics, solving real problems for both external customers and internal teams. That balance gave me a great foundation, it taught me how to pair product thinking with a deeply analytical, data-driven approach. Today, I'm a Product Manager in the Payment Processing Platform team. My team manages the core platform that powers money transfers and payouts for 80% of Wise's customer money movements worldwide.

What was the most valuable skill you learned in PA that you still use today?

Beatriz: For me, the biggest breakthrough was learning to zoom out from day-to-day firefighting and think beyond the immediate problems. Before the Academy, I was mostly focused on individual issues and immediate solutions. One of the most valuable concepts I learned was how to connect those problems to a bigger product vision, it completely changed how I work. Learning to align local challenges with our broader direction helped me realize how every decision we make today directly shapes where we want the product to be in the future.

Joosep: It’s hard to single out just one skill, as every topic covered in the Academy has played a part in building my product practice. Rather than a single concept, the overall toolkit has been invaluable in helping me navigate the end-to-end product lifecycle. The program gave us a full spectrum of tools, from high-level strategy like setting KPIs and understanding compliance parameters, to execution essentials like capturing the voice of the customer, scoping MVPs, and driving heavy prioritization.

How did the PA teach you to navigate different challenges?

Beatriz: One of the main challenges in the role was getting comfortable with making decisions without having all the information or answers I needed. There are many situations where you need to make a decision and move forward, even though you aren’t 100% comfortable with it or don’t have all the information. Product Academy helped me prepare for this by giving me a better understanding of the different approaches I can use to break down problems, understand the context and make informed decisions. But it also taught me that it’s not always about having all the answers yourself. Bringing the right people together and getting different perspectives can also help you make better decisions and move the team forward.

Joosep: For me, the biggest challenge has been navigating extremely complex, global platform problems that require deep cross-functional alignment across multiple teams and disciplines. The Academy prepared me for this through its intensive 12-week structure, exposing us directly to leaders across every domain at Wise. Beyond the core product skills, it gave me an invaluable internal network right out of the gate. Having those relationships and context in place early on makes aligning stakeholders and solving high-stakes infrastructure dependencies today much smoother.

Advice for Future Applicants 

If you are considering applying to the Product Academy, our Product Managers share three core recommendations for putting your best foot forward:

Embrace curiosity over perfection. Bring a genuine curiosity for how products work, embrace non-traditional backgrounds, and step outside your comfort zone.

Deconstruct ambiguous problems. Practice breaking complex, messy challenges into clear, methodical steps. Show how you structure your logic from problem to solution.

Anchor your narrative in impact. Always ground ideas in key metrics. Think why a problem is urgent, how it moves top-level business goals, and how it drives customer value.