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Human + AI at Scale: Inside SupportYourApp With Herizon Winner Daria Leshchenko
Herizon Award winner Daria Leshchenko, CEO of SupportYourApp, joins Russ Fordyce on The Winners’ Circle to share how she built a global “support-as-a-service” company that blends human empathy with AI-driven efficiency. Starting as a customer support rep herself and becoming CEO at 24, Daria grew SupportYourApp from a small team serving Mac developers in Ukraine into an international operation supporting software, e-commerce, telecom, and more in 60+ languages, 24/7. Along the way, she led through COVID, war, and rapid expansion into markets from Argentina to West Africa.
Daria opens up about what it really takes to scale a remote-first service business: hiring for values and “energy fit,” learning from failed market entries like the Philippines, and keeping people engaged for 7–14 years in a constantly changing company. She explains why loyalty is no longer a buzzword but the byproduct of continuous growth, new challenges, and genuine care for her team’s development.
The conversation dives deep into AI in customer support. Daria shares why SupportYourApp has spent five years investing in AI frameworks for email, chat, and voice, and why she treats AI like a knife: incredibly powerful if used correctly, dangerous if deployed blindly. She breaks down how they measure AI impact through deflection rate, why clean, constantly updated documentation is the real bottleneck, and how humans must stay in the loop to check tone, handle edge cases, and bring empathy where models fall short.
Russ and Daria also explore her philosophy of experimentation, tolerating smart failures, and introducing AI gradually—start with one use case, test, refine, then expand—rather than trying to automate everything at once. For leaders, founders, and CX professionals, this episode offers a grounded playbook for combining human talent and AI in a way that protects customer experience while unlocking real scale.
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By Business Intelligence Group Winners' CircleHerizon Award winner Daria Leshchenko, CEO of SupportYourApp, joins Russ Fordyce on The Winners’ Circle to share how she built a global “support-as-a-service” company that blends human empathy with AI-driven efficiency. Starting as a customer support rep herself and becoming CEO at 24, Daria grew SupportYourApp from a small team serving Mac developers in Ukraine into an international operation supporting software, e-commerce, telecom, and more in 60+ languages, 24/7. Along the way, she led through COVID, war, and rapid expansion into markets from Argentina to West Africa.
Daria opens up about what it really takes to scale a remote-first service business: hiring for values and “energy fit,” learning from failed market entries like the Philippines, and keeping people engaged for 7–14 years in a constantly changing company. She explains why loyalty is no longer a buzzword but the byproduct of continuous growth, new challenges, and genuine care for her team’s development.
The conversation dives deep into AI in customer support. Daria shares why SupportYourApp has spent five years investing in AI frameworks for email, chat, and voice, and why she treats AI like a knife: incredibly powerful if used correctly, dangerous if deployed blindly. She breaks down how they measure AI impact through deflection rate, why clean, constantly updated documentation is the real bottleneck, and how humans must stay in the loop to check tone, handle edge cases, and bring empathy where models fall short.
Russ and Daria also explore her philosophy of experimentation, tolerating smart failures, and introducing AI gradually—start with one use case, test, refine, then expand—rather than trying to automate everything at once. For leaders, founders, and CX professionals, this episode offers a grounded playbook for combining human talent and AI in a way that protects customer experience while unlocking real scale.