Via Business Insider: When you've finally managed to turn your passion into a full-time paid position, what could possibly make you want to quit it less than a year later? Social media addict and digital marketeer Maral Kalajian has some unique answers to this question. The wide-smiled, curly-haired Stockholmer is currently among the most instantly-recognisable faces in the Swedish capital's tech scene. But in January she announced she is stepping down from her job as Digital, Marketing and Community Manager for STING, the Nordic accelerator behind startups including smart guitar developer Mind Music Labs, children’s gaming company Peppy Pals and wearable tech firm Light Flex. It's a role Kalajian was headhunted for last February after three years of obsessively posting about Stockholm's startup boom. She spent the following year repeatedly gushing about how she'd tweeted herself into a "dream job", even describing it as her "STINGerella" story. "It was a hobby for me to be active in the tech scene and then it was something that I managed to get paid for", beams the 36-year-old. Originally from Lebanon, she moved to Sweden as a student ten years ago and was looking for her way out of a role in corporate communications for Philips when she accepted the job at STING. "They asked if I could just keep doing what I was doing — tweeting and going to lots of networking events every week. It was an easy decision". But she faced a much harder choice at the end of 2016 when — days after being listed as among the 100 most influential names in the Scandinavian startup scene by tech site The Nordic Web — she was approached by the CEO of one of the companies STING had supported, and asked if she would consider jumping ship. "It came from nowhere. I was absolutely not looking for a new job", she insists. However by mid-January she'd sealed the deal during a bizarre business meeting — a snowy evening walk through central Stockholm park Humlegården, in teeth-chattering -16C temperatures. "You know when you don't feel your hands, you don't feel your nose! But then when this founder came and we started talking, everything else just disappeared. He is someone really special," explains Kalajian, adding that the unusual location for their meeting came down to “time pressures” and a shared passion for nature. The name of this snow-loving CEO has been a mystery since Kalajian announced her resignation last month. But she has exclusively told Business Insider that her new boss is Hjalmar Nilssone, the founder of Swedish energy Artificial Intelligence startup Watty, where she'll take on the role of Marketing and Communications Manager later this month. The 22-employee company, which last year raised 3 million euros in funding, has designed smart AI technology to help customers cut costs and limit emissions by measuring their consumption. With intense speculation on social media previously suggesting that Kalajian had been poached by a global venture capitalist firm, a big-name brand in London or was set to become the next CEO of Stockholm startup hub SUP46, she accepts that her "horizontal career move" may come as a surprise to her almost 11.000 Twitter followers. "I want to do something good for the planet. I know it's not a sexy topic, but that's part of the challenge. It's a world-changing startup and I believe in what they do", she explains. But most importantly, she argues that her experience is a lesson in "people politics", admitting that at least 50 percent of her decision to accept the job came down to her near-idolization of Nilssone. "This guy, he might look like a young, blue-eyed, high school person — like Harry Potter — but when he opens his mouth, he really is different. He is very charming", she argues. "He is the only founder who has actually made me feel like I'm not just 'Maral from Twitter' but that I am ‘Maral the human being'. He said to me 'a freak like you one meets once in a lifetime'!" Despite being one of the most vocal champions of Stockholm’s startup scene in recent years, Kalajian is refreshingly honest about how its evolution has also shaped her decision to try out a different kind of role. “The Stockholm tech scene is growing beautifully and I want it to beat every startup city in the world. But it has become a bubble, with a lot of the same types of people. I wanted to somehow scale from it and Watty is already a global platform”. So how guilty does she feel about turning her back on STING, the accelerator which plucked her out of the corporate world and hand-crafted her previous fairytale job? “Ten months is a long time in startup-land -- startups can cease to exist in just three months. These days it’s not about how long you’re in a company but what you have achieved, and I have achieved a lot”, she argues. “In my new role I’m giving myself six months to see if I am able to deliver or not, because there is always a risk that I might fail. But if I fail it will be a lesson learned and if I succeed, I am going to be helping Watty into its golden era. Either way, it’s an adventure!”