Welcome to My Kiwi story. This is the sixth in an ongoing series about our dedicated employees and their lives at Kiwi.com. This time we spoke with our IT Operations and Procurement Manager, Joey Olivier, to hear about her story of moving to Europe, her journey in our company, and what she appreciates the most about working at Kiwi.com.
Hi Joey, you joined us at Kiwi.com all the way from South Africa. What brought you here?
I moved to Czechia in November 2017. Before leaving South Africa, I was a Business Analyst. I’ve been working in IT for my entire life! My family (my husband and our baby-daughter) moved to Czechia because my husband got headhunted to Brno. I soon realized that there aren’t really any Business Analyst positions within Czechia to match my experience and the studies that I did back in SA. I have a passion for technology and finding solutions to problems — so, this is what I wanted to do, no matter what the job title was. Moving here was a big adjustment for me, but this is where I call home now.
You’ve changed positions a few times since you started at Kiwi.com. What have you learned here during all this time that you couldn’t learn anywhere else?
Oh wow, let’s see 🙂 In November 2018, I started as the Executive Assistant to the CIO and the Tools and Information team. At my interview, the CIO at the time, David Pavlik, randomly provided me with an Engineering quiz, and I was able to complete the exercise. Being an assistant was something entirely new for me, but it was an amazing opportunity and a foot in the door to start working at this exciting company.
Within a few months, around April 2019, my position changed to Executive Assistant / Cost Analyst. I was able to automate some of my responsibilities and make time for some new and exciting challenges. I slowly started gathering more information about the company’s software, and in April 2020, I became the Procurement Manager at Kiwi.com. Later on, I took over the EUS team and became IT Operations Manager while keeping software procurement as one of my responsibilities. And that’s how my new job title came about.
What moments at work proved to you that you’re in the right place?
Help is always just a short message away. The people in Kiwi.com are always friendly and willing to help, which makes everything much smoother and easier. Finding my feet was easy, with all the support and information available. For me personally, I have slowly become the go-to person for any questions regarding tools and budgets relating to software. I hope to improve the organization’s processes and visibility further, and I see so many opportunities for future growth.
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