I've always been interested in business, and since leaving school, decided to focus directly on that, working for family or family friends, at their businesses, learning the ropes, and gaining experience on hard skills such as marketing, customer service, sales.
After my initial training at a five-star hotel, I moved to Spain and was initiated in European markets where I learned skills as well as independence, living on my own in a foreign country.
I also have a keen sense for networking and found out about Amazon starting their offices in Cape Town and moved back for them to start their operation, which hit nearly 3,000 employees by the time I left.
I had an opportunity to further learn and grow under the tutelage of Amazon's Peculiar Culture where I learned a lot about systems as well as what it means to give the best customer service, and that truly brought together what I already inherently knew about the relationship between customer service and sales.
One of the main things that I learned and was an achievement was around statistics and data management. I led process improvements at Amazon and was able to save them a lot of money in key areas as well as improve the service significantly in areas like wait times for customers as well as how we handled and optimized the process for charging customers retrospectively after they had received an item we had already replaced or refunded due to it being missing. It was a way of mitigating our almost unrealistically high customer service, so not just giving away stuff for free.
I think being able to turn that around and get involved with startups where I was able to, in fact, work with a tiny, small team improving company culture through a tech product development company, I also was able to meaningfully improve operations as well as crystallize and inform our product development strategy using Lean and Six Sigma tools, which I adapted to help to quantify specific work to prioritize.
And then finally, being headhunted to work at a very well-establishedMore...
Chando Karidza
Software Development Manager / Technical Product Owner@N/a
Verified
Chando Karidza is a seasoned professional in the field of software development and technology. He currently serves as a Software Development Manager and Technical Product Owner at a non-disclosed company. With an impressive background in computer science, Chando has honed his skills in software development, product management, and strategic planning. He is known for his exceptional leadership abilities and technical expertise, which allow him to drive innovation and steer software development teams towards success. Chando's professional journey reflects his dedication and passion for technology and its potential to create impactful solutions.More...