One of the newer members of the Stellar team, Camila Ellis joined our Wellington office in May as a Lead Consultant. We asked her to tell us a bit about herself:
I was born in a small town in Colombia. Yes, I have watched Narcos, love futbol (soccer) and started drinking coffee at the age of seven!
The struggles of my country back in the 1980s, while I was growing up in a single-mum household, gave me the drive to find my own way and take ownership of my future.
After university I went to London to learn English. Knowing a second language was a must for someone wanting a successful career. However what brought me to New Zealand was my sense of adventure and romance, as I met my husband while in London many years ago. I came to New Zealand with a 3-year plan. I didn’t know I was going to fall in love with this country, have three beautiful daughters and pretty much “settle in”.
I stumbled upon Business Intelligence as a university student while working for a telco supporting a sales team in Bogotá. They used to count the number of new phone lines by adding a number 1 to a list on a whiteboard. My job was to deliver sales orders to the technical teams so the clients could get the services installed. I tracked the orders until they made it to the billing team. I had to hand the documents to the right team and get them to sign a register – a pretty manual process.
There were always delays, with revenue figures not increasing at the same rate as the lines on the white board. Then there would be questions for me, the girl who had the order register. General Managers under pressure back then were not that patient; I guess that helped me build some resilience!
I decided to start a small database to track orders. Then I ended up working with the IT department to develop a system to improve our reporting. I loved the process of helping the team and executives better understand their sales figures, targets and reasons for delays. That really got me started in BI.
Since moving to New Zealand I’ve had the opportunity to work in the communications and dairy industries, as well as at government agencies and retailers. My role has included helping executives understand why financial results sometimes don’t match the expectations of the operational teams.
Technology has moved on for sure, introducing more efficiencies as well as challenges, but the essence of the problem is still the same: how to get more insights from a business and find ways to improve it.
That’s what I’m looking for as a Lead Consultant at Stellar. I want to help as many organisations as possible get value from the data they hold or can access externally, and find ways to improve their operations.
I love being able to leverage the knowledge and support of the highly skilled BI and analytics professionals that I work with.
And I love living in Wellington – although those rainy and windy winter days are not my favourite. 🙂
Main photo: Llanos Orientales, Colombia
