Since joining Zeda, Dumisani Mlangeni has made great strides in the finance industry. He shares his journey from the classroom to working alongside the CFO.
Since joining Zeda, Dumisani Mlangeni has made great strides in the finance industry. He shares his journey from the classroom to working alongside the CFO.
It has been a year since Dumisani Mlangeni started working as a price analyst at Zeda, under the mentorship of CFO Thobeka Ntshiza. He is proud of the journey that led him to this point, and he enjoys playing a strategic role as a member of the Zeda team.
“Zeda encourages the ‘Gemba walk’, where I can visit other departments and see how they go on with their daily business, and this also helps me see how the work I do impacts other departments,” Dumisani shares.
Dumisani describes himself as being a competitive boy in school, who enjoyed puzzles and excelled in maths and science. He would later dedicate most of his life to helping other youngsters in his community to master these subjects.
“Mathematics has endless puzzles and is the best way to keep my mind sharp,” he says. “I volunteered in teaching mathematics and science to grade 10–12 pupils for a period of over 10 years in local schools. This act sparked an interest in most of the kids around my community, and some have graduated from university.”
While Dumisani’s dedication towards his students might have improved their chances to seek further studies, his journey in pursuing his own studies was one filled with hurdles and stumbling blocks.
“I have a BSc in mathematics and mathematical statistics from Rhodes University. This is a three-year course, but it took me a period of over 10 years to complete the qualification, mainly because of the financial challenges faced throughout those years,” he shares.
“I would take breaks in between my studying years to go work at a small construction company as an administrator and save up enough money to go back and further my studies for the next academic year.”
Dumisani would finally complete his studies in 2020. “Honestly, I never thought I would end up in the finance industry or any industry, given the number of years it took me to complete my degree,” Dumisani expressed.
“I believe that it was by faith, or chance, or whatever you want to call it that I was given an opportunity at the age of 34 without a solid prior experience to kickstart my career in the industry.”
Stepping into a new chapter with Zeda
Dumisani recalls that when he joined Zeda, the company was in the midst of significant organisational changes following the Covid outbreak. “The company was resetting its base, which included bringing on young, hungry, and fresh minds," he explains.
With his only work experience being the administrative tasks he would frequently complete for the construction company SM-Trading, Dumisani was pleasantly surprised he was appointed as senior administrator of Zeda.
“A senior administrator would calculate the prices for all car groups, manually load the prices into the system and check if all the rates were correct. This process proved to be slow and prone to errors.”
“My role was to learn how the process is done from start to finish, and build a model or automate this space to avoid incorrect billing, get correct prices into the system efficiently, and remove any repetitive tasks,” he says.
Dumisani and his team significantly improved this business model, surpassing all previous expectations. “This was a successful project, because it used to take the previous team a month to finish the project, but now that only happens within a few minutes from a click of a button!” he says.
The project also earned him recognition and a chance to work on bigger projects with Zeda’s CFO, Thobeka Ntshiza.
Working with the CFO
Dumisani explains that his relationship with Thobeka began as an internship, with Thobeka offering him the opportunity to learn more about the financial industry. “I have a good relationship with Thobeka Ntshiza; she is good at what she does and a visionary,” Dumisani says.
“Working under her leadership is the best part; she encourages the team not to shy away from questioning the status quo; she is open-minded and promotes innovation and growth.”
Thobeka also played an important role in guiding Dumisani when he was working on his first few projects after his promotion from senior administrator to the company’s pricing analyst. “She was pointing out the strengths of the project and where the projects are most vulnerable and providing ways to solve the shortcomings,” Dumisani says.
As Dumisani became more comfortable in his new duties, Thobeka became his mentor and still continues to guide him whenever the need arises. “She always provides her wisdom and experience when needed, providing the correct tools and resources to solve problems,” he says.
Dumisani is determined to constantly prove himself as he grapples with learning and developing different systems to improve his business functions at Zeda. “Automation is a field that I am learning and focusing on within the organisation to improve business operations,” Dumisani shares. “It is not an easy task because I am faced with different challenges every time, and I do have my victories and failures.”
