Trade Legend Spotlight with customer success engineer, Cedrick Mwamba

The work is often technically challenging and I love this. It keeps my mind running and thinking. It’s deepening my knowledge and giving me hands-on experience working with cutting edge technology.

In our latest Trade Legend Spotlight, Cedrick gives us the lowdown on what it’s like to get under the hood of the Trade Ledger platform and his time as a budding author. 

1. How would you describe what you do to a 9-year-old?

Trade Ledger is providing applications as a service for our customers. From time to time, our customers want to make changes to this service. You can think about it this way: on a website, a picture might need to be moved on the page from left to right or the other way round. That request will come to my team. We respond to all of the different customer requests so that the customer is happy. Some of the requests are easy, but some can be very hard.

Apart from these requests, the customer may also have other issues that they need help with. For example, if something is not working we look into the problem to see if we can fix it. It is a bit like when a car breaks down and you need to take it to a garage for a mechanic to fix it.

The final part of my role is to help new clients when they come on board. I work with them to configure the platform the Trade Ledger to meet their objectives. My team’s aim is to make this as easy as possible for our new customers. 

2. What have you found the most interesting to work on since joining Trade Ledger?

HSBC. It’s really interesting because of the complexity and nature of the multi-country environment. 

HSBC went live in 12 countries in 12 months.

We’re operating across the globe with them - Europe, US, Asia - and we have different configurations in each locations so it’s complex and challenging to do these whilst maintaining really high standards of work. I’m proud to have them as a partner.

3. If you had a magic wand and could change one thing about the business lending industry overnight what would it be?

If I had a magic wand I would make all the lenders adopt the Trade Ledger platform. If that happens, the time it takes for small businesses to apply for working capital is massively reduced.

4. What keeps you motivated?

There are three main things that keep me motivated. Firstly, the people I’m working with. We’re a close team and work really well together. Secondly, the work itself. The work is often technically challenging and I love this. It keeps my mind running and thinking. Thirdly, it gives me a lot of pride and keeps me motivated to do more when I see how happy the customer is when technical issues are resolved.

5. What’s one thing that surprised you about your current role?

Joining Trade Ledger was a bit of a risky step because it was during a difficult time in the economy to make such a change. But after starting, I realised it was definitely the right decision! I’ve had the opportunity to work on the configuration code itself and to see the changes in productions. I go deeper under the hood into the Trade Ledger platform from a technical point of view. This is great because it is deepening my knowledge and giving me hands-on experience of cutting edge technology.

6. Pick one of our values and describe why it’s important to you.

I would choose Win Together. 

With the work we do, you can’t move fast alone. It’s as a team that we achieve the best results.

7. What one piece of career advice have you lived by? 

I once had a manager who told me to see work like a hobby. That has really rubbed off on me. If you can, work becomes something you can enjoy and want to spend your time doing, rather than it being a burden. It really helped to change my perspective.

8. Describe your ideal Legend Day.

My perfect Legend Day is when they are unexpected. From time to time, the team is given a wellness day off to focus on themselves and these always come as a really nice surprise. My ideal day would be to spend the day with my family, listening to music and playing instruments. I play acoustic guitar and piano.

9. What book, blog or podcast would you recommend?

Well, I’d like to recommend my book which I’m writing at the moment. The book is a motivational book which will be talking about the four pillars of life, titled “Golden Facets Of Life”. It’s not quite published yet but watch this space! In the meantime, I would recommend Renovation of Hearts. 

10. What's one thing people don't know about you that they would be surprised to find out?

Last season I gained a silver medal for the third position in the Business League - which is a Polish football league for businesses where football players from lots of different businesses play against each other. I play for the Dragoons FC team.

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