Thank you 2022!

If I still remembered my theory of music, I would have written a short melody to reflect upon this year. Alas, I haven't been studying any sheet musics for ages and all that's left with me is my art of words.

Thence shall I start...

We're now left with less than 48 hours to end yet another year in our lives. Let me end this year with a prayer to all.

For those who've struggled, may God grant you peace that surpasses all understanding to embrace the new year.

For those who've mourned, may His spirit comfort you because although there may be pain in the night, joy comes in the morning.

For those who've cherished, may God's abundant favor fall upon you even more next year, that others around you too can cherish.

For those who've celebrated, may you also be reminded that God dances over you every time He sees you.

Selah.

Personally, the past 2 years had been a nomad period in my life. First, was the awful retrenchment due to covid. There I went to EY Digital & Analytics and spent 3 months with a big client. Soon after, I found myself in Coca-Cola and in less than 2 years, I made another move and now I'm in Heineken.

Most recruiters whom I've spoken to tend to judge ever so quickly without first understanding where I'm coming from. If I must answer that difficult question at point blank, I'd say, "I left because the places I was were at a difference pace to what I'm expecting."

While it may have been painful and tiresome to explain myself every time a recruiter wishes to talk with me, I learnt to count my blessings - I've learnt a whole lot in those short tenures and all the knowledge compounded.

I started my Power BI journey in Goquo, and in those 3 years, I've built myself a solid foundation - thanks to the leaders I worked with who have faith in me, and invested in me.

When I was in EY, I was exposed to many best practices that it felt like I was in a masterclass course full of hands on exercises. I had a chance to be in the same team with TWO VERY SEASONED ARCHITECT AND ENGINEER. I was really looking forward to the daily stand up just to hear them two discuss solutions from different view points. That is a money-can't-buy experience! There I learnt about data engineering (more on data vault modeling for enterprise data warehouse), audit-balance-control, Azure solutions. The best part was I got myself certified by Microsoft in Power BI!

Moving on to Coca-Cola, I learnt how to use Nielsen Answers to read and report the numbers, summarising my findings and shared them with my director, being involved with all the interesting discussion on stock level management, and most importantly how to use the Sales Monitoring Report from SAP. The rest of my journey there were giving me deeper understanding on how to scale my proposed Power BI solutions.

To expand my knowledge further, I embarked on a journey with Heineken as an E-Commerce Business Analyst. We have two business units in this department (B2B and B2C). While I've been spending most of my coding time on B2C related matters since I joined 5 months ago, I am also exposed to what's happening on the B2B side. I personally feel there is a good mix between promoting best technical practices on semantic layers (for B2C) and gaining deeper understanding about our customers and consumers (by doing market visit with the B2B portfolio owner).

Work aside, it was also exciting as we celebrate occasions together because we brew the joy of true togetherness! We had my first Annual Dinner and boy was that my first time experiencing HIGH QUALITY CLUBBING in the after party. It was DJ Blink who made me fall in love with this typical genre that was otherwise would have been a flat, boring, consistent bass booming throughout the night.

Not long after, I attended Heineken Refresh in Genting, and again I got hooked by how good Chainsmokers is! It was magnificent as we all danced together.

So, here's a toast to 2023! Looking forward for more exciting events!