\nPlease see the interview with\u00a0Ana Kavtaradze<\/span> \u2013 Strategic Business Development Consultant at Basis bank.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
First of all, please tell us about your success story, what stages did you go through, what difficulties did you face and what stage are you at now?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Very much appreciate you for your interest. From my standpoint, I do not consider that I have achieved a unique success yet; I would rather say that I have gone through quite an interesting path, I have met a lot of interesting people, gained a lot of experience and knowledge, and I look forward to future opportunities and challenges.. I would start from the fact that since childhood, I aimed to become a doctor.. Somehow, with my determination and the great support of my parents and family I got lucky to go and continue my school in USA.. It must be said that \u00a0at that time, especially with minor access to telephone and internet communication possibilities it was quite difficult, but the challenge made me stronger. \u00a0Knowledge acquired in another country, obstacles, new relationships, family I lived with and life experiences helped me to become an independent person, and this experience can be said to be one of the best and pleasant memories for me today.<\/p>\n
After returning to Georgia, at that time I was still very young, I took a bold step and along with active studies to \u00a0enter the university, I accepted an offer to work in one of the Georgian banks in an International Division where only English and computer knowledge was required from me at that time. The \u00a0bank introduced me to amazing group of people.. This step turned out to be a turning point in choosing my profession, because it was then that international standards were being formed in the Georgian banking system, and my employer gave me opportunities to participate in seminars or expert trainings organized by various international organizations,. It was thanks to these trainings that I became captivated by banking and drastically changed my professional path. It was not an easy thing to say to the family, although even today I am sure that I made the right decision and surprisingly, my decision was met with respect and understanding by the family.. I continued my studies in Georgia, graduated with a degree in banking and finance, and then continued my master’s degree in the same direction. At the same time, during the entire period of my studies, I worked with the support of employers in various international organizations, including the USAID Bank Supervision Project with the National Bank of Georgia, where I had an opportunity to gain rich and diversified experience through working with various banking projects with experienced teams of high level professionals. I have felt that I have benefited from that experience numerous times and positive that will have a flashbacks in future. However, here I realized that the commercial bank was my preferred next stop. Sooner, I received an offer from several banks and without much thought I chose the Bank of Georgia, because I could immediately feel that International Relations Department where opening was the Head of the Department and her team, and the business line manager were \u00a0\u00a0truly fired up with the job. I still believe that the merit of any success in life is a mixture of hard work, determination, constant interest, but no less important role in each person’s success is played by the people who we meet along the way, with their encouragement, support, inspiration, or challenges.<\/p>\n
Continuous development is one of the biggest keys to any achievement or success and the biggest nourishment for yourself. A person should never stop, not easy, but challenges should be turned into an incentive to strive for new goals, and every subsequent result obtained by this should become the basis of a new goal.<\/p>\n
As I already mentioned, my career was developed at e Bank of Georgia. From International Relations Department, I continued my way in the direction of Trade Finance, and here I was literally fascinated.. I spent a long and interesting period at the Bank of Georgia and together with a very multitalented and strong team we achieved many successes and milestones and gained recognition both in Georgia and abroad. It turned out to be line of business that is directly or indirectly relates to various of interesting directions and, intellectually, it is much broader and more diverse than it seemed at the start. . Trade and Supply Chain Finance provided me with the opportunities to meet many interesting people, institutions, colleagues from all over the world and I have made very dear friends around the globe.<\/p>\n
Tell us about your partnership with the International Chamber of Commerce in Georgia.<\/strong><\/p>\n
We have held a number of unprecedented and, I think, productive events on a global scale in the direction of access to finance for Georgian businesses, Trade and Supply Chain Financing, Silk Road and Connecting Global Financial Institutions with the Region and Establishing new Relations. Among them, we held part of the events under the umbrella of International Chamber of Commerce in Georgia and with the great support of International Financial Organizations and partnership of ICC\u2019s of various countries. Implementation of a number of interesting and useful projects for the Georgian business community connects me with the International Chamber of Commerce in Georgia, and hopefully we will be able to implement many successful ideas in the future.<\/p>\n
Another acknowledgment and recognition for me was when, in 2007, I was named as a member of the executive committee of the ICC PARIS Banking Commission, where I spent over 5 years and was given the opportunity to participate in many interesting projects and decisions together with extremely interesting people and international luminaries in Banking, Trade and Supply Chain Finance.<\/p>\n
Tell us a few words about your current activities and future plans.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Today I am a practitioner consultant in Georgia and abroad, and this activity gives me great pleasure. To this day, much of my consulting work revolves around one of my favorite areas, Trade and Supply Chain Finance, be it Digitalization, Sustainability,, Energy Efficiency and much more. Currently, I am a member of a strong holding and a successful team at Basisbank, one of the leading Georgian banks. I am positive that together with the team we will outperform the set targets and achieve very good \u00a0results. At the same time, I have different areas of professional interest and I always try to tackle a new topic, which gives me the opportunity for constant development and learning and getting to know new things. Well, over 16 years, I have been working with focus to Trade & Supply Chain Finance \u00a0and I am very bold when I say that I have not lost passion or excitement at all, ascertaining of it is the end of each year, when I summarize the past year and \u00a0realize that no matter what level of expertise and knowledge a person may have, there are always w \u00a0opportunities\u00a0 and areas to evolve, so each of us must never miss the opportunities to grow.<\/p>\n
Some years ago, with an advice of a good friend, despite constant \u00a0lack of time, I agreed intermittently sharing my knowledge and experience through giving lectures.. It turned out to be quite time-consuming, but at the same time extremely pleasant and interesting process – feedback from students and interaction with them allows for a completely different type food for thought.<\/p>\n
What has been the biggest challenge in your career path, an obstacle that seemed insurmountable at first, but you were able to overcome it anyway?<\/strong><\/p>\n
If you do what you love, I believe that a person can achieve \u00a0many impossible \u00a0things, both for yourself as well as for the benefit of others, which is more incentivizing to implement successful projects. At such times, resistance and challenge, on the contrary, becomes a precursor in achieving a new goal. It worth mentioning that in addition to hard work, development and acceptives \u00a0towards changes, that play a key role in \u00a0overcoming the obstacles, we should not forget the significant share of the people who meet us along the pathand play a very important role and consciously or unconsciously contribute in the formation and development of our personality and professionalism. I am truly blessed with such people. The task is to see, identify and appreciate these people even when, at first glance, we think they are trying to challenge us.<\/p>\n
What is your main motivation to keep moving forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Love the work you do, do what you love \u00a0and constantly try to develop, be able to listen and challenge an alternative opinion, be a decent example for your family and the next generations. I may be repetitive by saying \u00a0that there are many obstacles in life and the main thing is to be able to accept them as new challenges. At least for me it really worked as, in most cases obstacles have lead me to a new goal through a new path ending at a very interesting destination points and some new beginnings. These also were the most interesting life lessons..<\/p>\n
Finally, limiting ourselves to the traditional question, what would you advise aspiring professionals and young people who are now taking their first career steps?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Tough question an there is no single answer. I believe that it is very difficult to form and choose your future profession at high school age, and this, of course, is the pressure of our educational system. Nowadays,\u00a0 when I ask youngsters about their vision on \u00a0future career, often hear professions that brings me both surprise and admiration.. In my opinion, fundamental ingredients for success in any area are: curiosity, development, hard work and determination. If you are ready to constantly develop and treat your work with love and accountability, success is inevitable. The knowledge acquired at every stage of life is a great treasure and it will help you at a time and open such an interesting door that maybe you could not have imagined. Don’t give up, keep developing and love what you do and do what you love.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>