Waliza Farhana
Development Professional
Dhaka
Summary
A professional with 11 years of experience in managing people, global projects, and partnerships. Have successfully designed, led, and implemented different donor-funded projects ensuring the project output and outcome are rightly served. Designed human-centric projects for the communities, ensured accountability, and maintained relationships with different stakeholders to ascertain the success of the projects. Have gained a wide array of competencies by working in NGO, Telecom, and FMCG that shaped the mindset to drive growth for impact through digital transformation, women empowerment, and financial inclusion.
Overview
11
11
years of professional experience
6
6
years of post-secondary education
3
3
Certificates
2
2
Languages
Work History
Senior Manager, Culture and Employee Engagement
BRAC International
Dhaka
08.2022 - Current
- Have successfully redesigned the process of nominating, selecting, and evaluating 'Sir Fazle Hasan Abed BRAC Values Award' recipients, an award for the BRAC employees who demonstrate all the organizational values at optimum level through their behaviors and work.
- Driving employee pulse-checking initiatives and engagement surveys in all operating countries of BRAC International and ensuring that right action planning is done and implemented.
- Actively driving relevant people strategy formulation to ensure a future-ready, high-performing workforce.
- Driving the first ‘Culture Audit' in the history of BRAC International in collaboration with an external consultant to define existing cultural determinants and establish the ‘BRAC culture' aspired by BRAC values to all levels in all operating countries.
- Planning and organizing engagement events for mass employee participation to enhance team coherence and improve work culture.
- Coordinate with necessary internal and external stakeholders for implementing effective cultural transformation and change management.
- Review and analyze reports, records, and directives to obtain data required for planning department activities.
- Support the design and creation of a people analytics dashboard with relevant HR metrics for supporting better workforce planning and strategic decision-making.
Senior Manager, Digital Cluster (Partnership)
BRAC
Dhaka
12.2020 - 07.2022
- Led pilot projects in partnership with different Bangladeshi startups i.e., ShopUp, Sheba XYZ, PaperFly, etc to ensure greater financial inclusion among their clients who are F-commerce entrepreneurs by providing them with innovative digital credit facilities.
- Around 2600 ShopUp resellers and 25 service providers of Sheba XYZ were provided digital credit worth 2.5 million USD to scale up their businesses.
• Initiated partnership discussion CYE, a local digital platform that enables retailers to meet the sellers at their fingertips with access to financial services for contributing MSME (Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise) development for ensuring the credit facilities to the MSMEs. - Designed a project concept jointly with Uber Bangladesh to build female agency among the tertiary education group while solving the female commute crisis in Dhaka City.
- Initiated developing an alternative client assessment model focusing on comprehensive credit scores to assess emerging client base consisting of e-commerce and f-commerce entrepreneurs.
- Managed different stakeholder groups in the startup arena to build up an effective ecosystem consisting of the relevant players.
- Successfully drove the development of the ‘Due Diligence Framework' for assessing the capacity of startups as potential partners to comply with the organizational standard and industry regulations.
- Boosted team member productivity and morals by providing coaching, enhancing performance monitoring, and instituting motivational approaches during the uncertainties of the covid-19 period.
Retail Consultant
OPTUS SINGTEL PTY LIMITED
Canberra
11.2019 - 11.2020
- Provided in-store customer service through active customer engagement while uplifting the sales margin for Optus.
- Ensured immersive user experience and tailored solutions focusing on the ‘Whole of House’ and ‘Whole of Business’ concepts and created a positive impression of business.
- Increased sales and customer satisfaction through personalized servicing.
- Achieved 110% of the overall sales target for FY 2019-20.
- Implemented needs-assessment tools to identify demand for services and products.
Team lead
CLUB DEMONSTRATION SERVICES, COSTCO
Canberra
06.2018 - 11.2019
- Managed a multicultural diversified team of 20 Sales Advisors while ensuring operational efficiency to achieve the targeted sales volume.
- Provide the team members coaching and on-the-job training on sales techniques and state of the art customer service.
- Trained the Sales Advisor to collect relevant customer feedback as qualitative inputs for market research.
- Managed the daily operations of marketing events including staff allocation, preparing the kiosks equipped with the proper facilities and product sample stocks.
- Continuous floor monitoring to check safety and compliances especially regarding food elements to reduce risks of contamination and to increase customer satisfaction.
- Analyzed the weekly sales performance and expanded sales revenues by identifying opportunities and executing customized marketing plans for different products.
- Assisted in development of monthly sales goals to motivate team and drive business objectives.
- Successfully managed the role of acting ‘Event manager’ for 1.5 months.
Research Assistant
THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Canberra
02.2018 - 06.2018
- A project on ‘Teleworking’ entailing how ‘Self Determination Theory’ mediates identity work undertaken by the teleworkers and the role ICT in the subsequent work of the teleworker.
- Conducted literature review regarding Self Determination Theory and Identity work.
- Found and collated the gap in the existing research literature regarding the project content.
Deputy Manager
BRAC
Dhaka
05.2012 - 02.2017
- Led the ‘Bangladesh Garment Worker Financial Diary Project', a 3-country research project funded by C&A Foundation and in partnership with Microfinance Opportunities to unveil the financial life of female garment factory workers to lead an evidence-based advocacy campaign on fair living wages and gender pay-gap.
- Designed and implemented the ‘BRAC Voucher Project' in collaboration with Bocconi University and Stockholm University to measure the impact of flexibility in the loan contract. Upon successful project outcome, vouchers had been introduced as a key feature of the regular product line of BRAC Microfinance.
- Led the ‘BRAC Financial Diaries Project' in Bangladesh covering 400 respondents with 80% female participation to understand financial behavior through a gender lens and develop women-friendly diversified financial products.
- Capacity building of a team of 16 enumerators on the 'Financial Diaries' research method through facilitating training and refreshers.
- Worked with bKash (Mobile Financial Service), the only Bangladeshi Unicorn, to build female agency in the rural communities by developing female bKash agents at the community level.
- Undertook knowledge management activities by publishing blogs, monographs, and anecdotes on client journey and perception.
Education
Master of International Management -
THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Canberra, Australia 2017 - 2018
BBA -
JAHANGIRNAGAR UNIVERSITY
Dhaka 2008 - 2011
Skills
MS Office
Certification
Gender Analytics for Innovation
Additional Information
- Received ‘Outstanding Sales Achievement Award 2019’ from Club Demonstration Services, Australia, in recognition of exemplary results and unparalleled performance of ‘Highest Sales & Average per shift’
Timeline
Gender Analytics for Innovation
06-2023
Employee Engagement
09-2022
Senior Manager, Culture and Employee Engagement
BRAC International
08.2022 - Current
Senior Manager, Digital Cluster (Partnership)
BRAC
12.2020 - 07.2022
Retail Consultant
OPTUS SINGTEL PTY LIMITED
11.2019 - 11.2020
Team lead
CLUB DEMONSTRATION SERVICES, COSTCO
06.2018 - 11.2019
Research Assistant
THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
02.2018 - 06.2018
Master of International Management -
THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
2017 - 2018
Behavioral insights and Human-centered design
01-2016
Deputy Manager
BRAC
05.2012 - 02.2017
BBA -
JAHANGIRNAGAR UNIVERSITY
2008 - 2011
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