This Week We Feature Young Professional Kwana A. Jerome
With a passion not just for banking and finance but for making people aware of the importance of financial literacy, our Young Professional for this week, Kwana A. Jerome, is quickly climbing the corporate ladder.
And what better place to start that climb than one of the territory’s leading banking institutions, The Bank of Nova Scotia, referred to as Scotiabank, where she stared working her way up back in 2007 as a teller.
She arrived in the territory as a teenager, having grown up in Dominica. On arrival she immediately set out on her path to her chosen profession, enrolling in the H, Lavity Stoutt Community College (HLSCC).
In school, her favourite subjects were always Principles of Business, English and Geography. “I moved here the same year that I graduated from high school, I attended the HLSCC where I obtained my Associates’ Degree in Business Administration. I am still completing studies and I will be completing my Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management at the University of the West Indies,” she said.
She is also seeking to get a certificate in Human Resource Management.
Our Young Professional said that following the completing of her Bachelor’s Degree early next year, she will be seeking to aim for the highest qualifications possible by the time she attains the age of 30.
“As soon as I am finished with that I will be going on to my Masters. I have absolutely no children and I am not married so my focus right now is on my studies and my career.”
Career path
“So I started working at Scotiabank back in 2007. I was a teller. I passed through several departments here in the bank through cross training and other different areas so I have covered practically service, operation and now I am in sales,” she said.
“This is actually going to be my third year in sales. I have been with the bank for eight years and I feel that in the next five years I should be at the bank at the managerial level or an entrepreneur with my own business.”
At Scotiabank, she was judged to be the "Best of the Best" for 2015 which indicates that she was not only able to deliver excellent customer service, but was able to meet and surpass her entire year's target for the bank's fiscal year 2015.
According to her, in terms of the kind of business she is likely to be involved in, this would be with youth.
“That job would entail creating an environment where youth can be motivated for everything that they try,” she said.
She added that with her job at the bank she gets the satisfaction of seeing customers becoming financially better off partly through the advice she gives them.
“I love the fact that I could help customers of the bank becoming financially better off because after God and family it is your life and without a solid financial background you cannot survive. So I really enjoy giving them different ideas, you know, walking them through building a financial balance with their lives. To get a satisfied customer makes me really happy because there are a lot of people out there who don’t know the importance of banking when it comes to achieving things in life,” she said.
Jerome recently got involved in the work of the BVI Cancer Society and she has plans to join another organisation but she has not made up her mind about that as yet. She believes it would be a plus for her being a part of those organisations as she enjoys helping people.
Advice to young people
In her advice to young people, Jerome said that being a leader is not a bad thing. “You have to know what you want in life and where you want to go in order to achieve it," she pointed out.
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26 Responses to “This Week We Feature Young Professional Kwana A. Jerome”
Beauty and Brains. What a powerful combination. Congrats girl you deserve it.
Kwana has smarts, style and dash, and she has set goals for herself. Kudos girl!