Forgive this title, but if you’re reading it, something sure got your attention, and I hope I can keep that attention till the end. 

Now, where do I start? 

My name is Emmanuel, and I work as an IT Governance Risk and Compliance Analyst at Moniepoint. I have many “how it started versus how it’s going” stories, but I’ll focus on my growth across teams here at Moniepoint. Yes, I said across teams. Typically, people grow within a team, but in my case, I switched teams, and here’s how that happened.

The journey to Moniepoint

As a kid, my dream was to study either medicine or computer science. Reading the book “Gifted Hands” automatically sealed the medicine path for me. I did everything possible to achieve that dream, including travelling to Ukraine to study. 

For whatever reason, I did not think about what it meant in its entirety and by my third year in medical school, I realised that I had an aversion to seeing blood. I remember witnessing a session in the theatre one day, and I couldn’t just go on. That day, I started considering my options.

A few weeks later, I packed my “Best Student of the Year” award (which I had won twice), and returned to Nigeria to pursue my other dream - computer science. After completing my study in Computer Science, I got an opportunity to work with GTbank as a graduate trainee. After 6 months of training, the department realised I had a skill for documenting product processes. So, I was drafted to the business analysis and solutions architecture team. 

One of my highlights working there was when we had staff members from Moniepoint (then TeamApt) come around for meetings. We were one of the vendors for whom TeamApt had built a core banking system, and every time we had sessions with the people from TeamApt, I always found myself admiring the level of work they were delivering. Deep down, I knew I wanted to work here, even if I wasn’t an engineer. So, even when I left the bank to help a start-up build a new product, my eyes were still set on the goal, and the moment an opportunity came to join the team, I jumped at it. 

What has Technical Writing got to do with Security and Risk Assessment?

Even while studying medicine, I loved to break processes down and look for areas that fascinated me. When I joined Moniepoint as a Technical Writer, my favourite part was documenting the whole software development cycle. I was so into writing that I started paying attention to areas I thought needed extra attention, one of them being security.

As my interest grew, I fanned them to flames and eventually went to the UK to study Security threat Intelligence and Forensics. All this while, I was still a Technical Writer at Moniepoint. About a year into my studies, I started looking for opportunities to apply what I was learning and that’s when I found out that we were hiring for that role internally. I applied to join our Cyber security team and got it!

A new path: expectations vs responsibilities

One would think it’d be easy to switch from technical writing to cyber security since I had a Master’s Degree in Security threat. Still, I’ve realised that theories have no place near practicals or, should I say, reality. Thankfully, we have a great onboarding system that helped me transition easily.

My team lead, Albert, was always available to help, and he didn’t leave any stone unturned when showing me the rings. I was well settled in a few weeks and could apply my knowledge. One of the reasons I love our 4Ms framework is how it hits the nail on the head. Mastery is my favourite motivation here because I have seen multiple opportunities to apply my skills and improve. I have a very supportive team, and when I work with other departments to ensure all loose ends are tied, the technical depth is so evident that you just learn something new. 

If I kept your attention until this point, then you’re probably interested in joining the team. I think you should push that interest by checking for an open role that suits you.