A day in the life of… Rafael

Of course you can read on our website how much fun it is to work at Zenya. It would be a bit strange not to say so, wouldn’t it? But every company writes that, of course. That’s why you don’t have to believe us, but you do have to believe your future colleagues! They tell in a nutshell why they love working at Zenya. And no, that’s not for just the ping-pong table….

Rafael Stuve is an Account Manager for the healthcare sector in Zenya’s New Business team. In this column, he talks about what makes working at Zenya special – for example, in addition to his job, he is taking a higher education course at Fontys Hogeschool. What energises Rafael? ‘It is special to see how we unburden healthcare professionals with our software, so that they can spend more time providing quality care.’

Hi Rafael, tell us a bit about yourself!

‘I live in Eindhoven, nice and close to the office. And when we move from our current location (Veldhoven) to the High Tech Campus, even closer. Like many others at Zenya, I am sporty, I like to work out and run a few times a week. Last year, I also participated in the relay marathon in Eindhoven, together with colleagues. Very nice to be able to do this together! Furthermore, I love travelling – my mother is from Switzerland, so I can regularly be found in Swiss nature.’

Did you need IT knowledge to start as an Account Manager?

‘Zenya is not my first employer – I gained experience at two other companies in the IT sector. That’s how my passion for IT was ignited – even though I don’t have super extensive IT knowledge. It is especially important that you have an affinity with customer issues, such as incident management and how to support customers with this.

If you find topics interesting, you understand them quickly enough, you don’t need to know the software in detail. You can always fall back on the knowledge of technical consultants and other departments within the company. What I really like about this is that I still learn new things every day from colleagues. This way, you automatically brush up on your knowledge, although, of course, you can take training courses to do this and there is an extensive onboarding process.’

Besides your work at Zenya, you also study. How do you combine that?

‘I passed my secondary vocational education before I started working, but for my higher professional education I study alongside my regular job. Every Monday, I take classes at the Fontys Hogeschool in Eindhoven, studying Commercial Economics. I am now in my third year, so one more year and then I will graduate! I recently got my Associate Degree. Zenya supports me in my studies, including financially. Studying and working at Zenya is easy for me to combine, and it also flows into each other. During my studies, I can, for instance, do research for Zenya. I am currently working on a strategic study, interviewing Zenya’s clients. This brings me even closer to the business. It also allows me to speak to colleagues from different departments that I otherwise don’t have as much contact with, so that way I also get to know them better.’

What do you enjoy most about your job?

‘As a Sales Consultant/Account Manager in the healthcare sector, I get a lot of pleasure from my work. Every day I talk to healthcare organisations that want to increase their quality and improve care. It is really special to see how we can use Zenya to help improve quality in healthcare and reduce the administrative burden for healthcare professionals. This allows them to spend more time with their patients. I find the healthcare market incredibly interesting. It is fascinating to talk to different organisations about their challenges and needs.

It gives me great satisfaction to brainstorm and offer solutions that really make a difference. The daily contact with these organisations and the knowledge that I contribute to better care makes my work worthwhile. Giving demos to a large group of people, enthusing people, that’s what gives me energy. There are many organisations that still work in an old-fashioned way, for example by keeping track of incident management in Excel sheets. It is great to see that I can unburden them with our solutions and make their work easier.’

What is your fondest memory of working at Zenya so far?

‘Let me think… That would surely be the weekend in Berlin with the whole company in 2023! There we did a lot of different activities, like spraying graffiti together and touring the city together in old Volkswagen Beetles. It was already fun to see the city, but I also found it valuable to get to know several colleagues from other teams, who you don’t speak to much on a daily basis, better.’