I love technology. When I saw a computer for the first time in 1985, I was hooked. I saw my future in computers and got myself a Computer Science degree. Right out of college, I got a job with the United Nations. I had to travel to many countries all over the world. I worked for UNICEF Manila, UNDP Jakarta, UNIDO Vienna, WHO Geneva, UNICEF New York, and UNOPS New York. While working for WHO Geneva, I had to go on missions to India, Egypt, and Denmark. I loved traveling all over the world for work so much that I wasn’t afraid to go to a new place and learn about their culture and languages – ie assimilated myself so I could safely go back and forth between work and the hotel. On weekends, I was nothing but an avid tourist.
I was doing Peoplesoft development in 2007 when I heard about Salesforce. Somehow I knew that it was going to be a huge hit in the future. Somehow I convinced my manager to send me to training, so I could start working as a Salesforce developer. It worked! I attended Salesforce Admin and Salesforce 501 Developer training in 2007. At that time, Salesforce was already giving away free vouchers for attending the class to encourage trainees to take the certification after each class. Still, I didn’t think I needed the certification. I already have a job as a Salesforce developer.
After nine years of developing in Salesforce and implementing Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Knowledge, Chatter, and CPQ without any Salesforce certification, I decided that I might as well get myself Salesforce certified in 2016.
As of now, I am a Salesforce Certified Solution Architect with 15 certifications to show for. I am looking forward to becoming a Salesforce CTA one day.