Mel Raath

Hello, my name is Mel Raath and I´m a South African currently living in Brazil. I´m a professional with many years´ experience in a few different fields. I am a strong communicator and I´m comfortable liaising at both corporate/formal and informal levels, across all designations. I work well as part of a team or individually and am self-motivated, accountable and hard-working.

I have a strong background in Customer Service and Sales, having worked for a Corporate Bank providing payment solutions to businesses for 16 years. For 8 of those years, I managed the Coastal sales teams, where it was my role to

• grow and motivate my people to produce the required sales targets,
• liaise with partner departments to ensure good synergy and mine potential business
• while taking on new business, it was equally important to retain existing clients in our portfolio
• report up the line to directors as well as cross-reporting to partner departments
• regular presentations to both external and internal clients

I then worked for a community magazine where I was responsible for generating new ad revenue, producing some editorial content and assisting with some editorial functions. This was more in line with my tertiary studies, a diploma in PR & Comunications.

Since 2014, I have taught English as a second language in Brazil (São Paulo, Vitória & Amazonas) and my student base has included various types of students: engineers and professionals from ArcelorMittal, Vale and Santander Bank; doctors and businessmen and -women preparing for proficiency exams like IELTS or TOEFL, as well as (currently) the fundamental school years 1 - 5, primary school. I regularly help my private students prepare for formal presentations, which I enjoy immensely