Alexandra Dokleva ('18): 'ITCE helped me nurture my personality and uncover my potential'
AUBG alumna Alexandra Dokleva ('18) is part of ITCE, a Sofia-based company that supports companies in their digitalization journey since 1998. She is the product owner for the ServiceNow product and a coach in Agile processes. She graduated from AUBG with majors in Business Administration with a focus on Management and Information Systems.
For Alexandra, the core team of 30 people in the company seems like a small crew for the enormous impact they have in terms of delivery, results, and the work they do. She said she appreciates the proactivity of the company and that this is what brought her to where she is today. This is why she helps in the hiring process. "We look for people who don’t like to be managed strictly, self-driven, autonomous," Alexandra said. "Ones who want to work in an environment which will leave them ready to uncover their entire potential without any restrictions. You have all of these opportunities to uncover your potential and you have the people who support you in doing that."
ITCE was recently recruiting students at the AUBG Job and Internship Fair 2022. Back in 2018, Alexandra herself was one of those students that began her career journey at the training and consulting company after meeting its representatives at the fair. We spoke to her to learn more about her AUBG journey, her career development, and what she loves about working at ITCE.
The first touchpoint Alexandra had with AUBG was as part of the English Language Institute where she enrolled at a very early age. This is what made her decide she wanted to be part of the AUBG community as a university student as well. Alexandra's initial idea was to pursue Economics as a second major, however, a challenging class made her rethink her decision and go for the academic field she has been always strong at – information systems.
"The truth is I wanted to pursue Economics," Alexandra said. "And I started courses in the first year to prepare for the major. But then during the third semester, I had a class in which I got a low grade. I am a person who is very keen on getting high grades but more importantly on understanding what I am doing. And this was a sign for me that I don’t understand what I am doing. So, I decided that this was not for me. I dropped the course and had to think about something else. Information systems and anything computer-related were something I was very good at at school. But I was constantly avoiding dealing with that. I used to say that this is something I don’t want to work with in the future."
Alexandra Dokleva and President Sullivan at AUBG Commencement 2018.
This is the reason she decided to look for a career in the IT-sphere from the business perspective. ITCE came as a good fit during the Job Fair at AUBG in her senior year. She says that the company approached her before the event itself claiming that she would be a great candidate for the position they were looking for. Yet, she shares that she was feeling unsecure with their requirement for knowledge in coding languages.
"I went to their booth, and it was my last interview for the day, and I simply fell in love with these people," said Alexandra. "The whole time they were telling me about ITCE -- the culture, the team, how great it is to work in this field. And the whole time I was wondering: 'Are you joking, is there a hidden camera somewhere?' It was surreal! And the JavaScript part -- I understood that it is great if you are experienced, as I was, but it wasn't a main day-to-day responsibility. But before I went to the interview and talked to them, there was no way I would have known in advance."
"Then I went to an interview with Nina [Prodanova-Iozeva, CEO and Co-Founder of ITCE]," Alexandra said. "She is a ball of energy, a continuous idea generator. I think that to a big extent the success of ITCE is based on her way of seeing the world, and actually giving us the freedom to learn, to make mistakes, to take ownership and accountability of the things we are doing, to do everything we love. And it’s not only Nina, it's the whole team. You are just surrounded by very like-minded individuals who are both outstanding professionals in their own fields but also astonishing people as human beings and the possibility to become part of such a team that helps you flourish in the best possible way when you are just going out of university is amazing."
Alexandra and the ITCE team.
Alexandra says that she wouldn’t be the person she is today if she hadn't joined ITCE four years ago. "They really helped me nurture my personality, take out all the good things, and uncover my entire potential because they are always pushing me," she said. This is also what happened with the monthly agile trainings she has been leading since the beginning of 2021. Although at first she felt uncomfortable training experts with years of experience in their sphere, her coworkers motivated her to try.
The role of the product owner is to know the product with its functionalities because the platform itself comes configured and ready to use but most of the clients have their own requirements. "I am challenging how they do work and [explaining] how they can improve their processes," Alexandra said. "Of course, I am organizing meetings, creating a backlog, coordinating releases, that is the administrative work. But probably the essence is the consulting part: actually being able to advise the customer on how things can be done better with the tool and even within the processes they have within the company. It's knowledge about a thousand things combined in one – technical, process, business, communication with clients."
Apart from her work and her 9-to-5 working self, Alexandra has embraced the notion of giving back and she shows it with every initiative she initiates or takes part in. “AUBG really teaches us to give back to the community as much as we can because there are people who gave to us and now it’s our time to give back,” Alexandra said. “I am currently part of the able mentor. Previously I thought that I don’t have the needed experience to mentor somebody but this year I thought that I wanted to share my knowledge and mentor somebody. Because I always knew what I wanted to do but there are many people really don’t know what to do. Last year we did not send any Christmas gifts instead we found this school near Veliko Tarnovo and we donated the budget to them. I think we are never going back to the typical Christmas presents.”