Chelsea Griffith of Saint Mary’s First Nation was hired on as a financial analyst at TD Canada Trust in Dieppe, New Brunswick in January 2019. Since joining TD, Chelsea’s hard work and dedication have paid off and she earned a promotion to team leader of MDM in October 2019 - now leading her own team of ten people. As a team leader, her role is to seek out avenues of efficiency and ensure her team is able to perform to the best of their ability. Managing the MDM team is a challenging role, but Chelsea is greatly enjoying the fast-paced environment as well as the opportunity to learn new tasks.
“TD is all about innovation, so things are constantly changing here and you really have to be able to jump with the changes and roll with stuff,” said Chelsea. Along with enjoying her work at TD, she loves how friendly and welcoming the environment is.
Chelsea has an economics background and jumped at the opportunity to participate in JEDI's Software Tester training course. Regarding the course, Chelsea stated, “It can be difficult to find meaningful work that pays a living salary in New Brunswick so I wanted to set myself up to be able to have a career that would provide job security, that I had opportunities for advancement in, and I thought IT was a skillset that would compliment my economics background.”
Chelsea joined PLATO Testing after taking the Software Testing course. She earned her foundational level of software testing certification after starting at PLATO and was also promoted to team lead while at PLATO. Since taking JEDI’S course, her career path has changed and she credits the course with opening a lot of avenues for her that might have been closed otherwise. Chelsea said, “Having the IT training is never going to hurt you, it’s almost always going to help you.” Chelsea believes that JEDI’S training opened more doors for her, helped her make connections with different industries, and helped her gain skillsets that employers are looking for.
Chelsea said she would recommend JEDI’s programs and courses to others and she is confident that if you are interested, enjoy being challenged, and you’re serious about your career then JEDI’s courses are the perfect opportunity.
When Chelsea talks about her future plans, she seeks to continue managing her team's success, continue looking for ways to be innovative and maximize efficiency, and to actively seek out ways to mentor young First Nations professionals working in IT & Finance. Chelsea sees herself at TD long-term, and she expressed that she really enjoys the company culture and her lovely colleagues.