How often do you hear someone change their career successfully every 10 years? Meet Toronto, Canada-based Antoni Tzavelas. He was 30 when he switched from fashion to technology; at 40, he got into cloud computing, and touching 50, he is now an agile practitioner! Does it baffle you already?
This constant reinvention of the self is not encouraged enough by conservative societies, people, or businesses who find candidates like Antoni Tzavelas “overqualified” or “too entrepreneurial.” The thick slice of influencers would ask you to “niche down!” But here you have Antoni, who has lived three careers already!
If you are intrigued by Antoni’s approach to learning and self-development, you are in the right spot to rethink your capabilities for more than one career. Let us remind you that you can’t dodge the story of Antoni as an exception because you also share this world with Masako Wakamiya, who designed her first smartphone app at 80!
As a technology professional and a certified Agile coach and Scrum Master, Antoni Tzavelas is passionate about agile and lean principles and have extended his support to many emerging tech professionals as a coach and mentor. His expertise in DevOps, Agile, Kanban, and cloud helps him row against the tide and bring value to his communities.
But besides having that mindset and memory, how did Antoni manage time to enjoy this career diversity? A little search reveals nothing about his academic degrees but over 30+ licenses and certifications, which tell us about his appetite for learning and constant upgradation to suit the requirements of his employers and his interest as a consultant!
Switching a career is not just about acquiring skills and expertise in a world that has plenty of geniuses to offer. With age, opportunities thin down; if there’s anything to help an aging job-seeker stand out, their people skills and leadership. And here, Antoni’s approach to people management is commendable.
According to Antoni, “Scrum Masters should worry less about the configuration of their Jira instance and more about the people on the team. Resolving people’s problems are way more impactful than configuring software.” He adds, “Jira can make creating and organizing stories better, but the focus should be on the team. Making the team better allows for delivering more value, not Jira.”
Scrum Masters should worry less about the configuration of their Jira instance, and more about the people on the team. Resolving people problems are way more impactful than configuring software.
— Antoni Tzavelas 🇨🇦 (@antoniscloud) June 8, 2022
Today, besides being a Scrum Master & Agile Coach with The Toronto-Dominion Bank & its subsidiaries, Antoni runs a full-fledged consultancy training individuals and businesses to be their best in the fast-evolving technology space where HRs dread the competitive talent market, and job-seekers live in the uncertainty of the next lay-off!
Antoni’s approach to training leaders to build an aspirational workplace follows proven methods that break silos. More than often, promising tech employees are daunted by a lack of trust in the workplace, which debilitate the leverage a company invests in growing its business. Here, Antoni’s knowledge of Agile as an engineering methodology exceeds his application of Agile as a cultural framework to help a business make its mark!
