We welcome in August with another new addition to the Firemind team, Ibrahim Diallo. Ibrahim joins us at a crucial time in the Firemind journey, as we continue to expand our sales department, helping to manage our growing customer base, as well as building new relationships across our partners.

In our usual baptism for new starters, we sat with Ibrahim to learn a little more about him in our Q & A.

Welcome to the Firemind team Ibrahim! It’s great to have you with us. To our viewers, could you please tell us a little about yourself and your professional background?

Hey, I’m excited to be a part of Firemind! I graduated University with a degree in Law and I immediately perused a role in software sales. I started at a legal ISV who sold professional services to large city law firms ranging from compliance, CRM to pricing tools. This was an easy decision to make because I had a rich understanding of the law and the business need for software solutions at a top law firm as I did my legal internship at Freshfields. After Intapp, due to my interest in the cloud, I moved to AWS where I specialised in account management and demand generation for all UKIR Independent Software Vendors, Digital Native Businesses and Enterprise accounts.

How did you find out about us and what made you decide to apply for a role with Firemind?

I attended an onsite AWS Consulting speed dating event where Firemind were pitching the UKIR Sales team on their offerings and use cases. After listening to the first 4/5, I admit I lost interest, but I decided to stay on to hear what Firemind had to offer. Once Rob Gehring delivered his pitch, I was thoroughly impressed, and wanted to learn more about what Firemind did with the Premier League. I reached out to Rob about Firemind and their offerings, and was excited to be informed that they were looking for new hires (and I saw myself being a great fit)!

Which areas of our business interested you the most?

The area that interested me the most would be the AI/ML capabilities. I am not the most technical person, but the way in which Firemind break down how they support customers to meet their goals, is something I’ve always appreciated. As a result, they have been able to successfully pitch their AI/ML use cases and PoC to suit the needs of their customers.

What will be your main goals/objectives whilst working at Firemind?

My main goal is straight forward – learn as much as I can about Firemind’s capabilities, strengths, and learn how to incorporate our offerings into my conversations with my customers. This would allow me to have a high level understanding of how we can help our customers, ensuring I reach my goals.

Any highlights from your first day with the business?

Considering its my first day and I haven’t been able to see much, the best thing I can say is the people, I have been welcomed with warm arms by everyone.

Which aspects of the job are you most excited about?

I am most excited to work alongside the technical colleagues – this is because I know I will be able to pick their brains and learn a lot from them about technical aspects I am not well versed on, ensuring I hit and exceed my targets. I am also looking forward to trips with the team and getting to know them better.

What do you hope to achieve within your first 12 months here?

Within my first 12 months I aim to remember everyone’s name; this is especially important to me because I am so bad with names, and I need to improve! Next, I’ll be looking to achieve 100%+ of my sales targets, and have completed my AWS Solution Architect certification.

Outside of work, what do you get up to? Tell us about your hobbies.

Other than the usual spending time with my mates and my family, I love watching Arsenal and anything to do with the Premier League. I have been a football fanatic my whole life and just can’t quite get enough of it. To add to that, I also enjoy playing football. I currently play for a Saturday and Sunday team to ensure I stay fit and in good health. Finally, I’m a simple man, I love a night in with my laptop watching tv shows or movies.

What’s your favourite song on your playlist right now?

This is not my all-time favourite but my current favourite song to listen to now is Sprinter by Dave and Central Cee – it’s a big, big tune!

Any fun nicknames we should know about?

I have several so I’ll list them out: Ibz (quite self-explanatory), ID – My brother was the first to start calling me by my initials – At University while everyone was introducing themselves, I didn’t read the WhatsApp group chat and wasn’t too responsive. As a result, when people were asking about me, they had no name but my initials as my profile. This led to everyone referring to me as my initials and it has caught on ever since. Anderson is another one. I got this name because I was told I used to play football like to Manchester United Player Anderson who had long hair (just like me once upon a time).

If you could only chose one dish to eat every meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Attike – this is an originally Ivorian dish that contains fish, rice, meats, plantain, vegetables, and stew made. However, the Guinean community has taken over this dish and made it even better.

What is at the top of your bucket list?

I need to give this more of thought because I don’t have many things that I want to do that I haven’t already done. I’d probably say get married and have kids. It sounds a bit boring, but it’s something I hope to be blessed with some day.

What is one skill you would really love to learn?

The skill of becoming a polyglot – I’d love to learn French, Spanish and Arabic, whilst also becoming fluent in my own native tongues we speak at home (Fula and Krio). From a young age I have always admired those who were disciplined enough to learn other dialects, and I’ve been impressed at how many people they were able to communicate with.

How do you wind down after work?

After work I wind down by sitting on my desk chair for 10 minutes, then I changed into my clothes, prepare a light meal, and then turn on my laptop to watch ‘The Wire’. I’ve watched that show at least 4x now and it never gets old.

We’re growing from strength to strength, expanding our diverse and specialised team to enable us to work faster, smarter and have more fun along the way!

Visit our Careers page for further details about the Firemind culture.