Dianca Yssel

I am a very hardworking and dedicated person, capable of working under difficult circumstances. I am a very resourceful person who gets things done, but I also know how to bring fun into the workplace with my avid love of puns and witty humour. I will always strive to do the best with what I am given, knowing it is a privilege and not a right to have been given a job. I am always willing to learn and adapt to improve myself so that I can achieve my set goals and contribute meaningfully to my company. I am energetic, healthy and I enjoy challenges as it is the challenge that gives me the opportunity to learn something new. I have excellent time management and multitasking skills, always making sure I plan appropriately and complete tasks ahead of their deadline. 

I worked at Checkers, Northern-Paarl in 2010 during my Grade 11 December holiday. I was constantly faced with helping customers by packing in their groceries and fetching items for them as requested. I thus learned good people and communication skills whilst working at Checkers.

I was also called in a few times to help my father with stock taking at his previous job at Imcomex, Wellington.

I worked as a temporary secretary at Tenk Loubser & Associates during the June holiday in my first year at university, where I had to answer the telephone, sort out papers, do general admin and bring coffee/ tea to clients. 

In my third year at university (2014) I did two weeks’ practical vacation work (required for my degree) on the farm Cranemere in Graaff-Reinet where I gained experience in wool classing, sheep herding and management.

During my December holiday in 2014 I completed my four week required holiday work (required by my degree) by working (without income) for two weeks at Montego Pet Nutrition in Graaff- Reinet. Here I gained some knowledge regarding the animal feed industry. I was taught how to sample raw feed materials, how to test for toxins and anti-nutrients (Aflatoxin, DON, salmonella), laboratory skills, health and safety principles when working with feedstuffs, packaging of products and the whole process leading to the final product (dog, cat and fish food).

I did part-time work for Alltech: I went to their associated abattoir once a week to score chicken heads for lesions and chicken gizzards for hemorrhaging.

I have completed my MSc degree in Animal science at Stellenbosch University. I graduated in March of 2018. I learned a large variety of scientific skills during the completion of my Masters degree, which includes data collection, thesis writing and presentation skills.

I worked as an administrative assistant at Bester Feed and Grain from March 2019 until April 2019. I was then appointed as an administrative coordinator from May 2019 to the end of January 2020. I have experience in the processing of invoices (cross border clearance, transportation and storage invoices),  the opening and amending of contracts for both internal and external clients, creating proforma invoices, facilitating overseas transfers, determining and facilitating any claims, invoicing/crediting of clients, handling client queries, warehousing, providing general assistance to our trader and logistics team and also training of other or new staff on administrative skills. 

From February 2020 to March 2021 I worked as an Application Coach for Blue North Sustainability. In this role I gained experience in client support across the agricultural supply chain,  providing training in the application and interpretation of online tools that supports the journey to sustainable agricultural production. These tools include FruitLook, an online Carbon Calculator and an online sustainability management tool called Sherpa. As an application coach, my responsibilities included:

• assistance with any client queries regarding the aforementioned tools
• providing one on one remote training and presented online webinars for each of the platforms on a weekly or bi-weekly basis
• client relationship management (CRM) via various communication channels (phone calls, email, WhatsApp or via Zoom/ Microsoft Teams) 
• sales and client license renewal follow ups
• cold calling prospective clients
• collecting user feedback
• the creation of marketing content, such as user case studies and content for posting on social media (Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube)

Furthermore, I also took part in and contributed to various sustainability projects (such as water benchmarking, soil organic carbon and carbon footprinting) for which Blue North had been contracted. I assisted in creating excel based tools and the writing up of reports or articles for these projects. Furthermore, in this role I gained experience in taking and writing up the minutes for our various steering committee/stakeholder board meetings.

Since March 2021 I have been appointed as the Commercial Lead for FruitLook (for which Blue North is the local implementation partner in South Africa), a remote sensing web portal that provides  farmers with an extra layer of information on the growth, water use, and minerals of their crop fields to support their on-farm decision making and hereby achieve more production while using less inputs  water, electricity and fertilizers). In 2023, the management and roll out of a fungal disease forecasting application called Grape Compass was also allocated to me. In this role,  I am tasked with the successful roll out of these precision agriculture tools to farmers in the Western Cape.  I am currently still in this role and my responsibilities include: 

Setting and meeting of annual objectives and key results for the FruitLook and Grape Compass technologies, leading the successful commercialization of each tool, achieving license sales targets, liaising with overseas partners in terms of progress made, IT fixes and development required for each respective tool, liaising with funders and reporting on monthly/annual progress in terms of meeting contractual responsibilities, writing up of articles in support of marketing the value of each tool under my management, invoicing clients and tool partners for Blue North's services, and the management of my team of two technical coaches who support the FruitLook user base and provide training to ensure an optimal user experience, driving bug fixes and the development of each application to improve user experience and expand  value propositions.

Post graduate degree

Institution            :  Stellenbosch University 

Course           : MSc (Agric) Animal Science 

Year completed           : March 2018 

Subjects                       :  Master’s thesis on the potential of midazolam as a   sedative for blesbok