Priyesh Sharma@Kenu73
The hardest good bye! This was my dream job, getting into Amex was a dream come true partly due to how passionate I have been for cards and also a small story.
As a young boy living in a tier 3 city of India called as Dewas, I was introduced to a brand called American Express as an elite, extremely valuable card. American Express representatives came to my father's factory gave him a credit card stating its "no limit card" and offered few more elite freebies known to no one at that time, like a premium AUDI car test drive with no additional verification/free Audi driving experience! Yes those were the days! Was even told to my father that you are among selected few who is being offered this. My father also loved credit cards and I learned a lot from him, now he made me an authorised account user and also an add on card holder. This was atleast 14/15 years ago.
As an authorised user, I can call Amex and handle anything and everything on my fathers behalf, payments used to be using cheques and a dropbox point used to there, whatever the issue is- there will be a very helpful person on the other side of the phone, no wait times and straight up human (unlike today) who will possibly have an impeccable command on English and treat you like you are the king, you are special. Two incidents, once a cheque was dropped but somehow it was picked later due to some issues at Amex end, 2 days and there was no update on the clearing and due date had passed, I called to check and informed them that I have paid, they instantly marked it as paid and further did their investigations and didn't even bother asking anything extra from us. No fees, no fine were put on card account.
Another time we had to do an urgent transaction in Canada for a very big amount and nothing during that time would have helped us pay on the same date, called the receiver he said Amex is accepted, called Amex shared the situation and asked if we can use Amex the rep for the said amount, rep quickly went ahead and approved it and the important payment was sent in a single go. I was already a FAN.
By then, I was already obsessed with Amex, and once I realized that Amex has offices in Gurgaon, I would also read and hear stories about the work-life balance and stability that employees have. Being a customer, I already knew how good they are, but I also pondered, if they treat customers so well, how does the company treat them (the guys who work there)? Must me amazing.
And at the same time, my love and passion for credit card was increasing day by day, I made it upon myself to get a job in Amex. Applied got rejected, that was unexpected. Waited re-applied saw atleast 50+ people in interview room and when enquired how many roles are there, I was told only 2. Felt demorlised but gave my best and there it was, I was among the 2 selected that day.
I got into my dream organization! Grew multiple folds, handled a lot of portfolios, receive promotions, lateral movements, traveled the world 40+ countries. All thanks to Amex ❤️
Life happened, decided to build something on my own, tried. It worked and made the hard choice to bid adieu to my first love and yesterday was my last day with the American Express!
A dreamy place to work at, Work life balance of Europeans in India with Blue box values which are so deeply engraved in almost all the colleagues that it just brings the best out of you.
8 years, 7 leaders, 3 different business units and multiple countries later an epic personal run comes to an end!