The vibrant Stefanie Garises

Monique Adams





Someone who knows how to stand out in a crowd full of people is Stefanie Garises, who was born and raised in Windhoek.

She went to Emma Hoogenhout Primary School from grade one to the beginning of grade five, and completed primary school at Suiderhof Primary School.

The year 2010 is when her rapping career started while attending Delta Secondary School Windhoek.

After completing high school, she pursued a bachelor’s degree of computer science in software development from the Namibia University of Science and Technology.

Her journey

“In the year 2017, I got an amazing opportunity and was selected as the Namibian representative in Helsinki, Finland, to further define a project called ‘CodeBus Africa’, during which I travelled the country to introduce the Namibian youth to programming through music,” she said.

In 2018, she was selected for an internship with a private wealth bank in Zurich, Switzerland. After her internship, she was selected to be a Mandela Washington Fellow in the business and entrepreneurship track in Austin, Texas.

Upon her return from the fellowship, she worked in a number data-centric roles including data collecting, data analytics and business intelligence development in Namibia and France.

“I moved back to Namibia in November 2019 and decided that I wanted a role which is more focused on financial modelling. Hence, I joined PwC Namibia as a data analytics associate. Shortly after I joined, I received an offer from Deloitte and decided to join the Green Dot team,” she said.

Joining the Deloitte family

As a data analytics consultant, her job description is to gather information from various sources and interpret patterns and trends to solve business problems.

Within the Deloitte company, this means re-calculating financial statement line items on a large scale and providing quality assurance for data migrations.

“My workload varies depending on the time of the year, the size and complexity of the client’s work I am assigned to, as well as the amount of documentation available on the work that I need to perform. So, I typically deal with two to three engagements per month,” she said.

She studied the Deloitte policies and regulations in order to ensure that she acts within those boundaries and she has achieved this by doing several e-learning courses.

Just like any workplace, you come across accomplishments and challenges. One of Garises’ accomplishments is when she was intrusted to manage an entire learning management project on her own while interning in Switzerland.

“I managed that project successfully and considerately. My team and the subject matter experts involved were all pleased with the quality of my work,” she said.

Meanwhile, one of her challenges has been working with someone who had a very difficult personality as this individual would not get along with anyone and tried to claim all the work done by the group as his own.

“I learnt that timely and effective communication about roles, responsibilities and expectations within a team are very important. If these things are not addressed right at the beginning of a project, then the entire project is at risk of falling,” she said.

Her advice to young people is to create a system for themselves that will ensure their success. “Goals are good but systems are better. Even if your system means you dedicate one hour a day to your actively pursuing your goals,” she said.