Meet the team: Kelly Cahill, customer & application support executive

We’ve been investing into building out our Services team and this week we sat down with Kelly Cahill, one of our customer and application support executives. We learnt about Kelly’s extensive invoice finance experience, what she enjoys most about her role and the number one piece of advice she’d give to her younger self.

Kelly, what did you do before Dancerace?

I was in invoice finance for 17 years, most recently as a client relationship manager handling day-to-day operations in a new start sector of a large company where I helped build out Dancerace systems from scratch. I’ve been using Dancerace systems since 2008!

After being made redundant from my that role I had a gap of about 12 months. I had a break and opened a cake shop. That was 16+ hour days. It seemed pretty on the outside, but it was so much work and very time consuming.

When Dancerace approached me about the joining the team, it was perfect because I could use the knowledge that I already had without having to go back into the mania of invoice finance.

What are your career highlights?

A personal career highlight is gaining confidence. When I started in invoice finance I was a credit controller with zero confidence. I just sat there with my head down, making my phone calls.  I did well in that role and was promoted to client relationship manager while on maternity leave. It was nice to have my hard work acknowledged without having to apply for a more senior role. I was recognised for the good work that I’d been doing.

What drew you to Dancerace?

Initially, it was being able to use my existing invoice finance and industry knowledge, but after the first call with Louisa and Jon, it seemed like such a friendly, nice place to work.

I’ve been in some toxic work environments and this was like a breath of fresh air. Everyone seemed lovely and I already knew about Dancerace and liked what the company did. I felt that once I was fully trained on the tech side of things, I’d be a good asset.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

I love being on the client relationship side and the flexibility of working remotely. In previous roles I’ve trained new staff while managing my clients.

How do you approach working with your team?

I think compromise and communication are the biggest part of working in a team, especially in one with so many relatively new people, each with different skill sets.

It would be easy to dump all the tech stuff on one person because that's their forté, and not try to learn it for yourself. Instead, we must learn from each other's skill sets.

What's something that you wish you knew earlier in your working life? 

That you’re not supposed to kill yourself to get the job done. There were times I'd get in early and still be at my desk late into the night. Your whole life revolved around getting this job done. I know now that stepping away from my desk for 20 minutes for a walk and a sandwich isn’t the end of the world. I’d like to have told myself that from the beginning.

What excites you most about the future at Dancerace?

Gaining as much knowledge as possible. I would love to know more about the tech side because that really interests me.

Also, seeing where my skill set takes me within the company. While I don't want to move from the Support team right now, it's exciting to know that I may come across a particular area of the business that interests me in the future and can teach me something new.

Finally, tell us a fun fact about you.

I manage my 8-year-old daughter’s football team. I’m Coach Kelly! We’ve done a full season and we’re about to start the second now. It’s a little girls’ team but they play against boys, so we’re teaching them to be tough!

You can meet more of the Dancerace team on our Insights page. You can keep an eye on vacant roles on our Company & Careers page.