The Humans of smrtPhone

Our “smrtie of the Month” is an adventurous, curious, and hard-working traveler, dedicated to smrtPhone and seeing the world

Name

Cezar Andrei Vilea

Title / Role in the Company

My title is Integration Manager, and I act as the main point of contact for our partners. I help oversee the integration, train our internal team on how the integration works, and assist in the launch. Once the integration is live, I do monthly meetings with the integration partners to uncover ideas for growth and improving the client experience.

How long have you worked for smrtPhone?

I’ve worked for smrtPhone since July 2023, but I’ve started working with our sister company [REIvolution] in 2019.

What’s your background? 

I have a technical background, having attended a high school that was focused on areas like physics, mathematics, and computer science. I finished high school with a degree in informatics and English proficiency. 

As soon as I finished high school, I got accepted to the University of Economics. After a half year, I left the school, and then left the country altogether. I wasn’t sure exactly of my path, but I knew I had to seek something else. I wasn’t happy with what I was doing. 

During that short time at university, I took a side job to make money to support myself. At that job, I met a friend who wanted to go The Netherlands to work there. He was like, “I’m going in two weeks – do you want to go with me?” And I said yes. It was a brave decision. I left everything behind and took a chance. 

This was 2012, and I went to The Netherlands only to find out that Romanians didn’t have the legal right to work there. So we moved on to Spain. However, in Spain, there was a pretty big language barrier, so we stayed only a couple of weeks. Then we moved on to London, England where I stayed for two years. 

I worked various jobs. I worked in a hotel as a night porter. I spread leaflets through the city… anything I could find. It wasn’t easy. In fact, it was very hard, but mentally it was good for me. It made me tougher. It was a really good life experience. 

The biggest challenge was just a few months after I moved to London. I had an argument with the friend that I initially came with. We were supposed to move together to a new location and all of my stuff was in his car. When we had the fight, it was moving day, and he just got in his car and left. All of my stuff was gone. I was left with no documents, no money, nothing. And I never heard from him again.

I had to think quickly just to survive. I met some guys who had a car service and started doing small jobs around the business to earn money, and I slept in the cars at night. After six months, I finally had enough money to ask my mother to send me a new national ID. It was a really hard time in my life. 

Once I got my ID back, I moved out of London to a smaller city and worked there, washing cars. But one day, I crashed a car by accident and I decided that was the last straw. It was that day I decided to return to Romania. 

During my time in university, one of my jobs was working in a call center on the AOL accounts. When I left, I was in good standing, so I was able to easily transition back to the same job. It made it easy for me to reintegrate. I worked hard at that job, and I got promoted to a senior technical support agent. And I continued working there for another five years following my return to Romania.

Then, the most random thing happened that changed the course of my professional career. I saw an ad on Facebook offering a position in customer service for a smaller technology company. I thought, “Let me just apply,” and I had zero expectations. A few weeks later, the recruiter reached out to me and gave me more details about the position. It seemed interesting, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave my steady job at the big company. So, I worked in parallel until I was sure it was the right move. It was a crazy time. I would start at REIvolution at 10:30am and then, at 7:30pm, I would go to the call center until 4:30am. And then the cycle would start over again. Finally, after six months, I decided to leave and work only at REIvolution. 

It was the best decision I ever made. It was a great experience and I learned a lot. And, ultimately, it is how I ended up at smrtPhone.

What was your first job? 

My very first job was a seasonal job in the summer, at 14 years old. I was packing corn in bags of 50 kilos each and moving those bags back and forth. It was a very hard job. But, I learned how money is made and how businesses run. 

I learned that to be successful in life you have to be as educated as you can and work really hard.

What do you like about working for smrtPhone? 

I think the most important thing for me is being surrounded by people who are smarter than me. I really like to be a part of something that is bigger than me. I like to have a purpose, and I can say that working at smrtPhone has really given me a purpose. I know what I want in life now. 

I like the people, of course. I’m surrounded by a great team. I like the fact that we are trying to improve ourselves, day by day, month by month. And I appreciate the flexibility in my job. 

Describe smrtPhone in 3 words: 

• Friendly – because of my colleagues
• Reliable – we always care about our customers’ experience 
• Culture – it’s a nice place to work

Is there a particular moment/project at smrtPhone that stands out and makes you feel proud?  

I’m really proud of the integration with Realeflow. It was the first CRM integration that I was part of from the very beginning. It’s still an ongoing project, but it was launched to general audiences. They are a really good company, and they are big so there is a lot of potential.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I really enjoy playing basketball. I like to go outside as much as I can. I like going with my bicycle in the city or even outside the city. It relaxes me. I put my earphones on and listen to music, primarily hip hop, and I go all around. I enjoy any type of good music – classical, pop, metal, whatever – but my passion is hip hop and rap. 

And I love traveling, for sure. Recently, I’ve spent a month in Malta working remotely. I also spent a month in Greece. I’ve visited Spain and Italy. But, I’ve never been outside the continent and I would really like to do that.

Name something that is on your “bucket list”

One of my dreams from when I was little was to visit America, and I know I will do it at some point. I’m 100% sure about that. 

Some day, I’d love to be a philanthropist. I want to have a lot of money and help communities around the world.

What is a fun fact people might not know about you? 

I would say the fact that I left my country at age 19 with only 30 Euros in my pocket. I lived and worked in The Netherlands, Spain, and England.