Alta Du Plooy

Experience

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  De Kat Magazine

  Jul 2004 - Feb 2007

  Published Art and Travel Writer
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  ECC English Academy

  Aug 2006 - Dec 2007

  Foreign Language Teacher
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  North-West University / Noordwes-Universiteit

  May 2008 - Jul 2010

  Administrative and Marketing Officer - Faculty of Natural Sciences
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  University of Cape Town

  Jan 2012 - Feb 2016

  • Senior Secretary and Receptionist - Geomatics Division, Engineering Faculty

    Aug 2013 - Feb 2016

  • Tutor and seminar leader at the Centre for Film and Media Studies

    Feb 2011 - Dec 2015

  • Research Assistant and Project Coordinator, Centre for African Cinema

    Feb 2013 - Jul 2013

  • Academic Consultant for first year Film and Media Studies students (Faculty of Humanities)

    Jan 2012 - Dec 2012
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  University of Cape Town

  Aug 2016 - Dec 2016

  Research Assistant and Project Coordinator
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  Isivivana Centre

  Jan 2017 - Jan 2019

  Project Manager and Film Curator for the Bertha Movie House
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  Amazon

  Jan 2019 - Sept 2022

  * Investigated and responded to sensitive reports involving high-risk business concerns as the first point of contact for a large US-based social media website of ~110m users, and ~6m 30-day active members (2022).* Served as the Policy Operations team’s subject matter expert in assessing user accounts involved in complex, recurring fraud and abuse. My approach to disrupting bad actors and fraudulent accounts was proactive, collaborative, thoughtful, and consistently laser-focused on the voice of the customer.* Participated in sprint reviews and retrospectives and provided recommendations to developers about new functionalities for our tools, tested the updates and improvements, and collaborated within their Agile framework.* Used Excel and SQL to compile incisive and often large investigative reports for bad actor events, fraudulent accounts, and other emerging issues.* I developed a standard operating procedure that contained risk identification guidelines, our different moderation approaches, scheduling for content moderation, and a template for reporting purposes.* Identified and developed several key tooling improvements for the Policy Operations team. For one project, I saved a substantial amount of time on the workstream by eliminating duplicative email protocols and implementing automation and ready-drafted, approved language that our team members could use.* Relied on my strong research and writing skills to draft reports for senior leadership, correspondence with external stakeholders, and standard operating procedures and training material for internal teams.* Worked cross-functionally with our Senior Leadership, Strategy, Legal, and Operations teams to collaborate on developing new investigative methods, sets of policies and protocols, and I advocated for best practices in our moderation strategies.* Used my strong written and verbal communication skills to compile and generate weekly business reports for our leadership and partner teams. Show less * Scoped out and determined whether our team would benefit from the Policy Team Advisor position.* Worked autonomously to provide a roadmap and benchmarks for how I expected to measure success in this position.* Established good relationships within my team, facilitating perceptive reporting on our team wins, challenges, and growth opportunities.* Managed a steep-curved learning culture.* Developed a solid understanding of the software development life cycle with our developer team.* Completed this pilot program with my colleague, and together we provided a detailed, data-driven motivation for how and why the team’s productivity, development, and confidence would be enhanced through the role. I was ready to move on to program management at the time, but the role was successfully created, and since duplicated in another sister team. Show less

  • Policy and Risk Management Specialist at Goodreads

    Mar 2021 - Sept 2022

  • Policy Team Advisor (pilot program) at Goodreads

    Oct 2021 - Jan 2022

  • Customer Support Expert Team Manager at Goodreads

    Sept 2020 - Feb 2021

  • Customer Support Expert at Goodreads

    Jul 2019 - Sept 2020

  • Customer Support Associate - Kindle Direct Publishing

    Jan 2019 - Jul 2019
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  Toronto International Film Festival

  May 2023 - Sept 2023

  Project Coordinator (Invitations and Juries), Festival Programming
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  Toronto International Film Festival

  Apr 2024 - Sept 2024

  Project Coordinator (Invitations and Juries), Festival Programming