Izzy Rapelego’s sho’t left! To success
It is not all work for Izzy though, as a self-proclaimed songbird, you will also find him with his feet up in front of the telly enjoying Nat Geo Wild.
TSOGO Sun has a heritage of long service employees and Izzy Rapelego, cash desk manager at Gold Reef City is certainly a career veteran in this dynamic organisation.
With 27 years of experience, Izzy’s journey in the casino industry started in 1989, as a vault cashier at Sun International Casino and Resorts, gaining valuable experience as a cash desk cashier. This was the beginning of a long and happy career, as he went on to gain experience at some of Tsogo Sun’s best known casinos.
He has travelled all over South Africa to work at top Tsogo Sun properties such as The Ridge in Witbank, Club Mykonos in the Western Cape, Goldfields Casino in Welkom and Gold Reef City.
He said, “In 1998 I was offered an exciting opportunity to be part of the opening team for Tsogo Sun’s Champions Casino in Witbank. As a supervisor I was involved in the training and set up for the opening of the new unit which led to my promotion to shift manager that same year.”
During the October of 1998, at Gold Reef City, Izzy was once again involved in the training and set up preparations for the casino’s opening in Nasrec and in 2001 transferred to Mykonos Casino as a cash desk shift manager. In 2003 he later found himself in the enviable position to be part of yet another opening team as a cash desk manager at Goldfields Casino in the Free State.
Izzy returned to Gold Reef City in 2006 as an assistant cash desk manager and in 2009 he was promoted to cash desk head of department, the role he occupies today, “My time at Gold Reef City has been a great experience and I have been afforded many opportunities for career advancement.” He added, “At Gold Reef City, we are encouraged to exceed our own expectations and with that shared viewpoint, I strive for nothing but the best and I believe with this attitude, I have found my particular niche within the organisation.”
Izzy credits the longevity of his career in the casino industry to the fact that the environment is dynamic and conducive to long-term development of employee skills and career growth.
Izzy has been educated in fraud prevention and risk analysis, a role Izzy takes seriously, “I am responsible for protecting company monetary assets and protecting our guest’s best interests when they are on the property. My in-house training has allowed me to do this job well, I have also received valuable training in other fields such as industrial relations, management development programme, executive leadership development programme, Nine Conversations in Leadership, and money laundering.”
It is not all work for Izzy though, as a self-proclaimed songbird, you will also find him with his feet up in front of the telly enjoying ‘Nat Geo Wild’ or ‘Animal Planet’, which inspire him to one day travel to the Amazon.
He added that the essence of equality runs in his veins, “If I had a super-power, I would wish for the power to instil discipline and good governance in our country within both the political and corporate spectrum. There’s corruption everywhere in our country and as a result poor people are suffering.”
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