#RemarkableWomenStories

Welcome to our?#RemarkableWomenStories! This series features RWS?#female?professionals, representing a variety of?#leadership?levels, geographical areas, ages, and professional expertise. Our remarkable women will share their career journeys, the women who have inspired them, and why RWS is an empowering place to work with great diversity and inclusion, work-life balance, and growth opportunities.

This week in #RemarkableWomenStories, Nancy Tao is under our spotlight.

Tell us about your career journey up to now:

I am leading the sales, marketing and presales team in APAC, as sales VP, to provide language and content solution to our large enterprise accounts, and drive new growth with sales strategy, planning and team execution in this region with our footprints spread across Japan, China, Korea, Singapore, and India. I joined the company in 2007, and spent the first 10 years developing the China market as GM role, in recent years extending my role into APAC markets. Before I joined the localization industry, I had spent about 5 years in Lenovo and IBM as sales and marketing manager where I started my career.?

?What has been the key to your success?

I am very lucky that I selected a job I really like, and I also have a great team in APAC working with me.

I love challenges and that’s why I’m excited about starting up a new market or business. There are lots of challenges during the whole start-up process. To start with, you need to target the right customers and grow with them to expand the business. You need to do client mapping, tailor solution to each targeted industry and keep adjusting and fine-tuning your strategies till you get the new logo and new win. You succeed only when your customer is successful. I do enjoy this start-up journey and cherish every moment of winning. Success also relies heavily on the talent and I do enjoy working with talented people, and building a culture that promotes collaboration amid the team.

I should say I am privileged to have an amazing team to work with along the journey. It is the secret to winning and success. I have many great talents in my team, as sales, marketers and professional consultants for different product lines, and they all have rich experiences in their own territory. As a leader, what I need to do is to make sure shared goal is clear to everyone in the team, and everyone knows how we can work together in order to gain the result efficiently.

To sum up, my secret sauce to success is comprised of steadfast faith, teamwork and a well-aligned goal and vision.

?Are there any women who have inspired you along the way?

Carly Fiorina, she was the first female CEO of Hewlett-Packard. I still remember the first time I saw Carly on TV, I just got my university degree, and was about to start my career. I remember the excitement after I heard Carly’s speech, hoping that one day I would become a successful woman like her. 4 weeks later, I launched an HR website company as the founder with two other classmates. I think that decision was largely impacted by Carly. And till now, I still follow her on social media. Her story and her book “Tough Choices” inspire me a lot.

How has RWS supported your career development?

RWS is a great place to work at. It is a very big platform with a wide array of great talents in the industry. From a sales point of view, no doubt RWS is my number 1 choice as employer in the industry. Because not only can we sell language services, we can also combine other technical products into our solution, such as Translation Management Systems (TMS), Machine Translation (MT) and Content Management Systems (CMS), to create a competitive and unique end-to-end solution offering that really addresses customers’ pain points. The enriched solution combination is key to winning big deals that not only brings in high revenue but also appeals to the C-level of our customers as they recognize the strategic value of our total solution and resonate with the vision we paint as our sales story is seamlessly in line with the digital transformation phenomenon. It is so important for the sales team that the company product and solution could support us to sell and achieve more beyond translation.?

?What are the most important attributes of, and how can RWS develop, more female leaders?

In general, there are more women than men working in the localization industry. We see a similar trend in RWS and the company is committed to creating work environments where all our female colleagues are valued and respected through a variety of initiatives and programs. In addition, female colleagues are encouraged to shine and offered the opportunities to become leaders across different functional teams - this series of Remarkable Women Stories is a testament to the effort by the company. Moreover, we do not stop at promoting female leadership, RWS continues the investment to provide the support, coaching and mentoring to ensure our leaders could be successful in their role and bring positive impact on the team. ?The “growth mindset” is deeply embedded in our company culture and I see it as a critical attribute in all great leaders.

?What piece of advice would you give to women starting out at RWS which you would like to have been given?

For someone new to RWS, RWS has established an online treasure trove full of useful knowledge base and training program which I strongly encourage everyone to explore. RWS also has lots of great leaders and talents, who are willing to share and help. So, I do encourage new starters to proactively connect with colleagues in different functional teams and seek help with their direct manager or managers in the company when encountering problems. RWS is not hierarchical - we promote cross-team/division collaboration and knowledge sharing. This allows one to step out of one’s comfort zone for continuous learning and growth.

Finally, for any talented female readers interested in joining us here at RWS, can you tell us why RWS is such a great place for women to work?

Sure, I love this question! I would be more than happy to tell her that, RWS gives everyone an equal chance to grow. We have many successful female leaders in the company from different countries, playing very important roles across different functions, so RWS has a proven track record in this regard. RWS also recognizes the importance of empowering women to success, so the company creates the community and chatting group for women to share freely their opinions with the company. I could proudly say that RWS has a great atmosphere and environment that supports the growth and development of female talents.

?Do you want to be surrounded by these inspiring women? Discover our?career page!