The Road Less Travelled

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

~ Robert Frost

I ventured out to work immediately after my A levels to gain some working experience. I didn’t take the normal route to University like most of my peers. Back then there were only two universities available - National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University. How fortunate today’s generation is. More options and even more variety of courses to choose now!

At the young age of 19, I started out as a Junior Secretary then Secretary at Suez Asia Holdings. It was an investment arm, which was part of the Banque Indosuez group. Along the way, my ex-boss, Philip Chan had faith in me and told me to stretch my potential. Upon his constant encouragement, I decided to do a part-time degree at Singapore Institute of Management while working.

It was truly tough! A real test of mental and physical strength; determination and perseverance. Three times a week, I studied so hard that I burnt through all my weekends in a blink of an eye. I did not have holidays and rest time. All my finances and leave were utilised just to cater for my course. Were the sacrifices worth it? Definitely, as I embarked on my exciting marketing and communications journey and worked my way up.

My first big break in Marketing came when I was working at Fujitsu and tasked to take care of Asia Pacific especially the China market. I experienced different cultures and personalities from overseas sales, marketing and management teams, and our business partners as well. I had my touch and feel in many field marketing activities like event management, PR, advertising etc. Set foot in countries like China, Taiwan, India, Australia, Thailand etc. The list went on.

I moved on and explored Corporate Social Responsibility and Community Relations at McDermott as part of my marketing communications portfolio. Although it was about a year, but I experienced inner satisfaction on fundraising. We partnered with various companies like ExxonMobil and BHP Billiton, to raise funds in building homes for the Indonesian orphans. To these orphans, pure happiness came with a roof over their heads. Their homes were very simple and scarcely furnished (as you can see from the photos below). But nothing beats the joy of seeing the smiles of young, innocent children!

Later, fundraising and communications at Tan Tock Seng Hospital widened my perspectives on how poor and underprivileged our community is. Together with my Corporate Communications colleague, we brought the media to interview one of the charity’s beneficiaries. I was moved to tears during the media interview when Madam Yew shared with us about her bittersweet life experience since young. Despite her gangrenous lower half of her left leg amputated, which was caused by diabetes, she went behind the wheel again to support her family.

My stints at RugGear and GRID were also eye-opening and rewarding experiences for me. At RugGear, I went on to do a global role and liaised with other overseas RugGear partners on marketing campaigns and promotions. I picked up additional skills on retail marketing and enhanced my product marketing knowledge. Local and overseas media came to know more about RugGear brand during the CommunicAsia and Mobile and Electronics Sourcing Fair through my transferable skill sets of media pitch and acting as PR contact liaison.

On the other hand, GRID brought me deeper in the world of digital marketing and product marketing I was thrust to build the Marketing Qualified Leads in digital space from almost ground zero, collaborating with various digital/SEM agencies together with my Executive. For product marketing, I went through some of the product life cycle stages. From introduction like pushing out Go-To-Market strategies in terms of promotion, pricing etc. to growth and maturity of constantly engaging customers and acquiring new customers so as to increase sales pipeline and revenue.

The human side of working at GRID was when I witnessed my CEO retire after more than 15 years. It was emotional yet he deserved the golden handshake after growing the company by leaps and bounds.

Indeed, a road less travelled may seem like a scary choice at first, but sometimes, it can lead us to truly amazing destinations, experiences and opportunities. Even if it scares us, we need to step out of our comfort zones and take a trip of discovery.

I hope to continue my journey as a Marketing professional and constantly acquire lifelong learning, as well as use my experiences and knowledge gained to further contribute to the next company as I move on.