Your network is your net worth

I am still thankful to the COO named Kent Chuang that used to work at the same place as me because without his help, I might not be able to meet a headhunter by the name Jin Su. She was the one that placed me in Guinness Anchor Berhad back in 2005. I joined the company as Brand Executive and I still remember the HR Manager by the name Eugene that gave me the offer letter. He is definitely not the person that I would consider as friend because when I asked whether the offer is negotiable, he just told me that take it or leave it.

It was an eye opener moving from a SME to MNC which obviously there are a lot of things to learn and pick up. I was reporting to the Marketing Manager for Heineken for a short period before the Trade Marketing department being set up and I was moved to Trade Marketing. It was the worst time for me and feel like hell going to office everyday as I was reporting to a lady boss that does not provide guidance and direction, worse is that she will put all the blames on me and take the credit for herself.

My corporate education started here when one of the senior managers actually pull me over and asked me to meet up that night with few other managers for a drink. Little did I know that manager by the name of Billy noticed my situation and quickly ask another manager to take me over to do sales. I was under tremendous pressure because my manager at that time even ask me to sort out the issue with Marketing even though it was her fault and if I can’t settle it, she is expecting my resignation letter on her table. Of course fast forward now, I could have take it up against her for “forced resignation” or can build up the case and leading up to “constructive dismissal”. Back then I was just innocent and na?ve so I thought I will lose my job.

I was lucky enough to be able to move to sales and the rest is history. After few years in sales, I have spent a lot of my time building network and soon most of the sales person knows about me despite I am only handling the off-trade channel. Later on, I must thank another noble person that was my manager Ang Leong. He led the team and me for the next 2 years before leaving us to Europe. We still keep in touch and through this network, I have moved over to London for 3 years leading the market expansion for Lee Kum Kee in Europe. When I returned back to Malaysia, it was again Jin Su that hooked me up to Fonterra. I continue believe in building network before moving on to Dulux. It was such a small world that the HR Director was once the HR Director in GAB. That makes the hiring process a little easier and faster.

It was not long before I got headhunted again to Avery Dennison which is a new industry and handling regional role. I still have a wide network of friends especially in Thailand which help since I am on regional role and need to travel regularly to Thailand. Now I am attached to CTOS and when I meet up some of my ex-colleague from GAB, they will still say good things about me in front of my new colleague.

That is why in order to move up in the corporate, if you want to get that promotion, increment or even moving to another company, it is not a straight forward career path by working hard and doing your job well. Building network has been the basic fundamental of the career progression and if you are able to understand Chinese, I would recommend you to watch a TVB series name Another Era 再創世紀.Duncan actually said this well “The people that work for you are being paid salary and they commit their time for your company. It is just purely a business transaction and doesn’t mean they are your people.”

In the corporate, when you move higher in the organization chart, it is far more important to have your own people than to think that the one that reporting to you are your people.