My CAREER JOURNEY
About me.
This is the story of my journey thus far..
It is in my innate personality to be drawn to people, teams, organisation and leaders that are driven by innovation, productivity and inspiration. That is the reason why I do what I do, to lead and build products that can make a difference. I believe those that came before me; wherever I reside, has left hidden marks or trails for us to continue the journey of improvements. We just need to look a bit deeper and maximise our skills to build for the future and be in-line to leave our creation behind for another to pick up.
So is that infinite game, we will never win or lose, we just progress.
So is that infinite game, we will never win or lose, we just progress.
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I started my career as a software tester in Motorola Software Group straight after I graduated, a job where I never dreamt that I would pick up as I major in Computer Software Engineering and aspire to be a Solution Architect. That was the starting point and a very interesting career journey was pathed for me from that point in time with unexpected twists and turns. So I would like to tell you my journey, my purpose and hopefully, by the end of it, maybe you would be part of my next chapter or a key person within it.
In 2005, I was offered a software tester job specialising in system test for the CDMA network. In that few years, I configured indoor BTS systems, Cisco switches, routers and executed system testing tools for performance and fault monitoring. I had this mental note that if I can master my daily work to be completed in less time, I could spend my remaining time awake in developing and coding automation scripts. I have observed in Motorola, how inefficient system tests are executed and there got to be a better way. That was my first hand spearheading innovation solutions within a global group through building test scripts to execute automated system tests allowing my testing colleagues to reduce 80% of mundane tests and focus on 20% in catching more hidden bugs.
2 years later, I joined a mediation software company (Comptel Communications) as a system analyst and propelled my career to become a Presales Consultant within 5 years. At this juncture, I have led a team of 5, comprising of developers and QA to migrate Digi’s mediation solution for billing within a year. As my combined technical and business knowledge has gained immense visibility including the ability to lead a delivery team to zero defect for launch, I was promoted to be a Presales Consultant. My first win as a technical consultant alongside an amazing sales team was with SmarTone, Hong Kong. At the same time I was very actively working on an in-house side hustle, where I simulated an online demo in a mobile laptop to showcase to customers the next-gen mediation and billing system that can perform real-time processing, detection and decisioning for recommendations using billing data. This sparked my deeper interest in customer experience management and analytics where I ventured into Axiata Intelligence & Analytics Unit.
During my days in Axiata, the works of data science, analytics, customer experience management has gained tremendous interest and I co-managed a Digital and Marketing Analytics team that focuses on building analytical software products using big data promoting data-driven analytics in the area of marketing and digital marketing. This achievement allows our team’s research to be shared to Axiata OpCos (Celcom Malaysia, XL Indonesia, Dialog Sri Lanka and Robi Bangladesh) to built chatbot analytics to be embedded in Facebook social media and credit scoring for digital financial services with key OpCos stakeholders.
In 2017, I joined the Maxis Consumer Business team as a Product Marketing Manager to conceptualise and launch a new brand known as Ookyo for Youth segments. The concept is to formulate an all telco-in-an-app that is 100% digital from registration to customer service, that allows younger generations to subscribe to data plans by purchasing apps. The entire business is operated as a special unit within Maxis as an innovation track to experiment on an entire digital experience driven by technology. The business was developed and launched within a year bringing up the emergence of a digital telco powered by Maxis. We operated the entire business unit with an amazing lean team like a startup attracting youth gamers as the prepaid plan for unlimited data. The experience has brought me immense exposure into a “startup” environment gaining the ability to operate a business from inception, GTM and operations – before I left to join Kiple, a Fintech company in 2018.
In Kiple, our business focus was to build cashless communities among captive segments primarily tertiary education, residential homes and office buildings. I focused on formulating the Digital and Cashless campus (kipleUni) for local universities driving the ecosystem to facilitate university services, merchant payments, aid disbursement and facility booking for students. Our on-ground activation comprises of student activities and programmes to promote cashless behaviour within the school grounds. As the user base increases within the campus zones, our initiatives opened up doors to key strategic partnerships with Visa and banks to widen the merchant spectrum and increase cashless adoption. We were part of the journey to promote a cashless initiative alongside all other e-wallets and digital payments. And I believe, we all have just started this revolution of defeating cash.
From that 16 years ago until now, I have experienced and deep dived in every business major divisions in a company. I truly wish to be apart in building more amazing teams, venturing into new innovations and learning from more experts in any field for many more years to come.
Software Tester, Customer Support, Development Lead, Business Development, Product Marketing and Management, Growth Marketing – —> Head of Consumer and SME Solutions
I practice 3 core principles in my work; be innovative, stay passionate and propagate positivity.
Hopefully, we cross paths one day whether in life or at work.
Gin Wong