Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep30: How I climbed up the corporate ladder.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. In today's podcast, I want to share about my journey up the corporate career ladder in the past 10 years of me working in the corporate world. Recently, I've been getting some comments such as,

Starting point is 00:00:42 Oh, you look too young to have actually done anything in the corporate world at all. You look too young to have any real experience leading people and teams. So that was something I've been told very recently and how wrong they are. How wrong they are. In fact, yes, I've had a lot of experience, in fact, very intense experience as well. So I thought I'll share it via this podcast today, like a quick and nicely summarized story of my corporate career, the roles that I've taken and some of the key points around that, how I transitioned as well. So I'm originally a trained accountant,

Starting point is 00:01:29 so I'm a charter certified accountant by the UK and later on by Singapore. So I had the unfortunate timing of graduating in late 2008, early 2009. As you guys remember, it's the financial crisis, so pretty much there were no jobs available. I was still quite naive at the time. I didn't actually think about applying for roles that were related to my, I guess, degree or master's, if you will. What I did was I did a three-month stint at an events management company. So why did I join an events management company? Well, I thought, well, the corporate world is going to be tricky, it's going to be dynamic and fast-paced.

Starting point is 00:02:19 Which industry is just like the extreme of all of that, if I would really want to learn something so I thought huh events and you know it looks really fun on the outside but let me just actually go and try it out so I did I did an internship for three months it was crazy uh it was crazy uh we were right at that time we were kind of launching a youth event in Penang, Penang, Malaysia, where I'm from. So I kind of joined some of the senior project managers and we went visiting sponsors to get sponsorship for some of the events, for example, like the CSR activities where we're doing with the kids we also went into

Starting point is 00:03:05 negotiations with suppliers you know who were supplying the stage equipment for some of the concerts and the booths and whatnot so I would say that early on you know I managed to pick up some of the skills such as like communication negotiation and of course adaptability because what is constant in events like everything is everything changes all the time so anyway it won't go so much detail into into the job um yeah after three months i thought okay fine let's it's time to kind of go back to what i was actually trained to do because in the accountancy course you would need um a relevant working experience before i can apply for like the license so i joined a very small external audit firm in penang so this external audit firm not

Starting point is 00:03:54 just covers like external audit a little bit of internal audit taxation they also provided like accountancy services some of the ipo launches as well. For the finance guys, I'm sure you know what I mean. I was there for about almost a year. I mean, while I was thankful that I had a job, it was definitely a very challenging one. So recently someone also asked me like, did you, you know, with your degree, did you, you know, get an did you uh you know get an accelerated

Starting point is 00:04:26 role whereby you were just paid really well and then you know you were earmarked for success or something no unfortunately not so i started from ground zero started from scratch so join this company there were a lot of challenges also because um it was a very small company they hired a lot of um graduates from local universities in Malaysia and if you're familiar with the culture here a lot of them especially those who study accountancy they used to study Chinese in school or Chinese is the dominant language at home or at work and whatever not so Chinese is not my dominant language I actually speak a dialect and I mostly speak English. So it was really challenging to get to know your colleagues and, you know, to actually

Starting point is 00:05:15 communicate with them because we are not exactly talking in the same medium and, you know, the level of understanding obviously is quite different so communication was challenged and because of communication and maybe to me even listening skills as well because when you kind of fully understand a person's language and the way they express themselves then it's quite difficult to actually listen very intently because half the time you're just wondering what what are they actually saying so anyway um yeah so those were some of the big challenges. I got to run quite interesting portfolios as well. And I joined some of the bosses for client pitches because I could present myself quite well, like in terms of the way I speak and so forth. So that gave me

Starting point is 00:06:00 a little bit of an extra opportunity, even though I was with a very, very small company and started with extremely low pay. Yeah, so after about a year, the economy recovered a little bit. I decided, okay, fine, I'm going to try to apply for, I would like to join a bigger accounting firm. So one of my colleagues had a friend in Singapore who kind of referred me to join Earns & Young, which is one of the biggest global accounting firms in the world. And then I did. I moved to Singapore. I joined the Earns & Young Financial Services Department. So this is the team. I mean, this is essentially the department that runs audit reviews of banks, insurance companies, fund managers, the actual fund administrators.

Starting point is 00:06:57 And aside from that, a lot of regulatory compliance reviews so i spent about three and a half years at earns and young where i i pretty much pulled up went up the ranks as well started with a portfolio of a lot of random small companies that honestly nobody really cared about but there was it was a lot of work because every single company had a report so you have if you are working on small companies you had more reports to deal with but if you're working at a big company, essentially it's only one report. So more hard work, time management was crazy, a lot of juggling, multiple projects, multiple expectations because how an audit firm works is it is highly matrixed. So you may be working for several, several managers at one time. They are all responsible for their respective

Starting point is 00:07:42 projects and it is your job to run that. So i was a senior there i also had team members working for me on specific projects so that was where leadership skills project management skills time management skills were all picked up so i would say those are some of the key ones that i picked up um well i also won't go very much into detail on that after that after about three and a half years at ernst and young there was an opportunity to join visa in fact i discovered it on linkedin um i registered on linkedin in 2012 so uh yeah yeah 2012 and i kind of had a profile there. So in 2013, as I was sort of browsing the platform, I noticed that, okay, that's an opening position at Visa, obviously it's one of the biggest payment companies in the world alongside with Mastercard and American Express.

Starting point is 00:08:38 So I thought, okay, it's a regional internal auditor role. As part of the role, I would get to travel, which is something that I love personally. And it seems like we get to interact with people from different cultures, which is also something I really enjoyed. So I went for it. I applied, got it after six rounds of interview, both in Singapore as well as colleagues in the US. So interview across all levels, like directors and the VPs and everyone else.

Starting point is 00:09:09 So I got the job. So when I decided to take the job, people think that I was crazy. Why would you move away from banking to join this payments company that's pretty much a, I mean, it's considered an MNC, but apparently not as prestigious as banking. How the tides have turned with all the fintech payment companies popping out now.

Starting point is 00:09:29 But I digress. So I joined Visa. Initially, it was extremely fun because we got to travel every two, three months to visit a city where the main offices were located. So with Visa, I've been to Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, San Francisco, Red Cross City. I've also been to KL, Manila. It was really fun. I traveled quite nicely as well on business class more than half of the time, stayed in very beautiful hotels.

Starting point is 00:10:09 And more importantly, during the reviews, we got to really interact with the local colleagues and really learn about the cultures there and so forth. So it was really, really fun. So after almost two years at Visa, even when I was at Visa, I was really working on like different internal control projects. So really like picking up different skills as well. Because audit is audit. And audit sometimes is seen as a policeman and nobody actually likes that. So I was working on like

Starting point is 00:10:35 kind of building controls, like building frameworks with one of my ex-bosses, really establishing a new process, a new department as one of the side things that I was doing. I was also helping my department head on reports that he would send to his boss so kind of identifying the key points and being really able to articulate and collate and deliver that so those Those were some of the things that I did. And after about two years with Visa, I got headhunted by Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore. So again, it was actually on LinkedIn. So I had a pretty nicely done profile and I pretty much got the call and asked me if I would be keen to join a newly established department. It's a pioneer team to work on some of the regulatory remediation that Standard Chartered found themselves caught up in. And what they really liked was my previous experience as an auditor, so someone who is kind of very detailed. And I used to do a lot of reports as well, because for regulatory audits, you need a

Starting point is 00:11:50 lot of reports for the government. Aside from that, they also liked that I traveled quite a bit across the region. So in terms of like being able to manage cross-border project, cross-cultural, all those sort of fit the bill. So I was headhunted and I pretty much got the job in after two interviews, which was great. And yeah, and I jumped onto it. I initially started as a senior associate because they said that, oh, you know, you were never really in banking, so we couldn't start you with managers. So I said, okay, fine. So I started with a senior

Starting point is 00:12:24 associate because I thought, what an amazing opportunity to join international bank so I'm like fine I'll forego the title for now and just like actually go for the opportunity then actually three months down the road um there was an opening for a manager in fact yeah at a managerial level, and I was given it. So basically, in three months, I did get the position that I wanted in the first place. So in terms of the role, what I did with Standard Chartered was I ran due diligence review across the regions where we would visit banks and assess their financial crime controls program and then provide some feedback on that. So these banks are actually clients of Standard Chartered Bank as part of

Starting point is 00:13:10 the correspondent banking portfolio. So I did some travel around that. Of course, all the skills I picked up in audit were 100% useful because these visits are ran in a project mode. And at the end of it, there will be a report, there will be a list of suggestions, which is exactly what I did with EY. It's just that, of course, it's a different context, it's with a different company right now. So after that, I also, I gradually transitioned to run, to create reporting, to run governance committees and create reporting so what that meant was that i was essentially chairing and managing the um the governance committees in charge of making decision so i would run those meetings i would manage the presentation packs our lives with all the stakeholders and make sure that's done and similar to reporting as well like identifying what needs to go into the report

Starting point is 00:14:09 and really outlining it and presenting it in a way that can be understood and gradually even from there the bank decided to launch a multi-million dollar project to manage some of the the challenges and the deficiencies that were identified and and yeah I mean I was selected to be the key stakeholder representing my team I think I was maybe 26 or 27 at that time so this is a multi-million dollar project at the business side I think if I recall like all my stakeholders were almost 40 years or 40 if not 50 year old because the they are ceos of their respective departments their business units and these projects were all ran by um were all involved by very senior directors so i was like a really new

Starting point is 00:14:58 junior manager and like okay fine like you know i'm actually gonna run this so i did quite a lot of that it was it was a really really crazy time we can't go into detail here it's just just too much um yeah but you know from the regional role where i was managing where i was we were running around probably about 10 countries i ended up running cross-functional projects which include movement in 43 markets as well as maybe about 20 departments in terms of like really getting people to deliver what they have to deliver project tracking i was working with the team the regulatory team that were reviewing center charters bank controls the regulators i worked with too many managing directors I cannot even recall how many they were

Starting point is 00:15:45 so many so many of them normally someone with my rank would not have been able to do yeah but it definitely lots of skills that I had to pick up and these were these are currently the skills that I advocate and I teach you communication, you really need to listen to what people want, because time is limited. You need to manage expectations very clearly, not just with your boss, but all the stakeholders, you need to make sure that you are getting along with everyone. And you are able to create win-win relationships, because that's how you get sustainability and support, where people will want to support you because it benefits them as well. There's something in it for them. And in terms of like creative thinking, absolutely,

Starting point is 00:16:32 because I was running a new team, so there were no existing framework or structures or everything had to be built from scratch. Decision making very quickly as well and very accurately because every decision that we took had to be recorded reported and ultimately will be audited will be monitored and audited back to the bank so at one point i was pretty much the gatekeeper so whenever i say go and the report 100 just actually go to the regulator itself, right? And then it will translate in the formal report back to the bank once a year.

Starting point is 00:17:10 So that was what I did as a financial crime compliance officer with a lot of strategic projects under my belt. And I took a couple of month breaks in between because I had some personal issues back in Penang. So I went home, kind of took a break, spent time with my family. Then after that, one of the business stakeholders that I was working with asked me, hey, are you ready to come back with the bank? I would really want you to join my team. So this is the team. This was a team that I heavily supported. So they were one of my key stakeholders. And essentially, I did join their team. So that's why I continue to preach

Starting point is 00:17:50 on how important is it to build a win-win relationships, making sure that you are known, and someone actually recognizes and sponsors you, because you never know when the opportunities will come. And if I had just blown off all my bridges and like why why would in fact this team is quite funny because as a compliance officer I had to take very objective views so sometimes I would have I would say no to whatever that they wanted but what how interesting is it that they still actually wanted to hire me so I thought that was quite amazing so I did join the team so it's partial risk management partial business management where we were already um running portfolios so this is

Starting point is 00:18:31 the money making side of it the business so the portfolio management um the communication with every single um region for revenue numbers as well as some kIs that they should not hit so all in all in total I think we had about we had about 43 markets to deal with so I ran monthly meetings with all these respective regions the leads I also had a team that worked for me based in Singapore I also had another team working for me in Indiaia so the whole cross border cross cultural cross timing as well and a lot of people i think at one point i'm probably working with like thousands of people at some point in time my emails were constantly filled with like i think i'd get about maybe two three hundred emails a day so striving strive to keep that

Starting point is 00:19:22 like a zero email policy wherever I can. So needing to make sure that you're sort of on top of everything. And yeah, and then gradually, you know, the whole FinTech thing kind of, you know, zoomed up. So the bank took a strategic decision to actually build up this business. So I was already running the portfolio for the bank side. Ultimately, this FinTech portfolio was also given to my managing director. So I was responsible to build up the entire governance committee for that, where it was highly protocol.

Starting point is 00:19:58 So I had to do a lot of digging and seeing how structurally it would work and identifying all the key stakeholders connecting with all of them making sure that they are happy to participate my committee and really supporting that sort of end-to-end in terms of like decision making and what is in for them so I won't go into a lot lot of detail because it will never never end just I just I'm just now thinking of like all the stuff that I have already done and was that it was crazy and of course you know when you're managing people everybody has their needs and everybody is different so I also had to identify find time to to coach them on their professional growth even their personal growth as well because

Starting point is 00:20:42 sometimes like it's the personal stuff and their personal blocks that mean maybe they have been in there they're in certain habits for a long time it's affecting them professionally at work and not really vice versa so um that's what i normally recommend to my clients right now we need to identify some of the habits that you've had for a long time that's interfering with how you're behaving at work right because some of these things are not exactly picked up when you're working it's just that you've really had it for a long time um yeah and then after that you know I I thought yeah I like a little bit more flexibility and I like to return home to Malaysia, which I am currently where I'm currently currently located. So I moved and I took up a professional coaching certification and kind of like, you know, really launched my coaching program and like my new life as a coach.

Starting point is 00:21:42 So a lot of people ask me, like me like you know how do you know if your method works well I always tell them I know it works because I really made it work for me and I don't think you can find many coaches out there who can really say I've been there done that I know I really know how you are feeling and I really empathize with that because it is a situation that not many people understand and I think that you know the client a lot of the clients that I work with they are also very young high performers meaning that they have achieved you know they are in managerial positions director positions they are the only young face there because when I was in meetings in the past I was literally the only young person and a lot of times I was mistaken as a secretary which was really unpleasant but

Starting point is 00:22:29 it just shows you that is the reality and that is something that you will just have to work through to command that respect and still make sure that people respect you and want to help you enough because you are valuable and obviously you deserve to be there right so i mean for me to say in like two minutes sounds really easy but of course you know when i work with my clients we actually go through in detail as to how we can we can get there and i understand their personality what has what has made them successful and then we can pivot from there because at a different level the requirement is different so if you were to behave exactly how you're behaving right now and expect the next level of success, it's not going to happen. Not going to happen. Yeah. So the lessons here is be open to opportunities, but

Starting point is 00:23:18 once you have grabbed the opportunity, you need to actually level up because expectations are really high. You can't just say that, okay, yeah, yeah you know someone's going to teach me no so when they hire when people hire a high performer you're expected to to be high performing exactly so whatever that you need to fix at the back end right you need to level up you need to enhance you need to improve all these skills right or clear thinking be time management be strategic thinking da da da like you actually have to go and fix it right and that's what i specialize in doing with my my clients and a lot of them are very ambitious which helps a lot um from an inner motivation perspective um yeah i mean it's really it's been a really really fun journey so far um and i'm fully aware that my corporate experience is very unique so it can definitely benefit those

Starting point is 00:24:07 who are really ambitious they they want to get to the next level they are not happy or they don't think they'll be satisfied 10 years down the road where they can't if they're just stuck where they currently are aside from that these are people who who want to avoid knocking themselves on the wall like avoid embarrassment avoid reputation problems because if they were to try which they can but sometimes you know i always tell people in corporate the reputation is not so easily redeemable once it's once it's like tarnished it takes a really really long time for you to untarnish it if you will so so yeah that's a quick well i guess it's not exactly a quick story i realize i've been talking for almost half an hour but i hope you guys had a bit more understanding

Starting point is 00:24:58 about my career and some of the challenges i've managed to overcome. And yes, anyway, finally, I forgot to say that finally, I was made Senior Director at Standard Chartered Bank, which took me from the point that I joined, probably about four and a half years, which would normally take someone maybe 15 years. Yeah. So, yeah. And I hope you got some insights from my story today.

Starting point is 00:25:24 And if you feel that you are that person who could really benefit from my experience you feel that whatever I said you know resonate with you you think that this could be something that would help bring you to the next level I spoke about some of the challenges that you're currently facing yeah i mean reach out to me reach out to me on linkedin or um you know send me an mail and yeah i would love to chat with you and see how i can help you so see ya bye

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep30: How I climbed up the corporate ladder.

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