Born and raised in Malaysia and hailing from a Chinese-Malay background, my father introduced me to the sport of squash at 8 years old, a sport that became a significant part of my life for the next decade and a half. From a young age, I led a strict and rigid lifestyle to strike a delicate balance between my achievements in academia and sports. This no doubt has taught me great discipline, resilience, and time management skills that continued to serve me well to this day.
How it all started
My Journey to the Ivy League
As the top 4 Malaysian junior national player, I competed at the World Junior Championships in India. My positive performance earned the recognition of the US Squash Head Coach who later recruited me to join the University of Pennsylvania's Varsity Squash Team. I worked tirelessly to overcome the entrance exam and application challenges to successfully gain admission to the University of Pennsylvania through both my academic and sports achievements, an invaluable opportunity that I would otherwise not have been able to afford due to my humble upbringing.
I continued my squash journey at Penn in 2012. My hard work and determination earned me a 4-time All American status where I led the team to its first Ivy League Championship title in six years and its first National Championship Game in 4 years all while managing a challenging academic workload as a full-time student.
Once my final season of squash ended at Penn, I knew that I did not want my squash success to further define me and was determined to see what else I can achieve.
After graduating in 2016, while my peers moved on to consulting and finance jobs, I took a chance on a job opportunity at a Ski Resort outside of Aomori in rural Northern Japan. I was hired by the Chairman and principal owner of the resort to improve the local resort's international presence through new business development and international sales and marketing initiatives. One of the highlights of my career there was successfully driving the strategic initiative of transforming the resort into an Olympic training ground where we were a proud host of 30 Olympic athletes, 12 Paralympic athletes, and 10 medalists for the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Games.
Starting a new chapter in Japan
My experience in Japan motivated me to expand my business insights and technical skillset to aid my long-term career progression. That brought me to pursue my MBA at McGill University in Montreal, Canada in 2019. My goal for the MBA was to concretize my business fundamentals and technical skillset to pivot into the technology industry, as I had developed a passion for innovative technology. I also wanted to be at the forefront of digital transformation that was rapidly changing the world we live in. The pace at which technology was changing the world was further amplified by the global pandemic in 2020 when our MBA cohort was the guinea pigs in helping the university navigate through a fully remote learning environment.
Moving to the Great White North
When the world was navigating through a period of a global shutdown during the pandemic, the importance of an online presence became crucial for the survival of businesses. This opened up an opportunity for me to successfully make my debut in the technology industry at a company that built a more cost-effective no-low code product to simplify and power compelling mobile applications to bridge the app gap.
I started working at Bryj Technologies during my 2nd year as an MBA student and my drive and results-oriented work ethic allowed me to quickly rise up from an intern without any prior technical expertise in this field to a Lead Technical Project Manager within 1 year. I continued to build and maintain mobile applications for high-value enterprise customers and as the lead, I was able to enhance my leadership skills to better empathize with and empower the team to reach their full potential and do their best work.
The start of my Technology Career
After living in Montreal for 3 years, I felt it was due for a change and a recent visit to Vancouver made me fall in love with the city and its proximity to the serene mountains and beaches. As someone who loves the outdoors, it felt like the perfect city in Canada for my next adventure and I moved here in August 2022.
Additionally, after being in a product-focused Technical Project Manager role for close to 2 years where I led the full product development cycle of mobile applications, it further ignited my interest in product management and working with cross-functional teams to build digital solutions with the most optimal user and business value. Hence, after a small career break to self-reflect and recharge after my move, I am ready to whole-heartedly experience what Vancouver has to offer while I embark on my new journey as a Product Manager at Rezgo. I'm excited to be able to combine my resort management, product management, and technical skillset to help Rezgo build the best possible software product for tours, activities, and experience providers worldwide!
Where I am now and my future plans
As Neale Donald Walsch says: “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” My life began again when I stepped out of my comfort zone of the four-walled squash courts and took the three flights to rural Japan to rediscover myself. I've continued to expand the boundaries of my comfort zone since that experience, whether that's moving across continents or switching my career to a new industry, I have come out from these experiences more informed about myself and what I want to achieve. I am determined to further expand the boundaries of my comfort zone and continue to live and do the things that would help me continuously strive to become a better version of myself.
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone....
