Tuesday, October 25, 2022

It pays to keep an open mind, and to listen and learn

How has your life experience made you the leader you are today?

I an privileged to have lived a fairly comfortable life, and I owe this to the dedication and commitment of my parents. The security that they provided alongside the sacrifices they made during my childhood have shaped me into the leader I am today. The values that they instilled in me remain in me till this day, and I strongly believe that without these values I would not be where I am today.

Alongside my parents, I have also been lucky enough to be surrounded by great friends, both at school and university. I can never underestimate their contributions towards shaping me as a person.

What traits do you look for in your talent or how do you decide who is right for a job?

At Foodpanda, first and foremost we believe in staying humble and taking ownership. These are also the main traits I look for in anyone we hire. We also believe in empowering our people to take risks and run things as they see fit, as long as we stay true to our values.

We are a heavy data-driven organisation, and a large part of our success comes from our people seeing things that others don’t. Therefore, being analytical as well as being able to think differently is what attracts us towards great talent.

How do you think the industry you are in will evolve?

There is innovation happening every day in our industry. It is hard to predict precisely what the future could look like within the q-commerce space, but I am convinced that we will experience more automation, especially within the logistics segment. It is highly likely that autonomous vehicles (including robots and drones) will be delivering food and more in the future.

In addition, artificial intelligence will play a pivotal role in customer experience – at some point, we will know what food you want before even you do! The bottom line – we expect to remove decision making from the customer experience altogether.

What do you want to accomplish in the next five years?

I would like Foodpanda to make a positive change in everyone’s lives in Malaysia. We want to be a force for good, and this includes improving the environment we work in. I am hoping that we can play an active role in helping reduce carbon emissions and becoming a greener organisation overall.

It is also important for us to play a leading role in nation building activities within Malaysia, and this includes being able to digitise the economic landscape even faster – we hope to do this by being at the forefront of innovation and bringing cutting edge technologies to the market.

Most-admired business leader? Why?

Steve Jobs because of his conviction, clarity of thought and decisiveness.

How do you stay abreast of issues affecting your industry?

I make an effort during the day to try and browse the most relevant news sites and portals. I am also fortunate enough to be involved in active chats with colleagues from all across the region, in which we talk about the latest happenings in the tech space. I have also been an active podcast listener for a couple of years now – one of my favourite podcasts is called The Pivot. The show breaks down all the most important global issues and has a strong focus on tech news.

If you could have an hour with any thought leader in the world, who would it be and why?

Scott Galloway, co-host of the The Pivot podcast. He is heavily involved in the tech space and can see things that may only come to being a few months or a few years from now. He has a great sense of foresight, and it would be amazing to hear his thoughts on how sees the general tech space evolving.

What has been the biggest challenge you have faced? What did you learn from it?

There have been many challenges that I had had to deal with from a business context. The biggest challenge has probably revolved around managing and leading a team with so many different personalities. Our diversity makes us strong, however it’s always difficult to stay personally connected with an ever-growing team.

Being a people person myself, I always enjoy mingling and connecting with everyone at Foodpanda, regardless of who they are or what they do. I enjoy keeping as little distance as possible between myself and the entire Foodpanda team, however it’s definitely becoming more challenging to maintain this.

In every challenge, there is always something we can learn – in my case, I learnt that it’s still important to be seen and heard, regardless of whether we have 10 employees or 1,000.

Even though I may not be able to connect with everyone individually, the team still looks for guidance and direction, and this needs to come from the top. It’s hard to align everyone to a common goal, but it is really important to drive everyone in the same direction.

Malaysia’s greatest brand.

Foodpanda of course!

A must-read for every business owner/manager is ...

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou and Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

What are the top three factors you would attribute your success to?

One, keeping an open mind; two, embracing failure and moving on; and, three, listening and learning.



Source: The Sun Daily

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