# 209 Ying Ying Koh: Life brings lots of surprises

Hello everyone. I'm Marine, the host of The Inspiring Women Hospitality Podcast. Today my guest is Ginging. Thank you so much for joining me. Very, very honored to be joining this podcast. Yeah, we had the pleasure of being together on a panel in Hong Kong a couple of weeks, almost months ago now. Exactly. We had such a great time. I had to ask her to come and share her full story on the podcast because we only had what, you know, 40 minutes together with three other fantastic ladies and I'm just so, so keen to find out more. So let's start at the, well, I guess let's start with your introduction. Tell us about yourself. Okay. We'll introduce my name already. My name is Yinyu. I am Singaporean but I'm currently working in Shanghai. I'm actually currently looking after the franchise business and the brand co-holidaying in Express across greater China, greater China is mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong. That's my portfolio today. Looking at performance of the year state, probably close to about the over 500 hotels. That's really the portfolio that I look after. A little bit more. If you ask me where, where am I? What do I stand for? What kind of person I am? I love challenges. I am somebody who just kind of gravitate towards challenges. If you look at my career journey, you should ask me, I think you could break it down into a couple of portions, but really diverse. I've worked across government, private startup, and then in different industries, like I said, government, oil, IT, and then now into hospitality. So that's kind of a little bit of my background. Personally, I'm a working mother with two wonderful children, two grown-up, and obviously in the other side of the spectrum, with close to 30 years of working experience. So in China, they call it silver generation, for example. Okay. I have been silver here, but we try very hard not to. So my kids, one is just not a working this year, so the second one is the final year in the University of Singapore. The one who has been supported me, big roles upon me throughout my career. So to show who I am, and I just thought that gives you a good overview. Thank you so much. You know, I'm so glad you answered that question slightly separately about the who am I, because typically when we introduce ourselves, we will go with our, you know, where we're working our titles and so on and so forth. But we are so much more than just our titles. So I'm so pleased that you talked about how your identity is about loving challenges. So thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that. So you shared that you've been with other industries before, but since we are talking about hospitality, I'd love to ask you how you got into hospitality. Sure. So I've been in PhD for 17 years this year, so that's the time I've been in hospitality. So honestly, I've gotten to hospitality by accident. I actually graduated in, I had a degree in economics. I never thought I would get into hospitality. And my first job in ITG in Singapore was a recruiting, a talent recruitment manager. And obviously it's in the HR, which again, I never thought I would have a career in as well. Life brings spring's a lot of surprises, right? So I think how do I get into that? I was previously working in a headhunting film. And the person that referred me to headhunting film, went into ITG and then and was working in that particular role and said, she wants to start a new job. She said, you want to take over my role? I said, well, you know, you keep recommending me. I don't have a problem. I'm going to either come to the dark side of the bright side. I need to understand kind of, you know, the other side of recruitment, so why not? So that was where I started my journey in ITG. So and the rest thing say, it's history, right? So since then, 17 years, you know, very many different roles in Singapore and Shanghai, which we can expand a little later, but in the nutshell, I mean, not the most exciting I apologize, but it's by accident. I'm loving it. Thank you so much. Yeah, I think there is, I've done so many of these interviews now with hospitality. Either, yeah, you've purposely choose to be in it or sometimes it's very much by accidents, by, you know, different circumstances, or, you know, that opportunity just presents itself and there it is. And then once you're in it, it's very hard to come out of it. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And so, yeah, let's talk a little bit about some of the career highlights or career turning points, you know, you said you've been with IHG for 17 years. You started in HR, but you're doing something completely different now. How does, you know, often what I try to understand or help my listeners to understand is like, how do you go from one role to another? You know, you've moved from Singapore to Shanghai as well, like, you know, in hospitality, moving locations, while it is quite common, it is also not an easy decision to make or an easy move to make. So tell us a little bit about some of those, yeah, turning points in your career and how it happened. Yeah, I think when I started off, and many moons back, it was sort of a little bit of an experiment. I don't know what hospitality, I don't know HR, the first thing about HR, right? So, I think what got me to really grow and believe in that is the environment, right? The fact that someone was willing to take a chance, I mean, if I remember, the manager, she was a vice president of HR at the point in time, she hired me into that role. She interviewed me for that role as well. She said, I see something in you, you know, and, you know, you can get very far. And she kept reminding me, after today, we're still very good friends, so she's been a mentor to me for years, right? But, it starts with having somebody believing in you, and then you have a sponsor and you have somebody who watches out for you. But also, I think where there was a lot of changes in my first part, where I wasn't in Singapore, there was kind of, as you know, there are structural changes, the region, it gets bigger or gets smaller, you go through that, people come, people go, you know, at one point in time, I thought I was taking over, like, five people's job, right? But, I think it's the ability to sort of take up the challenges, as I love challenges, but having someone support you, showing the versatility, showing the ability to kind of take on more. But, more so than not, I think people giving me a chance, but the important thing is being able to have to coach us questions, because you obviously don't know very much, I don't obviously don't know very much about HHR, but when I became a HHR business partner, I don't know very much about being a HHR business partner, I apologise, I don't know what I'm doing, sometimes I said this is okay, we mix our mistakes and people are generally, I go on up to it, I'm not very happy about it, of course, but, you know, they still give me a chance to carry on and give me more opportunities. I think there was kind of one thing, you know, finding a great mentor, you know, sort of, you know, being able to sort of ask the right questions, having the courage to do that. The turning point in a way was coming to Shanghai, and I call it, I call it the embarking of the University of Life, when you, because I said it was the same manager that said to me, if you want to get far, you, you got to work in a different location, you got to lift there, you got to, you got to very much yourself, and that's it, you're fine. But I need my family with me, I'm just, I'm not about to be separated from my family at the point in time, my kids were seven and ten, right? So, so I think, I mean, I actually made a block for me, you know, and as a family, only because the kids are quite young and they're very, and they're very, and each day they need support, right? We meet a physician as a family unit to say that my husband was going to, to give up his job and come to Shanghai with me and spend a lot of his time looking at the kids and setting the family, and I think, I think that's very unusual in Asia and in the setting, there is obviously stigma attached to it, I mean, it gets questions from relatives or people are like, what are you feeling at your job, you know, you should be getting a job, we stuck to it because my success is his success, right? We are family unit, it's not just me, you know, if he, he, I can do what I do because he's certainly, I think that to me was when you make big decisions for me, it's about the family unit, right? And the learning outside of the working itself, the work, there's a different chapter, I can many more chapters I can work but work on, but I think it's more about sort of the immersion in a different country, the learning, and China is really quite an amazing country in terms of the speed that they're, how dynamic it is, how fast things are moving, I learned a lot a lot, right? I thought, I thought I was Chinese, but I really didn't know China until I got over here, and even my, my, my spoken Chinese was really horrible at the time, right? So I think that's, that's really great, right? And then I think over time I grew in my job and I took over HR for the region, and then of, of within the, in the last 18 months I've taken on this current job, there are not many people in HR, I think I was the very first person in HR at that level, at the scene at either level to move into operations or business level job in this company, right? In this region, so again, you know, the company's taking a risk on people and, and, and I'm kind of benefiting from it, right? So, so it's been quite exciting. So I think in summary, I think, you know, find somebody that was one, so you're having a mentor, we always say have a career plan and a source, but I think, I think what, where I was, is just trying to make an impact there, right? So that's kind of my, my compass, if you like, right? I think the thing really is sort of kind of, for me, was being open to challenges, but also being able to admit, I don't know, I learned very quickly. But last but not least, I think as a working mother, I think it's not just me, I mean, whatever I do impacts the family, right? So I think, you know, thinking about an entire family, as a unit, in a key position. So those will be a few things, I would say, two points. She'd like a virgin here, actually. Thank you so much for sharing all those, not only turning point, but also like, real examples in your, your lived experiences. I think there's so many that we can, we can tap into here and, you know, tack in terms of finding inspiration for others, right? That mentor, I agree. I think for all the women I've interviewed, those who've had that mentor is really at the early part of their career, or as you were saying here at the start of your journey, what I actually was critical, you know, it's that concept of having someone believe in you, when you don't even, when you may not not be ready to believe in yourself, that courage to ask questions and just say that, okay, I don't, I don't know everything right now, but I can, I know I'll learn and just being open about it. I think that just changes the, the dynamics and the relationship with whoever you're, you're talking about and agreed that University of Life travel is the University of Life, right? The, the minute that you can come out of your comfort zone, where you know everything, and you know how everything works is, yeah, definitely going to be the biggest, biggest learning for sure. And I love how you talk about the family unit. I mean, yes, you're right, it's, it's not common, not only in Asia, but in many, many parts of the world still, it's not common where, you know, it is the, the husband who's staying at home looking after the family, but it's, it's, you're right, it's a unit, you've, you've made this decision collectively, it should not matter to anybody else, what you guys decide, as a family. So thank you so much for sharing that. The one thing I wanted to ask you to expand on, like moving from HR to ops, you're absolutely right, I don't think I've ever heard it anywhere from anybody who moves from like an HR to ops, was that something that you were like, like you said, career plans, I agree that doesn't really exist, but I think it's having that awareness and wanting to know, you know, how to, how you may want to make an impact, as you said. So how did you make that move from HR to ops? Was that something that you actively pursued? Yeah, I, I think, I think the first part of my career was in different roles, like in consulting, it's always in the business side of things, right? So I've always, you know, something in me wanted to sort of target me and say, you're going to get back at some point in time, right? So what was I doing in HR? Well, I think the way I differentiate myself is because I've got very close affinity with the business, I'm very, I'm very interested in the business side of things. In fact, I was actually given opportunities to run business projects, even though I was in the HR, I know very many times, right? I don't gravitate towards doing more than that. So I think that it was the opportunity of presented itself and, and, and it was quite easy for me to move into a role like that because I thought, I had my time, I did, I was sort of getting into a little bit of a comfort zone, I was in HR and I thought there's never a better time, right? I mean, until to take on a new challenge, right? And also the kids were already in the university at the point at time, so I think that was a good time, right? So, so all kind of the stars and the moon and everything aligned from a time and standpoint, an opportunity presented itself, have already been exposed to the side of the business. There was a belief that, and, at this point in time, I think the belief is still okay because I'm still in this job. Not fire yet, but, but so I think, I think, I think that's how, you know, you get it, but I think to that extent, you always need to make your interest or if you want to move to a, a jason role, if you want to assign a very different role, you, you, you have to express your interest, but you've got to try and find a way to get gain access to some parts of it as part of your extended portfolio. I think that's how you pave your way because if you, it's a very workshop to just switch over like that, you know, it's a lot to learn, and I think just being able to create that network that's going to teach you, right? But also the network that's going to give you that advice, right? It's also very important. Yeah, I always talk about for your, sort of, your career growth internally, like building your internal network is almost, you know, as equally important as building the external one because, you know, you are really the one who's going to go after the things or the opportunities or the career path that you want. And I, like I said, creating it, I was lucky to work in a organization at the time that was quite small. So I could create those opportunities for myself. Or as you said, you'd like pave the way, you'd try different things, build up your network in a different way, then when the opportunity does present itself that you can go after, that it makes, it makes sense. Yeah, yeah. So I think, I think it's been quite interesting because it gives me a very different look of the business. So, so far, I'm still learning. But I am at the stage where I'm able to contribute, which I'm happy, right? So that's me. All right. So as we're coming towards the end, I wanted to ask two final questions. The first one is after someone has listened to this podcast and listened to your stories and journeys and they want to reach out to you. What can they reach out to you for? I guess if you're interested in you're going through your at the crossroad, you're thinking about a new challenge or you want to have a conversation and you can message me or you can talk about it quite happy. I mean, obviously in my time in nature, I was certified, I'm certified coach as well. I enjoy mentioned conversations. I do quite a lot of it. So I think the variety of things you can reach out to me. But if this creates a spark in you and you feel like you have a question, we shall. And what's the best way to reach out to you on LinkedIn? Because we'll be posting this here. Yeah. I'm a little delayed. I apologize. Because in China, it doesn't work. Sorry. Yeah. Well, as well, but I think it's okay. I will be replying, but in my ticker is a while. So please, I apologize not that I'm not on it. All type of ticks. I need to find a way to get on it on VP. Yeah. So that is true. Yes. I keep forgetting that. Yeah. Thanks for the reminder. And to my little question in that case is who inspires you? I think it's not about who inspires you. There's one person I'll say in the end, but I think by and large, I think there are people. There's so many things that you can learn and be inspired by every day. There's a little acts of kindness to things that people go out of their way to do for people. I think there's a lot that we can give us the energy and then courage has to recover a lot of that every day. But if there was one person that inspired me in my life, it's my dad. I think he passed very early in life and was very sudden, but I think he has always been a very generous person. He has been a big person. He has a very, very big heart and he's always saying to me, you do more for people. Don't expect to reward. Don't expect things to come. He's just up there, just doing things and hoping to help people. And that's him and his big generous heart and I think that that inspires me a lot. And thank you for sharing your story with us today and inspiring us. You're very welcome and I hope that helps everybody. It gives us something to talk about in time to come. Absolutely. As you said, this is like sparking that conversation, right? This is probably just a taste. I mean, we've only been speaking for less than 30 minutes. So I'm sure there's so much more that we could dive into. And if someone yet does reach out to you, they can go into more details with you then. Thank you so much. Thank you.