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I CAN'T IMAGINE what I would do if I wasn't in this business.

Most of the jobs I took after graduating from university gave me no satisfaction at all. I worked in customer services, loans services and even for the National Basketball Association.

I joined POAD by chance, knowing nothing about the company or what it did. I just got on well with the chief executive in my interview, decided to take the job and I am still here four years later.

I started as a business development executive, mainly responsible for following up on projects.

My seniors would source the potential space, and I would go and meet the owners, take photos and conduct site evaluations.

Now, as a business development manager, I am more independent. I handle the whole project from beginning to end. I identify the space, write the proposals and the evaluations, negotiate with the building owner, prepare the contract, have the advertising installed, and even oversee the demolition of the campaign at the end.

I am always on call. Sometimes this means answering the phone at midnight.

Advertising agencies - in fact, most people in the creative industry - work late, and I have to be on hand to place the bookings.

When I was working on a space that we leased from the government by the Cross-Harbour Tunnel, our installation team would call me at all hours of the night because they were only allowed to work while the traffic was low.

I am basically the link between the building owners and our sales team, so I spend my day meeting regularly with our design and sales people and a range of people outside the company.

It is vital that I build and maintain good relations with the building owners because the market competition is so fierce these days. It is difficult to find good space.

Hong Kong is such a small place with limited space but unlimited competition, so I need to be aggressive and hungry for the deal. This means reacting quickly to the owners, because any delay in response might kill the deal.

Securing the agreement, particularly for a harbour-side neon sign that might mean a $5million to $8million contract, is great. Standing on Kowloon side and looking across at all the neon

signs identifying which ones are ours is one of the best parts of the job.

But there is never much time to celebrate a big deal because I can't afford to stop. After the high of getting the deal, there is a lot of admin-based follow-up work, and I have to keep a keen eye on the detail.

Creativity is a big part of what I do. I try to look at a space in a way others might not think of, trying to find a way of turning an ordinary space into a landmark. I also need to find the right balance between instinct and objectivity and to control my emotions.

Recently I have had to try to find ways to be more efficient with my time. I now have a daughter, who is nine months old, and I really want to spend more time with her. I am trying to restructure my day and want to streamline some of our processes, but it is very hard to do. I am lucky that I have a good team working with me who support me. After all, life isn't all about work.



Chance interview leads to job filled with bright ideas