Ginnie Koay Huey Ling, senior events manager at CMP Asia, enjoys meeting people from all walks of life during each trade fair and takes responsibility for shareholders' interests
Being a Malaysian Chinese who was born and raised in Malaysia, I think I have done pretty well with my career since I moved to Hong Kong 19 years ago. Before joining CMP Asia, I gained sales and marketing experience at an electronic manufacturing company. I am now the senior events manager at CMP Asia and have been with the company for 13 years.
When I joined the company I was responsible for organising exhibitions related to marine businesses and worked in that sector for eight years until 2003, and then I was transferred to work in the beauty care industry, one of the key industries among our trade partners.
My job requires me to deal with owners or sales directors of companies regularly. That includes going out to do sales pitches, so I always have to ensure I have enough solid and relevant data to back up my presentations in front of potential clients. I run a team of 13 members working in sales and marketing, and they are all quite resourceful in their own way and I frequently rely on their support.
I am busy throughout the year, even though the peak seasons are from March to April and August to November. Before any given show is put on, there are a string of preparations to complete such as sales promotion activities for the target audience and visitor promotion. In a large-scale exhibition, there are exhibitors from all over the world. Because of that, we need to invite consulates representing different countries to officiate at the opening. Before each exhibition, I also have to visit local partners, security companies and logistics companies to ensure everything will run smoothly, as planned. With so much to attend to, I need to have a clear mind of the overall logistics arrangements so that things don't get tangled up or run all over the place.
I do not run regular morning meetings with my team members, I do that on a weekly basis so that they can raise their problems and we try to solve them together. In this business, teamwork is essential to reaching success together and there's no individualism at all.