On a side street in Hung Hom are the offices of Oregon Scientific, makers of highly stylised everyday home appliances such as digital clocks, pedometers, telephones and air purifiers. Walking into the showroom is like walking into a Sharper Image store, where every inch of the place is used to display the many classy products.
Showing us around is Dr Kenji Yum Tsz-yin, who in the short span of six years has transitioned from the role of electronic engineer to business development manager and is now the company's regional product manager for Asia-Pacific and China.
A City University (CityU) alumnus, Yum obtained a BSc with a first-class honours in 2002 and a PhD in 2005 in electronic engineering. Yum has received more than 30 awards in various competitions that include the Certificate of Excellence in the 2005 Hong Kong Young Scientists Awards.
Tell us about your career
When I was an assistant professor at CityU, I met Oregon Scientifics' chairman Dr Raymond Chan, who invited me to join his company. I started out as an engineer and after six months, I was promoted to what's called a radio frequency specialist. After about a year, I became technology manager at a group level.
Then after a short while, the chairman suggested that I try my hand at business and with that, I changed fields and became a business development manager. My unit began to grow and eventually became a subsidiary of this company. About a year ago, I became head of division, and then two months ago, after a company restructuring, I was made regional product manager for Asia-Pacific and China.
How have you applied what you learned at CityU to work?