“You aim for the MOON and if you miss, you still land among the STARS”
Ms. Tracy Shum
Class of 2008
After graduation, I joined a professional service team and I had been there for 13 years. Throughout the 13 years, I spent 2 years in London and the rest in Hong Kong; I mainly serve local and multinational companies.
What are some challenges you encountered in your career?
At different stages of one’s career, you will encounter different challenges. When I was a fresh graduate, my main challenge was to manage completing quality work within a short period.
Several years down the road, as I became manager, I needed to start learning how to lead a team, so the challenge became how to motivate the team to deliver the expected quality, while managing your boss’ and clients’ expectations.
Growing into the role of senior management, my biggest challenge was how to set a direction for the company and to establish an overall client relationship which is worth not only for myself, but also for my colleagues. To tackle challenges, my take is to rely on continuous learning. One’s learning does not stop at University, we learn continuously so that we grow personally and professionally to tackle these new and emerging challenges.
What is your take on work life balance?
I will say that if you want to develop a career in a specific industry, you need to find a way to make yourself comfortable. Whether they are professional service firms or other industries in Hong Kong, technology advancement means that the job is no longer 9 to 5. Since it is very difficult to say that at 5 pm I am going to shut down my laptop and go home. Even if you are not working at the firm, you still have your mobile phones, whatsapp and email. My take is that although it is no longer 9 to 5, I tend to take a balance that is okay for me. For example, every year, especially before COVID, I like to take long holidays. During the holidays, I try to shut down as much as I can so I come back fully recharged, which is a kind of balance for me.
What advice would you give for students who want to enter the advisory industry?
The words “Advisory” and “Consulting” are actually quite vague. Most of the time people refer them to strategy consulting. However, there are also deal advisory covering merging and acquisition, IT advisory, which looks at cyber security or system implementation, and other kinds of advisory or consulting roles. So when people say that they are interested in the industry, maybe it is good to have a think about what exactly you mean and which branch of the industry you want to go into.
What are the most attractive skills that people in this industry are looking for?
Most of the companies these days are driven by what we call digital transformation. So no matter which industry you are in or which branch of consulting or advisory you work for, it's very important to have a good understanding of how systems and technology changes impact the industry trends, and that is certainly something that we look for.
What is your most important takeaway from the GBUS program?
It would be cultural sensitivity. Even back in my days we had exchange students, we had the exchange program which we all had to spend a semester somewhere else. We have faculty staff from around the world. Through the experience of working with and studying with people from different cultural backgrounds, I learned how to adapt myself. That has proven to be very important and useful in the later part of my life.
HKUST GBUS Alumni Series
Chapter 3 | Tracy Shum
