Q1. Tell us about yourself: What’s your educational background/professional experience?  

Fun fact about me, I grew up and lived in Malaysia for over 11 years. I graduated from Lancaster University and Sunway University in Kuala Lumpur with a dual degree in Business Management. Prior to joining UNDP, I worked in the private sector for over 5 years. I started my career in Malaysia managing customer relations in a fashion industry. Later, I was a senior project executive and a project leader for an event and publishing company where I worked closely with different organisations across the region to promote high levels of employee engagement and excellent workplace cultures. Then, I was a development coordinator for a real estate company providing support for project management. I have been working with UNDP for one and a half year – I first joined UNDP as a Project Assistant. Recently, I got promoted to Project Associate and I am very excited to continue my work here with a new capacity.  

Q2. What made you apply to work with UNDP Thailand?  

I was looking for meaningful work. Something that drives the change towards a better world. As you can see today, everything is changing – the world is boiling due to climate crisis, we barely breathe well due to air pollution issues or the biodiversity loss due to extreme weather and the rising sea level. When I knew the world is not the same, I spoke to myself what if I could be a part of the changes – to make things better would be my goal at that time.  

Q3. What are your activities or main responsibilities? What is a day at the office like? 

As a Project Associate, I do the work to support the project to ensure that everything goes smoothly. This refers to a wide range of tasks from administrative work, coordination to programmatic management. My day in the office is usually productive – meeting with colleagues, supporting each other and crossing things off from my to-do list!  

Q4. What are some of the challenges you encountered while working at UNDP Thailand? How did you overcome it?   

The change of the organisational system – one of them is the change of using ATLAS system to Quantum system which is a platform to support my administrative work and other operations. It was quite a challenge for me to adjust myself to a new platform because when I joined UNDP, I was still trying to get myself familiar with the ATLAS system and a few months later, we have been informed that ATLAS will be replaced with a new system called “Quantum”. At that time, I thought I was the only one who was struggling with the new platform but when I went to share my Quantum experiences with colleagues, they thought the same too. So, we formed a group chat to exchange tips and help whenever who needs it, and this solution has been helpful up until now.  

Another challenge I would like to share is ‘time management’, I noticed myself working at late hours and I know it was not a good sample to mention but it is a self-reminder that I should management my time properly for a good health & wellbeing, which is one of the UNDP’s value to have a healthy workforce.