Chief Commercial Officer, ShopBack.
Chief Commercial Officer, ShopBack.
There’s determined, then there’s Candice Ong. She left her successful investment banking career in 2012 to join e-commerce platform ZALORA, while getting hit with a 70 per cent pay cut. “At the time people thought ZALORA was still a blogshop and not the fashion conglomerate it is today; and this was just five years ago.” The 33-year-old hasn’t looked back since.
“If I stayed in banking my skill sets would have been limited to finance alone and I wouldn’t have had the learning opportunities I enjoyed by moving into the tech space,” she explains. After developing ZALORA’s business into a household name in the region, she left last January to join ShopBack, an e-commerce cashback startup. “It’s my job to grow the company’s profits so we can be the top Southeast Asian player in the space in the next two to three years,” she says. “I will lead country teams across the region, as well as direct regional marketing and work within the core business management team.” It’s worth noting that in just her first six months there, Candice has driven up regional sales by a whopping 30 per cent.
WORDS TO LIVE BY: “Never let hiccups get you down.”
NEXT UP: “I hope to foster a more entrepreneurial culture in Singapore. It’s important to think big and beyond the borders.”
