Entrepreneurial spirit
UniSA’s Singapore alumni chapter has the country’s ‘most promising entrepreneur’ as one of its new committee members.
Jessie Lee, a 2001 International Master of Business Administration (MBA) graduate was recently honoured at the Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Awards with the ‘Most Promising Entrepreneur Award’.
Lee, who was recognised at the awards for her work as Managing Director (Asia Pacific region) of Progressive Components (a global supply company for tooling components), was very honoured and grateful to receive the award.
Lee believes there are many fundamental factors to success and says her MBA helped as an academic sounding board that challenges real life business in many different aspects. Her own personal drive and ambition also plays a big part in her success.
"Entrepreneurship is in my blood so it makes whatever I undertake interesting in either social, business or corporate enterprise," Lee says.
In 2002 Lee joined US-based Progressive Components, a global supplier for tooling components which was an entirely new industry for her. Lee says her focus, vision, energetic drive, determination and never-give-up attitude helped her to revive the Singapore operations, spear-head a new sales and marketing strategy, rebrand the company’s image and reposition it as Asia’s regional headquarters to provide niche products and services.
Overall she has created an organisation known for outstanding value systems in quality, and a culture of work-life balance with emphasis on talent development and retention.
Before joining the manufacturing sector, Lee’s career had taken in a range of industries including retail and production merchandising, supply chain management, video-conferencing professional services and corporate finance.
"Transition is easy with lots of hard work," she says about taking her skills to a new industry. "Simply learn the new industry from scratch and then apply the relevant experience and business acumen.
"It is a blessing for me to have the opportunity to master different skills from different industries during the course of my career, and I embrace these challenges."
Lee is looking forward to contributing to the new Singapore alumni chapter that was formally registered in July. Her decision to join the Singapore alumni chapter stems from her desire to give something back.
"We can help in many ways, such as providing mentoring to younger members and attracting new members," she says. "We want to grow the alumni chapter in Singapore."
For more information about the Singapore alumni chapter or to join, go to their website.