Welcome Jeanne, it’s an honour to have you here @ In Our Shoes
You have an incredible career track record, when did it all start?
I’m originally from Singapore. I graduated from The National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree. There I made the deans list and ranked one of the Top 50 in the Honours class. This was a turning point of my life because landing the best jobs in Singapore are strictly based on merit. If you end up in the Honours class, you automatically get the top tier positions which are the government civil service jobs.
What top notch job awaits a college grad whiz in Singapore?
A really scary one! I was made a manager straight away. I was given a department of 22 people to oversee and I was terrified. There were no textbooks to prepare you for this role when you were in college. Crying in my cubicle was not beneath me! This definitely started me on the path of management. I was fortunate though. I had a great team of bright college grads working for me who actually shared the same degree as I did; they just hadn’t made honours. The political system in Singapore is very dominant.
How did you manage a large department without any experience?
I found a few good mentors in the management team. I developed a close knit group of friends to hang out with; we’d eat and work together and ultimately coach one another.
What was the best piece of advice you received when being mentored?
Believe it or not, memorization! I was advised, the only way I would survive was to memorize everything that I needed to know. I was in charge of retail management of all the shops and restaurants in the airport. I memorized how big each shop was, how much money each earned, how many people worked there. The bosses would give us pop quizzes all of the time. If the boss asked you whether something was done and it wasn’t, you looked him straight in the eye and said “Yes” and then scurried back to do it! You just lied. This training created a good mindset. It was methodical, well thought out and well structured. It was great experience I would carry with me in my career.
You hit a Glass Ceiling. What did you do?
I had worked there for three and a half years. The next logical step-up for me was to be promoted to manager. When I approached the senior bosses however, they unveiled a disappointing career path for me. They explained that because I hadn’t made scholar level in my honours class when I graduated (I ranked on the honours low end), it would basically take 10 years for me to make manager. This wasn’t fair or acceptable to me especially after having a few years under my belt proving myself. I wasn’t happy and I knew I would never fit the mold. In Singapore stepping out of rank is not expected and goes against you socially and career wise. I had no choice but to get out of the public sector.
You were iced out by office politics. What was your next move?
I stuck to property management and went to work for Suntec City Development as a marketing executive. Suntec is located in the center of the city at Marina Centre. It is the largest shopping center in Singapore – holding 1.5 million square feet of shopping space. In the three and half years I worked there I was promoted to assistant manager and did a lot of shopping! I was always broke.
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I called ten to twenty people a day, negotiating ½ million square feet. My team would cut the leases. This is where I learned the power of interaction and talking with people – the social part of it that is. I did my rounds, said hello to all of my tenants; I made sure they were kept happy. It was also there that I met my husband Paul.
The husband who coached you on how to land your dream job!
Yes and he’s an amazing coach! He was a currency trader at the time who made alot of people, alot of money. At first I thought he fit the trader stereotype who smoked and boozed. Turns out, he wasn’t at all what he seemed. We dated, he went to church with me and did that for two and a half years. He was the first man whom I said would marry.
You married a Dane, so you learned Danish?
We married and I moved to Denmark where in order to get a job, you have to be fluent in Danish. Needless to say, I had to spend a year learning Danish which I did and I learned it well. I earned a specialized diploma in Computer Science there at a business college and began a career in software development. I dropped off the face of the earth for two years doing pure C++ programming!
Tell us about when you had your children.
When my first daughter Maria was born, I put my career on hold. Paul was the primary wage earner. I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere at my job because they wanted you to do your time until 7pm each day. Later, I found another job at a shipping company with flex time. Denmark is a maritime country. I worked for the Clipper group for three years as an IT governance manager.
Now you have two children and you went for the MBA. Why take on more?
I felt there were gaps in my knowledge in management. The company was willing to invest in me by paying for my degree. So I enrolled in an online university degree based out of England which fit my schedule well because I had my second daughter then and she basically slept all day.
Studying for an MBA helped me to think strategically.
I found I could apply it not just in business but also in my personal life. In the online program I was exposed to the diversity of women from other nationalities who were able to expand their horizons. I was studying online with an amazing woman stuck in an aircraft carrier who was doing her MBA! This experience showed me that I was capable of so much more. The only person holding myself back was myself. After starting my MBA (I’m still juggling it) , working in Denmark and living in an open society, I saw there was so much space to grow. After another year off with my second child, I went into business development mastering Qlikview as part of a corporate stategy and business intelligence project.
You were then considered “Elite status”!
Yes! I remember thinking: “Am I elite?!” I was head hunted for by PricewaterhouseCoopers. They were wooed me saying I was part of an elite rank of professionals that they wanted on their team. They found me through my Linkedin profile. I took the position and landed an exciting project focused on IT strategy building a large scale solution for a Qlikview Enterprise implementation. I was the lead technical architect on data modeling and optimization.
You then became the only breadwinner?
Yes, this was a major turning point for our family because Paul had enough of the banking industry and quit the rat race to take up a new career in life coaching. Suddenly his income stopped and I was now the primary wage earner. It was a new phase of his life. All of this time his career had come first and I had supported that because he was the prime income earner. His decision to step back was an opportunity because now it was my turn.
He became the stay at home dad and I was released from my primary role as mother and wife.
He showed me that inner happiness is something you have to be selfish about. Paul was building his coaching career. He changed himself. Inner self change altered how he perceived life as a whole. He made a lot of money for a lot of rich people that were never satisfied. Why make money for a bunch of greedy guys? After one of his clients died of a heart attack he decided he didn’t want to end up like them.
How did you afford the income cut?
Paul was making 5 times what he earns now. We downsized in every way. We sold our house, we bought a small apartment, we bought a smaller car. When he was working in the banking industry the kids never saw him. Now they adore him and the closeness of family. There’s no price tag you can put on daddy being home all of the time, but it didn’t come easy. It’s heavily frowned upon in Denmark for a couple to reverse roles as we did. I’m now supporting the family and he’s taking care of the kids. We weathered it and ignored the disapproving comments and down stares from our neighbors. I was making my own rules.
How did you make your own rules?
I had worked twenty years and discovered lesson # 1 is that you make your own future. It’s not what other people define. Waiting for your bosses to promote you, closing your eyes and hoping for the best is not empowering because delivering your best performance is not always enough. There are factors which come into play that have absolutely nothing to do with you or your best work.
I became aggressive wanting to defend my family, protect my revenue and still be happy.
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I decided that PwC was too small for me to realize my ambitions. I can do better than this. Paul coached me on how to throw the paradigm away and ask myself: “What is it that I want to do?” After deciding this, the next logical question was: “Great, now how do I get that? He was coaching me hard. Without Paul’s support I wouldn’t have dared to go for the job at Project Brokers.
The bold interview we’ve been waiting for – tell us all about it!
Yes it was bold! I went on the offensive. My family lives in Toronto. I live in Denmark. I had to find a job that matched the move I wanted to make to get to Canada. I was now my own boss, I just had to find the right company.
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I had been following Project Brokers for about two years on Linked in, they showed the most growth and potential in the Qlikview space which was my expertise. I got in touch with the HR manager at Project Brokers and told her that I was looking for an opportunity for international travel and threw the line out. They were a new organization and they needed someone like me who had a wealth of strategic and management experience under my belt. I prepped for the interview and flew down to London. I met with the CFO, sat down with him and said “I want to help you guys open a new company in in Canada which is a ripe open market to jump into“. Canada has never been through a recession and there are no real enterprise solution providers. There are mainly a lot of mom and pop shops.
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Project Brokers was left with the idea but not with any plan of action. I kept the idea open and warm and remained in contact but hadn’t heard back. So I flew down to London again and made my pitch a second time. This time I met with the major decision makers: the founder, the COO and CFO once more. I pitched that I can lead their strategic positioning and make their firm more robust by allowing them to expand efficiency and be scalable.
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They called me a black swan, an unseen opportunity that they could not ignore.
Daren Cox, the founder of Project Brokers said: “I didn’t expect this“. I was what they needed at that time. They were expanding and needed a structural framework on which to rest the organization on, in an efficient manner. They offered me the job as Head of Operations and committed to opening an office in Toronto by 2012 which is what I’m doing today!
You live in Denmark, the office is in London. How did you make it work?
I commute from Denmark by train and work two days in London. The rest of the time I’m in Copenhagen at home on the phone with the Head of infrastructure and Head of Sales and Delivery in the US. Project Brokers is a prime example of working across borders. They are an innovative
company willing to break the norms for women and are absolutely unique in Europe..
What is your perception of working mothers in Europe?
I think a lot of mothers are at a disadvantage because they leave their careers to stay home until their kids are four or five years old. They lose the opportunity to come back to the working world. Family life is a huge factor. The reason I chose to return back to work was because I was able to get home by 3pm. I know several women in the UK office that are the breadwinners but I also know mothers who stay home due to the high price of daycare in the UK.
You’re very driven. What would you say to someone who pushes themselves too hard?
I am driven, but I was my own worst enemy also. I had to get my ambitions in check. I couldn’t let go of the role of being a mother and a wife due in large part to my childhood being raised in Singapore.
I was brought up to take care of men. My mom would get my dad a glass of water whenever he was thirsty.
The lock in my head was a self imposed lock.
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Women can and do achieve much more than men. They are always more open to ideas.
I saw the difference between men and women managers early on in my career. I would have had to step on a lot of toes to get ahead in management if I stayed in Singapore. I was able to do a much better job than my bosses there. When I was told that I would have to wait ten years only to watch someone else who was less competent than me take the position I earned, it was a true epiphany. I’m an overachiever. I can do my job well, all that was holding me back was perceptions of people around me and my own perceptions. The final reversal of roles between Paul and I, made me realize my own potential. Why not go for it? I wanted to go to Canada, so I made my own rules.
Advice for In Our Shoes Readers
Believe in yourself and what you are doing and most of all have faith.
As women we often have self-doubt. We ask ourselves, “Am I insane?“
I never doubted that I could do it. My confidence in knowing what I wanted, shone through when I made my pitch to Project Brokers.
- Learn about the job you want.
- Be an expert.
- Show your specialty skills.
- Focus on what drives employers to seek employees.
If you do the time, you will become the expert in what you want to excel in. Always believe in yourself and don’t listen to anyone but yourself; sometimes that includes family and friends. Know the person that you are and go for it.
Quirky fact you want to share with In Our Shoes Readers as the giant mommy juggler that you are?
The fact that I’m a successful career woman doesn’t exclude the fact that I still have to wash dishes at home!
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To reach out to life coach Paul Peterson for any advice on working the same life changing magic in your life, you can drop him a line here: LifeCoach@InRShoes.com. Questions for Jeanne Peterson? Open up the conversation here!
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