Appnovator Spotlight: Wendy Leung

Meet Wendy Leung, our New Business Operations Manager from Vancouver, BC.

1. Who are you? What's your story?
My name is Wendy Leung. Born, raised, went to school, and still living in the Lower Mainland. Graduated from both BCIT and UBC and got into the technology industry just around the whole Y2K, dotcom 1.0 bubble period. I started out as a backend C, C++, Java developer, then got into front-end HTML, CSS, PHP WAMP/LAMP stack work, then into 3D animation, then into project management, and now into Sales Operations.

2. What's your role at Appnovation?
I’ve been at Appnovation overall for 3.5 years and spent my first year as a Project Manager on the Technology Enabled Services (TES) side. I’ve since, in the last 2.5 years, made a jump to Sales and am now the New Business Operations Manager.

My job is to oversee the multi-departmental effort (between Sales, TES, Managed services and others) that is New Business opportunity pursuit and making sure all that energy and effort is being driven productively and efficiently to help win more business for the company every quarter. Leveraging my project management background, I spend a lot of time coaching, consulting, onboarding/training, managing, triaging, negotiating, and most importantly, communicating to multiple stakeholders about what’s going on with the New Business effort. In turn, I also ask for feedback on how New Business processes, energy, etc. can be improved upon. I still jump in on the occasional New Business opportunity if there’s an all hands on deck effort to get a response out the door as well.

3. What's the greatest lesson you've learned in your professional career (or even personal life) that you would like to share with others?
Three things, actually... 1) Cultivate excellent soft skills, those are transferable skills that you can always take with you. You can learn the hard skills as you need, when you need them. 2) Stay humble and know there’s always room to improve. You’re never as good as you think you are and you are never as bad as what other people might say about you. 3) Skills > Passion.

4. What do you do outside of work?
I build and paint model cars, I sew craft projects, and I am brushing up on my technical coding and project management skills. As well, kickboxing, running, and swimming. You'll also find me appreciating finely brewed craft beer, eating sushi, and pho (separately at different times!).

5. Where do you hope to take your career at this point/what's next for you in your professional career?
If my prior career history is anything to go by, it's that following a linear career path isn't the only way to progress. So, as long as I have a job to go to every day that lets me leverage my current skills and learn new ones, provide value to the company and stretch a bit beyond my comfort zone, that's where I'll be regardless of place of employment or title.

*BONUS* What is one fun/random fact about you that many may not know?
I can field strip and re-assemble an AK-47.