The Career Autobahn

Why the name Autobahn?

Because there is no speed limit on the autobahn, the German highway. You set your own speed limit. 200 Km/h or even 300 Km/h. You can drive as fast as you dare.

Similarly your career has no limit to it. You set your own goal and you can achieve whatever you want if you are willing to work for it.

I have been working for 26 years and almost half of that time is with my current employer Boehringer Ingelheim. I joined them in the headquarters in Germany as a Global Medical Advisor. Is it a coincidence that my career really took off in Germany? Who knows?

After 4 years in Germany, I was given the opportunity to work in the US office for a couple of years before returning home to Malaysia as the Head of Medicine 6 years ago. Now I lead of team of about 40 people in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

I never imagined that this is where I would be today when I qualified as a doctor in 1997. I took the usual route of working in hospital and getting into specialist training. I was in the middle of my specialist training in renal medicine when I decided that I wanted to do something else. I chose pharmaceutical industry based on my interest in doing clinical research.

Other doctors often describe pharmaceutical industry as the dark side. There is nothing dark about it. It is a highly regulated industry with strict rules and regulations governing it. There are SOPs for everything. The focus is about developing new medicine that can offer hope and improve patients' life.

In my 18 years working in the pharmaceutical industry, besides learning about the technical side of the business, I also learned a lot about human interactions. How to work in a cross-functional team, how to be a manager, how to network and plan your career, and how to be a leader. A little bit of classroom learning but most of the learning are from real-life experience. Real-life mistakes and real-life successes.

When I moved back to Malaysia, I have already been living abroad for 27 years. The first thing I noticed when I came back is how shy and obedient my team was. They don’t really talk back and they just follow my orders. I also noticed that they are not comfortable talking about their good work and achievements. I blame it on the Malaysian concept of ‘merendah diri’.

Since then my focus has been to make sure that the team understands that it is ok to have an opinion, it is ok to voice out and speak up and it is ok to talk and be proud about your achievements. This is especially important for those who want to progress further in their career in a multinational global company. They will be competing against the Mat Sallehs of the world and if you stick to the Malaysian concept of ‘merendah diri’ then they will not be getting anywhere.

So every 2 weeks, in this newsletter ‘Career Autobahn’, I will be sharing my real-life experience and practical tips on how to advance your career. The newsletter will include at least one career tip and one action point for you to take.

Career Tip for this week:

Jangan merendah diri!

Action point for this week:

Ask yourself this question - where do you want to be in 5 years time? (Remember that there is no limit to your career)