Breaking Boundaries: Lay Peng’s Journey from Finance to Sales

In this episode, join us as we dive into LayPeng’s journey with Ritu Mehrish. A former accountant turned VP of Global Sales Enablement at Seagate Technology, LayPeng’s career-defying path unfolds with unexpected twists. Discover how she went against norms and embraced risks, from navigating gender dynamics to stepping into a colossal $1.2 billion global sales role. Unveil the pivotal moments, cultural shifts, and her manager’s transformative mentorship that propelled her to unprecedented success. Get ready to rewrite the rules of career evolution with LayPeng’s story!

Discussion Topics: Breaking Boundaries

• Did LP Always Want To Do What She’s Doing Today?
• Incidents That Shaped LP’s Career
• Working Style Differences Between The US and Singapore
• Any Difference Between Women Leaders in The US and Singapore?
• What Made LP Stay In Seagate For 22 Years?
• What Was LP’s Driving Force?
• What Risks Did LP Take?
• What Kind Of Sales Was LP In?
• Challenges That LP Faced
• Times When LP Felt Overwhelmed
• How Did LP Navigate Through a Male Dominated Industry?
• What Is LP’s Advice To Younger Self?
• Advice To Women Leaders
• Conclusion

Transcript: Breaking Boundaries

Ritu Mehrish: Welcome LayPeng to the interview on the ‘Rewrite The Rules‘ podcast. So excited to have you here and for the listeners. This is LayPeng, VP of sales enablement for Seagate technology. Let me emphasise this is global sales enablement, VP sales enablement, and her role entails training the sales organisation and enabling and supporting them in their selling process. So LayPeng and I call her LP. LP firstly, I will start again by welcoming you and thank you for making the time.

LayPeng: No, thank you Ritu, for inviting me to your show. It’s really definitely an honour and I’m very happy to be on this.

Did LP Always Want To Do What She’s Doing Today?

Ritu Mehrish: Okay, great. I wanna start by asking, did you always want to do what you’re doing today?

LayPeng: The answer is no, when I first graduated from school, I was an accountant by training. And being an accounting degree, the best career move is, hey, you go work for the big four or big five dance right? For like a few years and then either you move up in the big five or you go out to work in private.

That has been, there, that career milestone when I first go to school. However, as I go into the workforce I work for a Dutch company before I moved to Seagate. I started out my job as the cost accountant at the factory. 

But over the years, I moved on to a different role because of the opportunities that exist. I moved from finance to pricing, to doing product line management, to BD sales. And right now in this role, right? Sales enablement, never thought of my career in going into the sales site.

Incidents That Shaped LP’s Career

Ritu Mehrish: Oh wow, that’s really interesting. As you look back at your career like all these different roles, have there been any one or maybe two incidents which really shaped your career ahead or shaped your journey ahead?

LayPeng: I would think that the biggest difference, I would say is my manager, I think, was a finance director then, and then eventually he moved off to be the CFO of our company. So I think he really shaped me. So when I was back I graduated in the US and then moved to Singapore to start my career in Singapore.

So he gave me an opportunity to go and I said, oh, I’m not prepared to go. You can go there for a year and develop and see how things are in the, in, on the other side of the world, right? And I took that opportunity and I went.

So that is like the turning point. My career because number one, I get exposed to a lot more people within the organisations. And number two, I feel more comfortable expressing myself, right? Obviously, Asian culture and the US culture, the way that the working style is, that was 25 years back then is different. So I think that changes, a lot of my thinking.

Working Style Differences Between The US and Singapore

Ritu Mehrish: Wow. That is impressive and tell me when you went, and this is, as you said, it was 25 years back and things were quite different from what they are today. What was the difference you found between coming from Singapore and now working in the US? What, were there some cultural differences? Were there some working style differences? Could you, can you remember one or two big ones?

LayPeng: I think the biggest difference is that when you start in a career, being in Asia context, right? If you go to a meeting with all the big bosses, usually the tendency that you do is you be silent, sitting in the corner and taking notes of what the bosses are saying, right? And even if you have a voice, people are you don’t they don’t give you the chance to use the voice that much. 

But in the US right? when you raise a concern or you raise a question or raise any opinion, you do, have this awareness that they actually take the pause to actually listen to what you have to say, right? So I think That is the fundamental difference because number one, it is coaching for me for things that I don’t think that I’m on the right track and number two, also creates that confidence if I’m on the right track.

Any Difference Between Women Leaders in The US and Singapore?

Ritu Mehrish: There’s also a gender thing, right? Women sometimes hold themselves back a little bit. In speaking up did you find that difference, between the women leaders that you saw in Asia and the women leaders that you saw, let’s say in the US?

LayPeng: I will say, not a lot of difference to be frank from a gender perspective. Especially if you work for a very male dominated industry, I think. It’s about the acceptance of women, the culture within the corporate environment within the industry.

For example our company used to be very male dominated, I’ll call it company, right? Maybe that was 20 years ago because of this, that company engineering and stuff. So I will say that in every meeting that go to, perhaps I’m the only lady that is on the table, Maybe they allow the voice, but not that it’s a very hard to even put that voice in front because you do not know that whether you get the support but I think over the years, in the last five years, there’s a lot more on diversity and that awareness.

Ritu Mehrish: I’m so happy to hear that. I wanna come back to you LP. You’ve been with Seagate, like how long?

LayPeng: If I tell you my age, I’ve been seeing it for 22 years.

What Made LP Stay In Seagate For 22 Years?

Ritu Mehrish: So there are lots of questions that are coming to my mind. Starting with what made you stay for 22 years?

LayPeng: It’s the many opportunities. In the last 22 years, I have moved to many organisations within the company, number one, and then from the lowest level from a very junior accountant all the way to where I am today, right?

So I think that the opportunity and that the motivation for me to stay and obviously, the people, I think that the culture and the people are important, right? I think along the way I find my support system within the organisation as I go through each of my career milestones, not just a career, but also, it’s a personal milestone, right?

The same set of coworkers and friends going through marriage, motherhood, taking care of ageing parents. The culture here is very supportive and we meet people in the same situation.

What Was LP’s Driving Force?

Ritu Mehrish: Nice, but I also want to shine the spotlight on you because of course, the organisation provides the opportunity to provide all the right culture, what drove you to move to so many different roles and keep succeeding.

LayPeng: I think, first of all, I like to do new things. Like maybe I do new things every two or three years, I do not see myself doing the same work for 20 years. So in every role I go to, I don’t keep myself in the box that this is my role and this is what I should be doing.

In fact I usually try to approach a situation or a challenge from an end-to-end perspective. How do I solve the company problem? How do I solve this situation, So that enabled me to meet a lot of different people, from different departments and different cell expertise.

And through those conversations, opportunities arise, So because of that, I never think of, hey, in the three years I’ve been in Cost accounting. And then in four years, I’m going to FP and in like, three years I’m going to PROM. No, that’s never been, my checklist. I’ll say that every roll count naturally progresses to the next role.

What Risks Did LP Take?

Ritu Mehrish: But what are some of the risks that you’ve taken LP that’s given you this success?

LayPeng: Some roles may sound interesting, but you start to self-doubt yourself and say, Hey, maybe I don’t have the DNA, I don’t have the personality to do this type of role. So for me, as an example I enjoy doing things that I feel very comfortable is, and one of the things that I feel very comfortable with is numbers and finances because this is my strong background and things that I don’t feel comfortable with are, go out to make a sales pitch, making big presentations to a big group of people.

There was a time when I was working very closely with my I’ll call him my business partner, then he was the head of sales. And one day he just said, why don’t you try the sales role, There’s a sales job. I think it would be exciting for you to go try it.

I was like, oh no, that is not my DNA. I’m not gonna do it. But after a while and I keep thinking about this, I say, yeah, maybe I should go do it because if I wanna try a new role, the least risk I will probably take, will be we doing it with the same company and doing the people that.

You have experience with. So that is why I’m, I took, the biggest risk of my career is moving from a very internal facing role to a very external facing role. That was maybe about seven, or eight years back, but thinking back to where I am today, I think that role helped me to get to where I am today.

What Kind Of Sales Was LP In?

Ritu Mehrish: That’s such a great example. And do you ever tell us what kind of sales were you talking about in numbers? Because I know there’s a big sales number. It’s not like a small regional sales role that you’re talking about.

LayPeng: It was a role that, really developing, is the market that our company is very interested in, because that was the biggest growth, or, seems to be like the biggest role for the company. So I took on, I think the revenue was about $850 million.

So I took, I went to that job for four years as a global role. The company really does trust me to really hire my salespeople around the world and I’ve grown that revenue. I think before I left, it was a 1.2 billion business. It’s like at least 10% of the company revenue. At that point in time, it was one of the highest profitable businesses for the company.

Ritu Mehrish: Those numbers are like well done. That was a calculated risk, but that’s a risk you took, right? And it paid off so well. But it’s also about you pushing yourself out of your comfort zone or really pushing yourself to try something new, right?

LayPeng: No, I think that the way I do what, I really have to thank my manager and my boss then, right? He will, he’s a natural salesperson, right? But he’s also a very balanced salesperson in a sense you need to, hey, balance internally on what is the best for the company.

So I think that coaching really helps me. Coming from internal and coming from finance, you tend to move more towards, say, I want to protect the company, but sometimes in the, with the customer, you need to have that soft scale,

That sales team DNA is very different from a finance DNA. So I think that coaching, that consistent coaching and the time that my boss invested in me enabled me to be this successful.

Ritu Mehrish: Clearly I do see your boss being such a supporter.

Challenges That LP Faced

LayPeng: But also I know that as a leader and as a woman leader it would not have come without any challenges along the way.

Ritu Mehrish: As you look back LP, what have been the one or two key challenges in this journey of yours?

LayPeng: I will say that at the start of the career is the balance between personal life milestones. With the career advancements are milestones, especially for example, the move to the US. It’s not easy, I need to leave my family.

But obviously there’s considerations. And then when I moved to Singapore, when I knew I first had kids and stuff I couldn’t travel, right? I told my boss then that, Hey I may need to take a back seat for three years, but I was, okay, what, whatever opportunity exists in Singapore, I definitely wanna explore.

But for three years I couldn’t travel. So this is the balance. And then obviously as you grow up in your career, you need to take some personal responsibility, but I’m very happy that I have a very strong support system. I saved my parents-in-law. My mother-in-law is my best friend. She took care of a lot of things for my domestic household.

Times When LP Felt Overwhelmed

Ritu Mehrish: That’s so good to know. Were there were there times where you felt overwhelmed or you felt, oh, it’s going off balance,

LayPeng: There are times especially when you’re overseas and your girls are having a bad day in school and then she’d call you and then start crying. it’s just that those are the bad days.

It is about how you manage and how you balance things up, along the way. Definitely have to find that emotional balance. Family comes first. That’s what I truly believe. One of my very good friends that I worked with 18 years ago was one of my mentors as well. She once told me that even though I’m very busy, I need to stop what I’m doing. I work to go attend to my father or to my mother, who is going through a very tough time. Because in the years to come, you will never remember what you are working on, but you will always remember you weren’t there, with your loved ones.

Ritu Mehrish: That’s so well said.

How Did LP Navigate Through a Male Dominated Industry?

Ritu Mehrish: In a male dominated industry and sales is primarily, again, it’s changing and it’s changing very fast, but sales traditionally has been, again, more male dominated, function. How did you navigate that?

LayPeng: Be assertive, people may come to you especially people of other agenda and say that, why are you doing this in this industry? This industry is not for females. So I got a comment.

Only you just take it positively, say, oh yeah, I think this industry has the biggest opportunity. I’m here to learn. I hope that I can learn from people like you and then as you build, it’s not just for me, it’s built for the next generation.

If I ask, young employees, especially females, they say, oh, because there is, all these people in the community that give us the confidence that we are making the right choice. Because we do see you and the other sales are leaders or female leadership to be the inspiration.

What Is LP’s Advice To Younger Self?

Ritu Mehrish: That’s so well said. Because as you said, you’re role modelling for the younger leaders. I wanna ask you if you were to look back again because you’ve had such an illustrious career, What advice would you have for your younger self?

LayPeng: I will say that relaxing a little bit, in life or in career and in person, is a marathon, right? Sometimes if you run too fast, you don’t slow down. You may lose the beautiful movement along the way, right? Because every time you get into a bad challenge, and so you wanna move faster, right?

Just get away. But sometimes you forget to see the learnings you get from that. So I think slow down a little bit, think about things, and then move forward.

Advice To Women Leaders

Ritu Mehrish: Okay, great. If you were to give one piece of advice to the emerging women leaders, and especially women leaders in Asia, What would your advice be?

LayPeng: I will say that I will be assertive. trust yourself. Have that confidence. That you have the same capability of doing, the role that you performed, just put it through, And then sometimes if you get into a bad day, just be positive and move forward.

And most importantly, get a support group like a young person who is in the same industry. Like female leaders or coworkers that will give us that support right can bounce ideas with each other and support and move things forward.

Conclusion

Ritu Mehrish: Great. Thank you so much LP. There’s, I know there’s so much for our listeners and audience to gain from this. And if I were to summarise our conversation, there were few things that stood out for me. The first one that you said was about taking calculated risks, which in your story is so inspiring because, taking that risk of taking a big sales role and how you went on to grow that sales role.

The other thing that stood out for me, what you said is emotional balance. So we always talk about work-life balance and things like that. But you said emotional balance. There’ll be good days, there’ll be bad days. How do you find the right balance? And the third piece that I really took from this is to have a support group.

And I love the fact that you talked about, your in-laws being that support group for you. But also apart from that, you were lucky to have this great manager who supported you through your career. So many learnings from there. So thank you so much. LayPeng, it’s been a pleasure having you on the show.

Thank you so much.

LayPeng: Thank you.

Our Guests: LayPeng Ong

LayPeng Ong is the Vice President of Global Sales and Emerging Business at Seagate Technology. She has worked at Seagate for 20 years, holding diverse positions across departments from finance to product line management to business strategy and planning to sales. She currently leads Seagate’s surveillance team, focusing on expanding and growing revenue into emerging segments.