The power of women in the workplace: Two female leaders from Glints share their secrets to success
It’s been two weeks since we commemorated International Women’s Day. However, for us at Glints, International Women’s Day should be celebrated every day, everywhere — especially in the workplace.
It’s an opportunity to recognize the contributions of women to the organization and to celebrate their achievements. It’s also a time to reflect on the barriers that women still face in the workplace.
In this article, you’ll read about two Glintstars’ career journeys and their strategies for overcoming various challenges to get to where they are today. They are Sandy Goh, who currently serves as Glints’ Marketing Director, and Kania Laksita Raras, who serves as Glints’ Regional Content Lead.
Sandy Goh started her career journey with the giants Alibaba and PayPal, where she worked as a CRM Executive and a Digital Marketing Manager, respectively. The National University of Singapore graduate was not afraid to pursue a career in marketing within the tech industry despite having a computing background.
With more than 7 years of startup working experience under her belt, Sandy began working at Glints in 2021. Now based in Singapore, Sandy leads a regional team spanning several countries, including Indonesia and Vietnam.
Kania Laksita Raras, on the other hand, began her career as a reporter and editor at several magazine publishing companies. She followed that with a 5-year career at one of the largest online travel and ticketing companies in Indonesia, Traveloka.
Her decade-long career journey has enabled her to become a multi-hyphenate content creator, having gained experience working in various areas such as product marketing, editorial, internal communication, content design, copywriting, and UX design.
This rich professional experience finally led Kania to join Glints in 2020 as a Content Lead. During her three years at Glints, Kania has had a significant impact on the evolution of the function and role of content strategy, which helped propel Glints as a top-of-mind knowledge source among talent.
Sandy’s responsibilities and achievements
Sandy feels that her biggest achievement so far was to build and streamline an employer marketing process to enable a more synergistic relationship with the sales and commercial team. Previously, the employer marketing team was siloed and relied mainly on tedious manual processes.
“The biggest achievement so far, in my opinion, is turning a marketing team that ran very manually and was previously very separated from sales, into a close commercial team partner to achieve greater success,” said Sandy.
As a Regional Content Lead, Kania is responsible for ensuring that the content produced by her team can have a greater impact on Glints’ business. When carrying out her duties, she feels that content cannot be treated as a singular distribution channel separate from other parts of the business.
Moreover, Kania believes that content is part of the main mission and growth cycle of a company. Hence, she regards her greatest success so far to be successfully convincing the company’s leaders about the huge impact that can be made through content strategy.
Despite their glowing achievements, Sandy and Kania still feel strongly about the issues of stigma and stereotypes against women in the workplace.
According to a Forbes article, common stereotypes that are often attached to female leaders include more sensitivity, gentleness, sympathy, and care. Kania believes that this is precisely an opportunity to prove to everyone how important it is to have emotional intelligence in the workplace, especially for a leader.
“I feel that women are able to balance and control those emotions and intuitions, so we are able to make more mature decisions with more forethought,” elaborated Kania.
At the same time, Sandy experienced distinctly different obstacles while balancing her duties as a mother and a career woman. In addition to her daily struggles with balancing work, family, and personal time, she felt that the biggest challenge was often psychological, including feelings of guilt, self-doubt, and decreasing confidence over time.
However, Sandy didn’t allow these obstacles to hinder her progress. In fact, she used them to make better plans and communication strategies.
“Sharing stories with partners, family, friends, and even managers will be very helpful, especially if they have experienced similar challenges. This may require us to show our vulnerable side, but it usually helps to restore morale,” said Sandy.
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Many people may believe that managerial positions and corporate leadership don’t require technical skills. However, Kania believes that to lead a team effectively, one still needs to master them. When asked about the one quality that helped her become the person she is today, Kania replied with “humility”.
“Humility is the key to continuous development because you will always feel insufficient. This is what motivates you to delve into other relevant fields. Basically, learning is an endless process,” she elaborated.
When it comes to how she achieved her success, Sandy has a slightly different outlook. According to her, there are many challenges every day, such as running new experiments in the marketing team. Days can feel longer and patience can run thin, especially when things don’t go according to plan.
However, Sandy believes that courage, patience, and a positive attitude are three essential qualities that can help overcome challenges and emerge stronger, both in the workplace and at home.
Kania wants to emphasize that women can use the existing stigma in the workplace as a weapon to continue developing themselves.
“Never feel that emotions and intuition that you have as a woman will hinder you from achieving your goals. Find ways to use them so that you can produce more logical arguments, decisions, or considerations,” she explained.
However, she admits that the ability to manage emotions and improve emotional intelligence require years of experience. What’s important to remember is that as women, they are perfectly capable of leading. Although women may experience difficulties or stigmas in the workplace that are quite detrimental to them, they should not allow these challenges to deter them from achieving their goals.
Sandy has a special message for those facing similar challenges: “You are not alone. Although it may sound cliché, the following expression is true: what doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger!”
Every day, women often hear or read literature that convinces them of their limited capabilities. However, we hope these stories of two female leaders at Glints can inspire women to never give up in the face of adversity. Let’s celebrate the strengths and qualities of women, and use them as sources of strength to overcome all obstacles.
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