The Coincidental IT Professional

Here's the winning speech for this week. An ice-breaker from our very own IT professional, Mr. Teh KL.
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The Coincidental IT Professional

Toastmaster of the Evening and my fellow toastmasters. Good evening.

Introduction

From the title, you should already know that I will be talking about my ambition. Well, what most of you see in me today is a consummate IT professional but I am using the term coincidental here to highlight the fact it was not by design.

I was born into a large traditional family of 5 girls followed by 3 boys. My 5 elder sisters didn’t have a lot of opportunity for education as my parents basically pinned their hopes on the boys.

As a result, we were all imbued with the thoughts that we should study hard and be a “somebody” when we grow up. From a very young age, I have always wanted to be a doctor.

Why am I not a doctor?

Body

Let me take you back 27 years to 1982 when I was doing my South Australian Matriculation in Taylor’s College. Yeah, I know, that’s how long it has been!

In my application for university admission, I duly put medicine as my 1st and 2nd choices and IT as my 3rd and 4th choices. Why IT? I am not sure but I remembered being told that IT is the job for the future.

To do medicine in Australia, you need an aggregate score of at least 430 out of 500. You see, I have always done well academically and 430 was certainly not beyond me.

However, I didn’t account for the fact that I was doing English Literature rather than English as a 2nd Language in my matriculation program. That means we were learning about Shakespeare rather than grammar, vocabulary and essay writing.

To cut the story short, I failed my English paper and only managed 49 out of 100 giving me a total aggregate score of 394.

I spent 7 years in Australia to learn all I need about IT.

When I came back to Malaysia, my first job was not in IT but to be a banker in Citibank. As a management trainee, I was going through training in various parts of the bank including corporate banking, treasury and consumer banking.
Six months later, I decided that a career in banking is not for me and quit Citibank to venture into business at the age of 26.

Even in business, my 1st venture was not in IT but in education due to influence from my sister who were (and still are) running very successful education institutions.

I did that for 4 years before I exited the education business and made a decent profit. More importantly, this is also where and when I landed the most important catch in my life – my wife!

From the education business, I went on to join the IT subsidiary of INTI to develop the IT business for the education market. Finally, I am going to back my roots in IT. As I was offered a stake in the company, I viewed this as a hybrid of doing business and developing my career.

It was during my tenure here that I first came into contact with ING as a vendor. I also had the privilege to meet the person who eventually played an instrumental role in my career development and personal growth.

My involvement with INTI lasted 4 years before I left and joined ING at the age of 34. So, you can see that I started my career late in life due to my misadventures in the business world.

I have been working here in ING for 10 years and my career progression has been good so far.



Conclusion

If you are a strong believer in karma, you will accept that everything happens for a predestined reason. Like when I failed my English paper, maybe it was because I was not meant to be a doctor. Or when I joined INTI and did the project for ING, maybe it was because I was meant to be in ING!

Well, my title says coincidental which means I am not into karma. I believe that life is often littered with events that require us to make choices along the way. The events and the choices that we make shape the life we live today and in the future.

Whether its karma or coincidental, I can have no regrets.