Women in Fashion - Inspirational voices 1: Professionally Personal – Adelyn Cheong

Hi honey, I'm good.

Uh, this evening I'm calling from Shanghai.

Sure. I've been living in Shanghai for four years, and before that I was in Hong Kong for 10. And I'm originally from Singapore, born and bred there. I graduated from university in Singapore, and then I went to the UK to study fashion, went back to Singapore to work, and then I've been around the world since.

Well, my first job was in a little stall in Portobello Market in London, when I was trying to feed myself and put myself through school. So I started as a sales assistant in a little stall in Portobello Market, and later on I basically started off their wedding dress made-to-measure business for this lady boss that was really giving me a lot of opportunities. So a very interesting first job that allowed me to save up enough money to tour around Spain after I graduated in the UK.

I am currently the President for PVH China. PVH is an American listed company that manages the brands Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. So what I'm responsible for is the profitability of these two brands across our business in China.

A large part of what I do is hiring, retaining, and also training the best talent to be able to manage each and every aspect of our business, from channels offline to online e-commerce, franchise wholesale, and also from both brands' perspective, from merchandising to marketing to visual merchandising. Ultimately, all that we're trying to do is to give the best shopping experience to our consumers, for them to be satisfied when they shop with us, and also that they will come back and tell their friends about both Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. So that in essence is what I have to do daily. And what it entails is having meetings with the teams, understanding where the challenges are, where our opportunities are, and how do we best secure these opportunities faster than our competitors.

I don't always do very well at that. But I have two dogs, as you can see, so they keep my life very real. I think when I spend time with them, I think life can be filtered down to the very essence of really enjoying and being happy every day. So in terms of balancing, apart from work, I try to keep fit, so it can be yoga, going to the gym, going for a long bike ride out in the mountains three hours away from Shanghai. So I'm very much an outdoors person. I really enjoy getting sunlight, breathing fresh air, and just getting out of the city for a bit. And also connecting with friends. I have a good group of friends here in Shanghai that keep me sane as well. We hang out, go check out the nicest cafes around, the newest thing, and just visiting exhibitions and things like that.

I would say that women in fashion and also women in general have very strong gut feels, so they know what they love to do and what they do not like to do. I think my first piece of advice would be to always follow your gut and your heart and do what you love, because this is super important. The passion that you're going to pour into what you enjoy doing is going to be so different than dragging your feet through work all day every day for the rest of your life.

The best piece of advice I have ever received was from my boss's boss, maybe about 10, 12 years ago now. I was going through a time because I had just inherited a team and we just did a 360 feedback, and I was looking at all the points of development—they call it, but actually it's just weaknesses, right? I was just looking at all my weaknesses and what people had pointed out, and oh, how am I going to solve this and how am I going to solve that. And he said one sentence to me that has changed the way that I look at work in general but also how I develop myself personally. And this piece of advice was: make your strengths so strong that everyone around you would ignore the weaknesses that you have. So focus more on developing your strengths than you would trying to solve your weaknesses, because all of us will always have strengths and weaknesses. And I feel like women, we have a tendency to focus very much on what we're not good at, as opposed to saying this is what I'm good at and I'm going to make it so good that no one is going to notice what my weaknesses are.

Yes, it comes from Lex Jemis. He passed away last year, and this is the legacy that he has left, not just for me but everyone else that he has touched in his lifetime.

Absolute pleasure, honey. Thank you for having me.