Her Story
About Vicky
I grew up in Taipei City, Taiwan, and moved to the United States when I was young, staying with my uncle's family while my parents remained back home. Those early years were defining moments for me - coming over fresh out of water, learning the language, making new friends, and figuring out who I was and what my own brand would be. I went to Rutgers where I studied finance, and during my freshman year I signed up to be a residence advisor, which really helped me develop my leadership skills, learn how to interact with people, and build my early-stage self-confidence through leading groups and helping freshmen. After graduation in 2005, I started my career at Goldman Sachs in Treasury operations, which set a great foundation for my career by teaching me the importance of good documentation, diligent practices, and learning from senior colleagues. I then moved to GE, and from there was recruited to join Google in California, which started my next 10 years in the SaaS environment. It was very different - more creative and exciting - and I found myself as one of the middle to older members of my team surrounded by fresh grads, which led to another period of self-discovery as I figured out how to fit in and do finance in such a high-energy, younger environment. I realized my track in finance had been very narrow, focused on cash management and treasury, so I pivoted to become a generalist by moving into FP&A. I discovered I really enjoy storytelling - working with business units as their CFO, translating their plans into numbers for the CFO and then back into narratives for the business. Now I'm at a point where I'm thinking about another career switch as my husband and I plan to move back to Taiwan to be closer to my aging parents. I'm exploring entrepreneurship and building my own brand around what I truly enjoy: working with people and solving problems. Over the last seven months, I've been volunteering with a Taiwanese nonprofit that connects tech startups with American capital and opportunities, doing MC work at events (reconnecting with my public speaking training), and consulting with startups on the people-related and organizational aspects of bringing their companies to America.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Vicky
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say have a genuine curiosity about things that are to come. Today, the way I learned in my career was often attaching myself to someone senior who had experience and could teach me hand-to-hand. Those opportunities are harder to come by these days, but the fundamental behind that is still the curiosity component - you need to be curious about what you're about to learn in order to know what type of questions to ask people. Today, with AI and everything, you can often self-serve, but that just elevates how you ask questions and advance your learning. For young women coming into work, really be curious and find your alliances as quickly as possible - your go-to mentors. It doesn't have to be in your field per se, it could be someone who had a similar journey or career background, and obviously you want your SME mentor as well who you can go to with questions. Your network of webs starts being developed and created, and it takes time to start it, but it will be stronger if that curiosity stays hovering across your journey because it makes you feel refreshed every time you have new ideas or new things to learn. The other thing I would mention is stay genuine. It's harder and harder to keep that genuineness - the environment is very cutthroat and competitive - but I firmly believe staying genuine and being honest is important. That doesn't mean you have to be a people pleaser, it's about knowing the truth of who you are and how you want to interact with people. Treat people with kindness and respect - it goes a long way.
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