Flying high with a female airline exec
VIVIAN Lo does not admit she was a brilliant student. But she admits she only applied with four firms after graduation and all accepted her.
The first female country manager of Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. (CX) in the Philippines was accepted by two banks, the airlines and another firm.
“But I could not imagine myself as a banker,” says the petite, young looking 30 something who has clocked in 12 hours of flying. Cathay proved to be the most attractive firm so she joined it.
“I think it’s amazing to join an airline and see the world. And the longer I work in Cathay, the more proud I am of the company. I think it’s the best company in the world,” Lo gushes and proceeds to talk about how much she loves her company and that she believes it is one of the most caring firms in the world.
Cathay and the Philippines have had a long relationship.
It is an important market for CX—one of its top ten biggest in the world in terms of passenger traffic.
Her appointment as the country’s first female GM attest to her abilities.
“The Philippines was actually part of the first maiden flight of Cathay in September 1946,” reveals Lo. The first flight was a chartered flight that flew from Hong Kong to Manila then Shanghai,” explains Lo.
Despite the demanding and varied tasks given her by the airlines the past ten years, Vivian meets its challenge with energy. Her main problem initially was looking too young.
Her youthful looks and small physique made her look much younger than her age. To offset this, she wore only black and gray suits. Now that she is older, she claims she has added others colors to her wardrobe.
But she still avoids dressing casually—even in the golf course.
“When you’re introduced to clients in the golf course, you can’t wear a Mickey Mouse shirt,” she laughs.
But the airlines must have seen beyond her youthful looks and saw the potential of the then fresh graduate as she was placed in the management trainee pool. This meant after her training she would go to the General Management List. Now there are pluses and minuses of being in the GML. The plus side is that all the top posts of the airlines are filled from names from the list. And GML members go through exactly the same training programs that the top honchos went through. The minus side is that all Cathay employees, except those in the GML, can apply to various posts available in the airlines.
The ones in the GML are at the beck and call of the head office. Assignments are often given on short notice. But Vivian has no problems with this even if there were times she got only a few weeks’ notice to transfer to another country.
Her career growth has been quick in Cathay starting as an engineering project officer. Her first post required her to look at the cost efficiency of the fuel and maintenance programs of Cathay.
“I wrote a program that I think they are still using,” Lo adds.
Her initial years were focused on the commercial side of technical departments.
After her three-year management training, Lo was assigned to airline planning which is route and aircraft study and deployment, network and frequency planning.
Lo apparently passed the training with flying colors because barely six months after the training she was appointed manager of Cathay in Hanoi, Vietnam.
In between country posts, Lo was pulled to the main office to work as Network Revenue Manager. This exposed her to finance work.
“I was in charge of sales and revenue management for half of the CX network namely, North America, Southeast Asia, Japan, India and the Middle East.
After brief stints as country manager in Malaysia and Brunei in mid-2002, Lo was once more brought back to headquarters in Hong Kong and made the Manager for International Affairs in December 2003. Her main task was negotiating for traffic rights and liaisoning with various government agencies.
She says she is a good negotiator—but only when it comes to Cathay. When it comes to negotiating for personal causes, she is useless.
Which is why she never shops in places she has to haggle. Lo admits she is not your typical female because she does not like shopping.
So what does she do during weekends?
She thinks. “I am a strategist. I think about what the team can do in the long term. Every time I am in a country I create a five year vision.”
Lo says she never imposes what she wants. Instead she presents numbers to her team and they all work on it.
She spends time coaching her staff.
As country manager, her work means “running the local office including sales, marketing, finance, engineering, airports, reservation, human resources etc.”
Cathay was set up by two former World War II pilots—American Roy Farrell and Australia Sydney de Kantzow. In 1948, majority of the firm was acquired by Hong Kong trading company Butterfield and Swire and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. began operations on July 1, 1948.
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