Austria
TUI has many successful female leaders in a wide range of areas. In our series "Female Leaders@TUI" we feature these colleagues and their inspiring thoughts on the subject of equality in interview form. This time we talked to Jie Zheng, Lead Data Scientist within the TUI UK&I Customer, Marketing & E-commerce (GDS CME) team.
11 March 2022
Female Leaders@TUI – Jie Zheng
Jie, what is your current role at TUI?
I support and develop data scientists in the Global Data Science – Customer, Marketing & E-commerce (GDS CME) – team, as well as being responsible for stakeholder engagement and management for recommenders and other data science products through close collaboration with Customer Data Service and other TUI teams.
Who is your role model as a female leader?
Brené Brown is a source of inspiration in many difficult situations and I’ve watched her TED talk on ‘the power of vulnerability’ many many times, highly recommended.
There is a lot of talk about the specifics and qualities of female leadership. How are you leading?
I am a firm believer of the theory that the 'first follower' is at least as important as the originator of ideas, as suggested by Derek Sivers. I normally work in cross-functional teams, where great ideas come from the whole team and finding or becoming the first follower and showing others how to follow can often be the key to a team’s success.
What is your advice for young female professionals regarding growth in their careers?
Be curious: Ask questions about your current role, your stakeholders or the impact you have in the organisation and/or in the industry. This can often lead to seeing everything from a different perspective. Be the catalyst: My mentor said to me in my early career, you want to be the person who can walk into any workplace and wonderful things start happening to everyone around you. That’s when you know you have succeeded. Be part of more: Influence is built via connections. The more we can contribute to others, the more linked we are with the bigger picture and the more opportunities we will have in the long run. Situations change over time but the ability to contribute to others is the core ability one can focus to build.
