Opposite to her petite look, Hue Anh (Annie) Le brings to the table her strongest expertise, superb experience, and exemplary leadership as our Senior Operations Excellence Manager. Many of us may already portray her as a certified yoga instructor; however, if you were getting used to her calmness, you would be amazed by how she also embraces such a vibrant lifestyle and entrepreneurial spirit.
Q. You have been with Katalon for more than 1.5 years. What brings you to Katalon and how has your role evolved since you have been here?
Annie: Back then, I had been working in the operations field for around 4 years, with 2 years at a business operations consulting firm where I experienced various industries through different projects and got to know the technology market. Randomly during a casual talk, one of my friends mentioned Katalon and his deep impression of people here with lovely manners and recommended me to explore. My curiosity, of course, brought me to research and immediately the Katalon SaaS products caught my interest. Now when I look back, my journey to Katalon was so pleasant.
Joining a start-up company by the time we were planning for fast growth, my responsibility was to collaborate closely with other core operational functions such as HR, Finance, Accounting, Admin, and IT to formalize company-wide and cross-functional processes, either create them from scratch, optimize or automate them to meet our needs of operating globally, sustainably and securely. Concurrently, I started working to revamp the performance bonus program where I got opportunities to gain an understanding of all of Katalon's functions and make the conjunction between them to better support our company's cross-functional collaboration. My operation journey at Katalon kept continuing that way, each day brings me some brand new things and urges me to learn and grow with the organization.
Q. What are the biggest challenges and the proudest achievement? Or it could be the learning experience from your role.
Annie: To me, operations include 3 main factors: people, process, technology, and its mission is to increase the efficiency of the triangle: quality, cost, and time.
With that being said, the biggest challenge of any operations person is that you need to continuously zoom in and out to have a decent understanding of each team's scopes and priorities while keeping in mind the top priorities of the business to harmonize the collaboration and keep things moving towards the strategic directions.
It is great to see the processes are established, the supporting systems are in place, and see how well they help our business functions to streamline their work. For example, all the functions such as HR, Finance, Accounting, Legal, Admin, ITOps currently all have their own Jira Service Management portal to centralize the work to be able to better proceed with Katalians’ requests, with clear workflows, proper approval layers, and transparent communications.
Q. What is the driving force behind your accomplishments?
Annie: I think that’s the agile and growth mindset. The agile mindset is a thought process that involves understanding, collaborating, learning, and staying flexible to achieve high-performing results. And a growth mindset views intelligence and talent as qualities that can be developed over time through effort and actions. These mindsets have us put aside ego, and focus on what is right, instead of who is right.
Q. What makes you find inspiration in your work?
Annie: “Do what you love, and love what you do". I am a person who wants to keep everything around me organized and methodical, and I see myself fit right in the field of operations. The more I contribute and see the outcomes, the more I enjoy working in my position. And to keep myself motivated, I often enjoy self-celebrating any of my small achievements - whether people recognize it or not - by simply treating myself to an iced latte or an ice cream.
Q. What is one thing people do not know about you that they would be surprised to know?
Annie: I think most of us here at Katalon are already aware of my relationship with yoga. For me, yoga is not just a workout activity, instead, it unleashes my awareness of how each and every cellular in the body has its own movement, and how the body, soul, and mind are always in harmony.
But, doing yoga or embedding yoga philosophy does not stop me from being a K-pop/K-drama fan haha. I have been stanning a boy group for almost 13 years, and they are the sort of motivation when it comes to how determined, hardworking, and patient a human being could be to reach the desired dream.
Q. As a certified yoga instructor, is the yoga philosophy aligned with your life philosophy, and does it change how you approach the world around you?
Annie: Yes, I do think that they are very much aligned. To enjoy the slow movements and feel the impacts of the poses or flows on your body, you need to build your core really strong, and that is something requiring focus, patience, and inner strength. You cannot rush and should not rush, you learn resilience in every movement and reach the goal with sustainability.
Q. What piece of advice would you give to your younger self?
Annie: My favorite saying from the book “Becoming” of Michelle Obama is that “If you stick to your principles, things will work out". I have always applied it and if there is one thing I want to say to my younger self, it is.