When Lisa Park was young, she had lots of opportunities for travel as her father was an ex-pat in the Middle East. She enjoyed travelling to several countries and meeting different people speaking varied languages. Therefore, pursuing an education in interpretation and translation became an obvious choice for her. As a result, she completed her Masters in Interpreting and Translating in Spanish and French.
Logistics attracted her because it is a global industry connecting people from all over the world. Lisa Park joined Maersk in 2002 as a graduate trainee and spent eight years in the UK's Maersk Line Ocean commercial team. The logistics industry was evolving at that time from manual to automated operations. After spending a couple of years with Expeditors as Ocean Procurement Manager, she returned to AP Moller Maersk in 2012 as Branch Manager for Damco: leading local Sales, Operations and Warehouse activities.
Diversifying into Supply Chain Management, she transitioned to Key Client Management, running a major global retail account.
Her first leadership role came as a result of Maersk acquiring P&O Nedlloyd. Being in sales made it very challenging for her when she began her stint in the leadership role, as it was not easy to bring together different cultures and galvanise the team. Though there were several challenges, there were lots of learnings. 'I was lucky to work under many leaders during my career, which helped me in a faster transition from an individual to a leader,' she says.
In her current role, her primary focus is on enhancing customer experience across West Central Asia with a clear priority around delivering strong Net Promoter Scoreand Customer Experience excellence. She also leads the Customer Program Management and Customer Implementation functions, which support 30+ Global Key Clients across the region.
'I am super passionate about gender diversity since diversity is good for society as everybody is involved in an organisation – be it a husband or a father, a girl or other females in the family,' she says
There will be a wider network from the societal perspective. Even from the business perspective, organisations will get a team environment having very diverse views. Gender diversity is only one part of the journey. When we bring people from different backgrounds and different genders, the environment will be really special. This will be good for society and business as we will get the best ideas from different sources; they can challenge each other and approach problems from different perspectives,' she adds.
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