Interview with Mr. Dalon Lee

Mr. Dalon, could you share more about your role as a propositions and business development Manager?

Dalon: I’d say my role can be thought of as a strategy and planning manager. Essentially what we do is think of strategies for the bank, to acquire new customers and help the bank grow. So when it comes to a company, any company of sorts, I’m sure most of you would think that it seems easy to try and grow a business but it’s actually very difficult. In the simplest term, people would say “Just spend on marketing cost”, “Just have to build your own brand out there”, “drop some money in social media; drop in straits times, drop in TikTok, and then you’ll get new customers'' But in reality it’s really hard to acquire new customers. I mean, how many of you have actually clicked on the app in recent times? No. So what my team does is engage a new market, then identify new opportunities for the bank to see what the growth areas are, then develop new products that would attract all these new customers for the bank. So you can think of us as creating new values and products for our clients or potential clients, it’s actually keeping us relevant and hoping to capture more market share of the bank.

What is a typical workday like for you?

Dalon: There’s no typical workday in my life. It’s about creating new things, and navigating the unknown. I’m a proposition manager where nothing is firm and there’s no so-called framework. There’s nothing out there that says “This is what you need to be an entrepreneur”. I’m sure that if you ask any business owner, they will tell you that there’s no manual. There’s always new challenges coming up every day, and that's the same thing for a business manager. What we’re trying to do is to identify an opportunity and create a solution from there. So rather than a day-to-day life I would say it’s more like a cycle when we identify the opportunity to study the market that is present in the market, look at the financial and the presented business (fiasco). And then after that, once there is a (vote that is internally to streamline) and create our new product work with all the various stakeholders to create a new product. So once the product is approved, we will work with marketing. That's where the easy part comes in where people always think that it's all the marketing that tries to expand a business. So then we work with marketing to come up with marketing campaigns and marketing solutions to blast out this new product. I would say rather than a day-to-day work this is more like a life cycle of what I’m doing as a business manager.

Is there a particular part of your day that you look forward to?

Dalon: Definitely when things are completed. I think the best part of any day in my career is when something is achieved. When the product has launched, when we see favourable responses from clients, you know after debating with our risk manager, financial manager, with my accounts until they agree with me. I think that's the best part of my day, basically when things go my way. And unfortunately, most of the time it doesn't. It’s part and parcel of trying to develop something new.

What is the work atmosphere like at HSBC?

Dalon: Thankfully I have a really supportive atmosphere, the easiest way i can put it is the CEO of the whole commercial bank just sits opposite me, it’s a really supportive culture like you know if I need help I can just reach out to my teammates, my boss, my big bosses, everyone is open for me to reach out for help. That's why it is so enjoyable to work in my current role right now. Because there’s always challenges that i face every day especially when there’s no fixed framework in place or guidebook that says “When you have difficulty, please reach out to this person” but because I have such a supportive environment I am able to reach out to anyone in work space and seek their help and they’re more than happy to support me. In fact within our bank we have this “speak up” culture where the senior executive constantly encourages our staff to raise any issues if they have day-to-day life. In fact, we get so many surveys about our well-being and culture that some of us get so tired of it that we don't even respond to them.

What about the challenges that come with the job?

Dalon: I think the challenge is definitely about not having a guidebook to do our work. It’s about creating something new, if I were to throw someone and say “Hey, help me grow SIM ''. Everyone would be “What are we supposed to do? How are we going to grow SIM? What are the areas that we are supposed to grow? That's the main challenge because there's no existing guideline on what we have to do. I mean there is a path that I mentioned in order to help grow the bank. You just have to study what's the market trend and fix it internally, like what are the products that we can offer to these markets. But I think the difficulty of that is really hard because there is no one guiding us; a completely new opportunity. No one knows what’s going on, and it’s like finding your own way in the dark and at the same time I find it really enjoyable at work. I like the challenge because it gives me a sense of purpose rather than doing mundane day-to-day data entries. That's too boring for me. But I really like challenges, especially when you manage to solve difficulties and it gives me satisfaction after overcoming the difficult days.

We discovered that you’ve been with HSBC since graduation.

Dalon: I think thank god our bank was really prepared for the covid pandemic because back then we were already issued laptops when we were remote working. So when the pandemic hit, more like “Oh we can finally work at home!” because before the pandemic we had to work in the office but we already had our laptops and brought them back home. I would say it was an enjoyable experience because it's a completely different environment, we were able to work in a much more relaxed space which is at home. But at the same time, there were definitely difficulties that we faced during the pandemic because I personally feel that sometimes it's a lot easier to meet face-to-face to solve certain problems. I think the atmosphere is very different. I think the covid pandemic really brought it out and reminded us that we can't entirely miss out the human touch. I think flexible working is more important and the covid pandemic really helped allow us to embrace a culture of flexible working place.

What was your favourite moment during your career journey?

Dalon: I think it's always the promotion, probably this is what everyone would think. Because the promotion isn't just about the surface, it's about having a bigger title, having a bigger pay but at the same time your efforts are getting recognised. And most importantly for me I think it's about the fact that the company is willing to give me new challenges and responsibilities for me to take on. My personal belief is, “If there is no challenge in your day-to-day work, you're dead”. Once you don't feel that there's no challenge, you're stagnating; You’re not growing as a person. I’m sure when you are studying now you feel lots of stress, similarly back then when I was studying it was so stressful because I was learning new things, I was actually growing as a person. So it should be applied similarly in your career where as you grow in your career, don't ever feel comfortable in your role. I think that's really important and the promotion really gave me a sense of satisfaction as I was given the opportunity to teach myself even more

Was there a specific reason for pursuing a CPA Australia qualification over others?

Dalon: For a start, I get credits from RMIT. That's the lazy perspective when I first started the CPA programme, but I would’ve just dropped it because my career didn't seem to be relevant to the CPA at that point of time. Because when people talk about CPA, talk about finance manager, accounts manager, auditors. I was in a little bit of a different field but still relevant because I do risk and finance. The reason why I continued with CPA was because it gave me a window of opportunity with my bosses. Once you go with the CPA name, people look at you as a professional that has a certain knowledge in the accounting field. And sometimes when working in the business, not everyone understands accounting and there could be a conversation gap. So I was there with a CPA cert to try and plug the gap as a middleman to soften the message of what I’ve been receiving from our accountants and tech specialists and feed it back to our business managers. that helps to keep the conversation going and connect the organisation. And that's the reason why I completed the CPA program.

Is there any advice that you would offer to an undergraduate who would like to follow in your footsteps?

Dalon: If you want to be a strategy type of person, then you don't necessarily have to follow my footsteps. When it comes to proposition, strategy planning and business development, you need to have a wide range of different skill sets. You have to be able to communicate with external parties and work internally, write up a business case and understand what's the commercial value of it, you have to manage the different stakeholders, and to have a certain specialist knowledge. To get into a strategy and planning role, it's more about making sure you have a wide range of skills within your company and work from there. An alternative to becoming a strategy and planning manager, is to be a consultant. I’ve heard from people that when you join the big four, your consultants will help the company to grow. At the end of the day, it is about getting the right skills to get into such a position.