Switzerland has a lot to boast about, in addition to (amongst other things) its beautiful scenery and delicious chocolate, it’s also Zühlke’s birthplace.
And for Noemi Rom, it was home. What Noemi wanted was adventure. So she relocated to Zühlke’s Singapore office to become its Head of Digital Consulting. With her entire family. During the height of the pandemic.
Was it always part of her plan?
“I always wanted to work abroad,” she says. “I have two kids, aged six and eight, and wanted to show them that the world is so much bigger than this small country in the middle of Europe. Then Covid hit. When Switzerland decided to close down the border, it urged me to take the initiative, and show my daughters about other cultures… something you can’t do remotely.”
Noemi carefully chooses the organisations she works for to fit her values; and Zühlke’s international footprint was an attractive proposition. However, with no obvious trajectory in place, it fell on Noemi to carve out her own path. A chance meeting helped her find the way.
“I was in a meeting with the group executive committee of Zühlke Group. Amongst others, the CEO of Zühlke Asia was there. I seized the opportunity to introduce myself afterwards properly and shared the idea of joining Zühlke Asia to build up Digital Consulting in Asia, our fastest growing market location.”
“One thing led to another and about 12 weeks later, we landed in Singapore to start the adventure we’d been dreaming of.”
“You can always find a reason to not take a chance, and these things never come at the exact right point in time. But Zühlke was so helpful in our move across the world.”
“We rented our apartment out, canceled the kids’ schools, my husband quit his job and we packed our summer outfits and moved to Singapore, despite a lot of uncertainties.”
Noemi arrived at her new office to find it filled with people from all over the world – boasting 30 different nationalities, from Kazakh to Filipino, and Italian to Australian:
“Diversity leads to better results, especially in innovation. To create a culture and to accommodate for all the differences is a leadership task we should all be more aware of, even if diversity is less obvious.”