Employee Spotlight: Helen

It is no secret that employees are the heart and soul of a company. Inkcups is fortunate to have so many amazing employees. Meet our next Inkcups Employee Spotlight- Helen, our Asia Sales Manager. Helen works out of our Hong Kong office.

Q. How long have you been with Inkcups? 

A: Time flies, it has been three years already.

Q. What is your favorite part about your job?

A: Facing different kinds of challenges daily.  Having a supervisor like Matt, who is open for any opinions and discussion which is not easily found.

Q. How long have you been in the textile/ tagless industry?  

A: OMG, it is soon to be 20 years.

Where should I start?! Instead of saying I have 20 years of garment and textile experience, I would rephrase it as, I have 20 years of garment and textile printing experience.

Q. Could you expand on your background in the industry? 

A: I majored in hotel management but the year I graduated there was a serious financial crises in Asia. The tourism and hospitality industry was hit hard making it difficult for a freshly graduated student like myself to find a decent job in the field.

After a few temporary positions, my first official full time job offer was from a garment trims and accessories company named Paxar. This was my first step into the textile and garment industry. It was a completely new experience to me compared with what I learnt in an internship and at college. After three years, I became the assistant manager of the customer service department where I had over one hundred customer service representatives to manage. However, I chose to leave as I thought it was a bit too easy and I craved a challenge. To switch it up, I worked for two different book and packaging printing companies as the sales and marketing executive. Then the sales director from Paxar approached me again as she was looking to fill a sales supervisor position. Paxar is where I gathered an in-depth knowledge about how garments are designed. I spent most of my time in garment factories and brands/buying offices. In total I worked 13 or 14 years at Paxar/ Avery Dennison (Avery Dennison acquired Paxar two years after I returned).

I started my next chapter by joining Kornit Digital as a channel sales manager. Kornit sells garment DTG digital printing machines and wide format textile digital printing machines.  This was another completely new experience to me as I had never managed distributors or sold machines before.  I enjoyed this position a lot as I love to keep learning! My time at Kornit allowed me crazy travel opportunities as well.  I traveled to five different countries within one month, a record which none of my colleagues were ever able to break!

After four or so years there I stumbled upon Inkcups. I was very interested to see what Inkcups had in store for me. What sealed the deal is my supervisor Matt.  As I mentioned before, Matt is a fantastic supervisor. He is a funny guy and I instantly could picture myself working with him.

That is my past 20 years in the garment and textile printing industry in a nutshell.

Q. What is your favorite quality about Inkcups as a company? 

A: Not many organizations allow “fun” be part of the culture and always seeks for improvement.

Q. Outside of work, what is your favorite pastime or hobby? 

A:  Bakery, photography, traveling to places with history and story….  Most important is SLEEP.

Below: Helen provided some photographs, a glimpse into her travels.

Learn more about our fun Inkcups culture that Helen spoke about here: Our Culture.

Below: take a peek at Helen’s impressive baked goods, they are truly works of art.