ASW People Story

Isabella Yu joined AS Watson 34 years ago. She was drawn to the leading retailer’s commitment to innovation and solutions, and since she enjoyed trying new things, she knew the company would be a good fit.

When Isabella joined, she started off as an analyst programmer responsible for developing new automation programmes for the Merchandising Department. Later on, she moved on to become an Application Manager and be a part of the implementation team which allowed her to work on different IT projects such as Oracle, Retek and Space Master.

With her retirement, Malina Ngai, Group Chief Operating Officer of AS Watson Group, presented the long service award and thanked her in person, “Isabella told me that she liked mathematics in school and finally selected computer engineering for her professional education. She joined us 34 years ago as a developer. She said in those days, we had very big report printers in the office printing out a lot of daily reports for the business, and the office was very noisy then. Today things are so different, we use cloud computing and technology enables all processes to be fast and real time. The IT department also became a more fun environment, and we communicate a lot with each other, and we all are professional speakers on videos to introduce new IT solutions to colleagues.”

While Isabella is excited to see the evolution and application of IT and technologies, she’s proud to see so much more women have joined the field. She has always felt that women have an advantage in this career because they are natural communicators who can better understand the needs of the end user.

“Isabella is a role model for our female colleagues, empower yourself with your passion, do what you love and love what you do! We wish her happy retirement!” said Malina.