What's your job about?
Emma Sleep works to deliver the best sleep experience through our expertly developed mattresses, pillows, and much more! As a Junior Supply Planning Manager, I work with various teams in the Manila office to ensure that we always have enough stocks in our Asia-Pacific country markets, ready for our customers to get the Emma experience. Our work in the Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) team helps translate the plans of our Business Development teams into forecasts, timelines, and actions for our Operations teams to execute. Overall, it’s been a great opportunity for me to connect with and learn from various corporate functions, especially since our Emmies are agile, high-performing, and highly collaborative!
What's your background?
I’ve always been into STEM since I was young, with a particular interest in learning how everything works. Graduating from a science high school, I thought that I could best make an impact by becoming a chemical engineer. Upon entering college, I became exposed to various college organizations, through which I was able to gain skills and experiences and develop my professional proficiency. Thus, along with what I learned in chemical engineering, I gained an interest in applying my engineering mindset to a corporate setting, such as in supply chain. I then had to decide if I saw myself working in a chemical engineering plant or in an office. Ultimately, I decided to “finish” my engineering career by getting my engineering license before applying for corporate roles in supply chain!
Fortunately, I stumbled upon the opening for my current role at Emma, through which I would be a critical part of the company’s supply chain and learn from the various internal stakeholders I had to work with. I also learned that the company places a high value on making an impact and making rational decisions, which was a perfect match for my initial interests! Now, a year after I sent my application to Emma, I can happily say that I made the right choice for my career and for further developing my interests 😊
Could someone with a different background do your job?
My job is driven heavily by numbers and logic, as I work with forecasts, lead times, and sales data on a daily basis. With this, I think anyone with a background in working with numeric data would do well in a role like mine! What may be more important, though, is having an end-to-end mindset, considering the possible impact that your decisions may have on relevant aspects of the business to ensure overall success!
What's the coolest thing about your job?
I really love that we’re empowered with a high degree of independence in the decisions we make, which is enabled by a work culture that is entrepreneurial, data-driven, and agile. This lets me get work done efficiently with other Emmies and encourages me to make a bigger impact through the work that I do! It’s also cool that we have a lot of opportunities to grow outside of our roles through our learning initiatives, connect with Emmies we don’t always work with through our interest groups, and enjoy a comfortable office with a loaded pantry! Hehe.
What are the limitations of your job?
Though Emma has been running for 10 years since its beginnings in Frankfurt, Germany, we still have a start-up mindset, which may come off as having a less rigid structure than most older companies. This opens our work up to a lot of short-term challenges, though we find it exciting to be the ones to find long-term solutions for these challenges!
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