It took four mojitos and a car crash for Grab to tell her: ‘You’re hired’

Grab’s marketing head Cheryl Goh (R) / Photo credit: Henzy David / Tech in Asia

Cheryl Goh, group vice president of marketing at Grab, was one of the first employees to join the ride-hailing company. She’d signed a contract even before there was an app.

Her journey to joining the firm wasn’t exactly a simple case of getting from point A to point B.

“I would describe my early life as truly unremarkable,” Goh told the audience at Tech in Asia Singapore 2018.

After attending public school in her native Malaysia, she moved on to college. “That’s when I discovered Counter-Strike,” she said, referring to the hit multiplayer shoot-’em-up that many of us still remember from the late ‘90s.

“I spent a lot of time gaming,” she recalled. Her studies suffered as a result, and she felt left behind as peers moved into high-flying corporate jobs.

“When I finished college, I looked around and thought: ‘I’m screwed.’”

At that point, I didn’t really know if I wanted the job.

But all those hours spent neutralizing virtual terrorists in Counter-Strike proved to be her saving grace, landing her a job at gaming-focused payments startup MOL.

Her parents were concerned, to say the least.

“They said, ‘Are you crazy? These companies, they die really quick!’ But I thought, if I didn’t do this, I’d be three years behind everybody else climbing up that corporate ladder,” she said.

“And that startup gave me that chance […] based on merit and potential instead of years of experience.”

Goh gradually rose through the ranks at MOL, eventually making senior vice-president. After eight years at the startup, she left to become general manager at a more traditional media company.

She said, “My parents were overjoyed – big company, comfortable job, good paycheck. ‘Cheryl never studied, played a lot of games, went to a startup – but finally it has paid off.’”

Free marketing for startups, 101

Making Malaysia safer