Jessie Ng

How did you get here?

There’s been three prior key roles which I would say have brought me to my current gig.

First one being in the marketing team within an early-stage start-up called Jayride (an online ground transportation marketplace), where I really got first-hand experience of what being ‘scrappy’ means and learning to deliver quick results with minimal resources.

I knew I wanted a role that allowed me to be analytical, creative and more generalist, which leads to my next gig at Deloitte, as a graduate within the Commercial Advisory team focussing on innovation projects for infrastructure clients.

After 3 years in that role, I then moved to Monitor Deloitte team to work on growth strategy, operational improvements and commercial due diligence. This experience reinforced my interest in innovation and tech.

What options were you considering?

Since Jayride, I knew I always wanted to go back to technology or at least be in a role that entails innovation so I looked into in-house corporate strategy, strategy and operations, and product roles in relevant industries. Whatever the role was going to be, I wanted to see something tangible from the work I put in.

How did you make the decision to take your current role?

Self-growth from the role: My role would be focussing on launching New Zealand and growing this new business. This was as tangible as it could get in terms of the impact I can create. It’s a super generalist role, as it means I can work cross-functionally in strategy, marketing, operations, partnerships and account management, and understand how to establish a business from scratch

Team and culture: I was super impressed with the team members I got to meet during the interview process. They were empathetic, very humble, intelligent, ambitious and generally such amazing people i found myself excited to learn from

Industry relevance: Being a foodie myself, I found myself very aligned with the overall vision of the company. I was already a regular DoorDash user prior to joining (extra bonus!)

What are you doing now?

As mentioned, my role has evolved since I’ve joined but my primary focus in the past several months has been to launch new markets in New Zealand (e.g. Christchurch) and grow these markets to become financially sustainable, while delivering on a hyperlocal experience to our customers, merchants and dashers. In 2023, I will also be looking into Australian regional markets.

What does your day to day look like?

This S&O role is probably the most generalist role across DoorDash given the broad range it involves. I would say its 30% strategic, 70% tactical execution depending on business priorities but day to day may include:

• Defining sales selection and goaling for outreach in new launch markets
• Implementing marketing promotions for customers in-app to grow daily volume and identifying CRM needs
• Executing on go-to-market approach for launch markets when it comes to coverage areas, marketing mechanics and timeframes
• Volume and trends analysis using dashboards/SQL to determine how to better improve customer, dasher and merchant experience and overall unit of economics
• Executing on a product launch from go-to-market strategy, product/engineering coordination and marketing and legal

None of the above would be possible without daily engagement with cross-functional teams across the business!

What do you love about your job?

I love how I can be a generalist in this job and get my hands dirty in so many different buckets. One day I could be learning about marketing CRM and executing it, and another day, I can work with the ENG/product team to conduct a new product testing. The best thing is, you can really drive your own work based on what impact you think it will have on the business.

I love how scrappy you can be and not be too bogged down with details that don’t actually matter, but also know when you should be an operator and go really really deep into processes that are critical in building tangible results.

As I have been focussing on launching markets, I’ve found it super fulfilling to see how my efforts have translated into tangible results (e.g. order volume, new customers, new merchants etc.)

What do you not love about your job?

Since DoorDash still operates like a growth start-up in ANZ, sometimes it can be overwhelming with how fast-paced the business moves. There are constant fires to put out daily or every so often so you really need to find a nice balance with making sure operations is on point without deprioritising the strategic analysis that can actually drive impact too.

With how scrappy the business is, it’s also on you to bring structure into processes and make things more efficient, which can take a lot of time!

What advice would you give someone deciding what they should do?

Don’t feel pressured to pick the ‘perfect’ role that ticks all your boxes. There are always learnings that come with each job, which will give you deeper insights into what you want for your next. Understand what factors you do not want to compromise on and prioritise those!

Research what roles are out there and what these involve day-to-day, that way, you’re exposed to broader role titles that you never knew existed (different organisations have different org structures!). Reach out to peers to hear their experience from these roles too!

Lastly, I think you always need to be ready for when the opportunity comes. Go practice case studies when you get the chance because you never know when that will come in handy!