VU ENGLISH Newsletter November 2014

Meet Fiona Yu—one of the VU-LU Alumni from 2000 Intake!

Becoming the first bunch of graduates from Victoria University (it was called “Victoria University of Technology” back then) in 2004 under the joint program with Liaoning University is one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me in my life, I confirmed this when I was involved into a series of activities to celebrate the program that stepped into its 15th anniversary this September. The college time when I studied at Victoria University during 2002-2004 surely was the best time of my life, which incorporated fully with youth, passion, homesickness and the vision of the future — I enjoyed it and learnt from it very much.

I majored in International Business and Trade for my bachelor degree in Liaoning University and Victoria University, which is exactly what I do for a living now. I am working in the Australian Trade Commission (Austrade) Shenyang Office as the office manager— Austrade is the Australian Government’s trade and investment development agency, operating as a statutory agency within the Foreign Affairs and Trade portfolio. We help companies around the world to source goods and services from Australia.

Like some of you are planning right now, after graduating from VU, I continued my study at the University of Sydney, and obtained my Master Degree in Human Resource Management in 2005, thereafter another lucky thing happened to me: I got a job offer from a Fortune Global 500 company - EDS. Back then I just thought I might be too young to settle down with my life and I’d rather challenge myself and explore my potentials. The key thing and priority is to earn more life experience, which I saw was the life time keynote, hence I chose to leave Australia without immigrating; I then started my career path in Hong Kong, that was my first job. Lucky me, I met lots of nice mentors and friends at work and in private, they all along made my stay in Hong Kong a precious memory andtreasure. I am not sure whether it started from Hong Kong or Australia, but I just kept my foot prints going north and I relocated to Shanghai and Beijing for several years—positioned in a number roles in HR, Finance, Sales and Marketing,till eventually got back to my hometown, Shenyang in 2010. Before Austrade Iserved in HP, Neusoft and PepsiCo as well.

Working for Austrade is dynamic and meaningful, I see this is an implication that I have unfinished linkage with Australia still, I reckon that is why I am back here again.