Having joined the team in August 2020 as the new managing director of Adobe’s South Korea business, Mary Woo has more than 28 years of experience in the software and IT industry, successfully driving cloud transformation and business growth for large companies and small businesses.
But when she reflects on her career, it wasn’t always a straight line. Her years with a struggling startup, being rejected from multiple job roles, being in a male-dominated profession, and building a self-imposed glass ceiling taught her many valuable lessons. And the one sticks out above the rest is that the best opportunities are the ones you create for yourself. We sat down with her to learn more about career journey.
Can you tell me a little about your career journey up until joining Adobe?
I began my career at a startup with my college friends and after eight years it almost went bankrupt due to an economic crisis that hit many Asian countries, including Korea.
I didn’t like the risk associated with a startup, so I started to apply to larger companies, but as I was working on my resume, I had a difficult time because I didn’t know what to focus on. At the startup I worked on PR, marketing, development, sales, and many other tasks. I felt I had the right experience, but I never heard back from the many roles I applied to. I later reached out to an HR team to inquire why and they told me it was because they didn’t know what my specialty was. That was shocking to me, because I didn’t realise I needed one.
Eventually I couldn’t find a role in a big company, so I joined another startup. I worked on building the company and trying to figure out what my specialty should be. I finally decided that I wanted to focus on sales, and I spoke with the CEO and said that I only wanted to focus on that, and they agreed.
All the salespeople at the time were male and I felt that there was something missing in the way the job was being done. Since I joined sales a little later than most of my colleagues, I found it very difficult to get customers to want to meet with me as I didn’t have any connections in the industry, so I needed to figure out what I could do to differentiate myself. I decided to buy a technology book and translate it to the Korean market, which worked very well! I went back and revised the whole sales presentation to include information about the technology behind the solutions, became a trusted partner to my clients, and customers suddenly wanted to start meeting with me. I ended up meeting with 2,800 customers in just three years!
From there I was able to join some big companies like Citrix, Dell, Microsoft and now Adobe! I often had to recommend myself for roles and that is how I got my first country manager role. If an opportunity became available that I thought I could do, I put my hand up!
Why did you decide to join Adobe?
In our changing world I feel that understanding customers’ businesses is very critical. And crucial to that strategy is understanding our customers’ customers. I looked at a few companies that were interesting and I felt Adobe was the one. It is a company that enables customers to transform themselves from a business perspective and paves the way for their digital transformation.