Meet Our Customer Success Manager, Americas, Hong Yi!

As part of our spotlight series highlighting members of the Styra team, we can’t wait for you to meet our Customer Success Manager, Americas, Hong Yi!

I was born and raised in central New Jersey. I have always been a huge Philadelphia sports fan. Football especially continues to be a big passion of mine and part of my life. I actually graduated from St. John’s University with a Sports Management degree. I really thought my future career would be in sports management. While I loved the internships I had within the industry, I realized it was going to be a very hard industry to break into. I spent my early twenties testing out different careers before taking a position as an Inside Sales Representative in Boston. I ended up transferring to the customer success team after a  mentor of mine started heading up the team. I started learning a lot about the post-sales role which is very different than the pre-sales roles I was used to. I found I really enjoyed building lasting relationships with customers and providing them support. I find that customer success is a great fit for me as a career. 

I love helping customers achieve things they didn’t even know they wanted to achieve. There are a lot of reasons that a customer will buy a product, but often there are problems we can help them solve that they haven’t even realized they have yet. I love being a part of a customer’s a-ha moment when they realize they can do something due to your team’s help. I work hard to ensure all of my customers get to that a-ha moment. I find it important to go above and beyond for your customers. 

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. When I was growing up I internalized a lot of doubt and questions. I would never raise my hand in class because I was afraid of being wrong. Throughout my career, I have learned to open up a lot more and ask questions. I have found that it is better to not know something than pretend that you do. 

Caring, teamwork and selflessness. 

I see success as helping those around you (this can be teammates, friends or family) succeed. All leaders are good at what they do, but the most impressive ones are those that help their teams improve and succeed as well. In basketball, the point guard leads the offensive team but his main goal is not to score the most points himself. His focus is on putting his teammates in the best position to score. I try to focus on how I can lift up those around me and help them succeed. 

It would be something having to do with working with one of my favorite sports teams. I interned on the event presentation team at Madison Square Garden. We were responsible for all of the halftime performances and multimedia experiences throughout the game like the Fancam. My dream job would be managing one of those teams. It allows you to interact with the fans and make sure the experience is as fun as possible. 

Chicken Wings. My wife thinks I’m crazy for how often I could eat wings. I may not be able to eat wings every day, but it’s pretty close.

I hate saying this but it would be my phone. I hate how much I use it, especially at times when I don’t need to be. I am always scrolling through Twitter or checking on sports scores.  

I would want to be able to fly. I thought about teleporting at first but I think flying would be so much cooler. With flying, you get to see everything around you and enjoy the journey to your destination. Whenever I have a window seat on a flight I love to look out and see the sky. It would be amazing to experience that outside of an airplane. 

House of the Dragon. I am not usually into the fantasy genre, but Game of Thrones was one of my favorite shows of all time.

I almost wanted to say Jon Snow, but I think I will go with Tyrion Lannister. I wasn’t the biggest fan of his at the start of the series, because he was always scheming to get ahead. In the end, he won me over because he would do anything to protect those he cared for and himself.