Cindy Kalliecharan – Virtual Team Ambassador for Team 10 – Kuala Lumpur
Who are you and what is your role within Arcadis?
I’m Cindy Kalliecharan and I am from a little island in the Caribbean called Trinidad and Tobago. I am lucky enough to have lived and worked across Europe, UK, Middle East and now Asia with Arcadis. My current role is Head of HR Operations for Asia covering China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and India. My role is to ensure the delivery of our People Promise across Asia working closely with Country Leadership and the HR team.
How has your experience as virtual team ambassador been so far?
Having been a virtual team ambassador before and really enjoyed it, I was keen to do it again this year. My role focuses more on monitoring the great progress of the Kuala Lumpur team, ensuring deliverables are submitted on time and providing a sounding board as necessary. One of the most interesting things about working with Global Shapers is how reflective the teams are of our diversity of cultures across Arcadis. It’s great to see how the teams interact with each other to overcome challenges such as language or cultural barriers to achieve their objectives and build meaningful relationships in the group.
According to you, what is the biggest value of the Global Shapers program for Arcadis?
Shaping our future leaders. The Global Shapers program exposes talented, early-career professionals to what it is like to work for a truly global organization. Often, we work within our country or regional ‘bubble’ and can become quite blinkered. This program allows the Global Shapers to network across regionals and address some of the wider challenges Arcadis is facing and use their combined knowledge, understand and creativity to look for solutions. The Global Shapers program will push you out of your comfort zone, and part of the experience is learning how to embrace that, become more self-aware and reflect of your own strengths and development opportunities.
“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
What is your advice to Global Shapers and other early career professionals within Arcadis?
Cease every opportunity that life presents you, learn from the past but look towards the future, As Mother Theresa once said: “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
