Rosalind Chin is Senior International Producer at Bloomberg TV. In her 2021 WiFA Spotlight Series Interview, she discusses her career mentors, advice to her younger self, the importance of diversity and inclusion during the COVID-19 Pandemic and more.
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself
I’m Senior International Producer at Bloomberg TV in Hong Kong. The work is extremely varied and spans the daily shows, features, field work, and some reporting. I love the mix and how every day brings something new.
My day starts sometime around 3am and I’m at work soon after, along with the rest of the Bloomberg Daybreak team. Let’s just say it can be tough staying disciplined on getting enough sleep.
The Hong Kong bureau produces 6 hours of live shows every weekday morning, wrapping all the action on Wall Street and tracking the markets opening across the Asia Pacific from New Zealand and Australia through to China, India and the Middle East. There is always so much going on, it’s what powers us through the day.
2. Mentors play an important role in the developments of many careers. Did you have a mentor? If so, what did you look for in that person?
It was actually through WiFA that I met my first mentor. We have many great conversations about a huge range of topics which may not all seem to be directly career-related. They go off in all directions but they always feed back into widening our perspectives and approaches to work and leadership.
One big reason for this is because she works in an unrelated field, has had a different career path, and is in a different place in her career and life than I am. It allows us to have broader conversations and not get bogged down in minutiae.
That’s also true of my mentor within Bloomberg. She is from a separate part of the firm and has had a wonderful and varied career spanning a range of divisions, which gives her an invaluable overview of the broader business. I always come away from our conversations with a good reset about what’s important and what’s not.
The mentor-mentee is really quite a particular relationship that spans trust, counsel, and friendship. It should allow both sides to grow, and as a side benefit, also present opportunities to expand your networks.
3. Think back to when you were starting out your career. What advice would you give your younger self?
Don’t be afraid to make a noise about yourself! Toot your own horn, speak up for yourself and have the confidence to grab opportunities with both hands when they come.
It’s been said many times that women are not as good at doing these things as men and when I step back, I realise that’s been true of me too. Don’t be one of those statistics!
4. The last year has brought tremendous upheaval and disruption to all aspects of our lives. How are you and your company continuing to promote diversity and gender equality despite these massive changes?
Bloomberg’s commitment to promoting diversity and gender equality did not waver last year, if anything, the work on D&I stepped up. There’s a real belief that D&I is everyone’s responsibility.
We started programs such as GOAL (Growth, Opportunity, Advancement and Leadership) aimed at women’s career development. Bloomberg has also been driving local internal programs to identify and grow potential leaders in the region.
Bloomberg extended its New Voices training program, which is aimed at amplifying women’s voices across online and on-air content. As part of that we conduct media-training both internally and externally and have now trained up about 100 women from across APAC.
And, I’m co-lead of Bloomberg Working Families Community, which is a voluntary role falling under our D&I initiatives. The pandemic has put an even greater emphasis on the need to ensure both women and men juggling jobs, children and/or elderly care don’t get isolated or left behind. We’re working harder than ever to try and provide avenues for support and information sharing on topics and activities that may help, as well as advocating for policy changes that will make a real impact on people’s lives.