Career Progression Stories: Alissa Lim

We caught up with Alissa Lim, the Group Manager at Lim Group in Jonas Australia, to talk about her career progression story since she joined the team, her thoughts on our Jonas ABC’s, challenges in her job and much more!

I am a Group Manager for what we call the Lim Group. That’s my last name, and I have the privilege of looking after the Health and Leisure Software Companies and Marina Software Companies in Jonas Australia.

I also work on the M&A team, so I’m hoping to add to my portfolio and grow it out in my group.

Career Background

My background before joining Jonas was that I was a university student, full-time studying a Bachelor of Arts majoring in modern history. My part-time job was a personal trainer and gym instructor. At the time, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do, but I thought, I’m doing this Bachelor of Arts degree and everybody else is also doing an arts degree – what else am I going to do? How am I going to get a corporate job?

And then I started looking on Seek and saw this Customer Success software role come up in the health and leisure industry. And I thought, hmm, I am a personal trainer and a gym instructor, why don’t I just give it a go? So I applied for the role and used my industry knowledge to get me in. I had no technical experience at all but I had industry experience. 

And so, I was able to finish off my degree and start a career at Jonas.

Career Progression Since Joining Jonas

My career progression since joining the team has been an extensive one. I started back in 2010, and I was the Customer Support Consultant for Gladstone, Australia. From there I progressed into professional services, doing training and being more client-facing. Then I moved into Operations Manager for Gladstone.

After some time,  I actually wanted to work for another Jonas company, so I sidestepped and moved to another company called The Retention People as the Operations Manager.

Then I moved back into Jonas Leisure group, as the Operations Manager, and then moved and grew into the General Manager, and then last year I stepped into the Group Manager role.

It’s been a continuous progression since 2010.

Typical Day as the Group Manager at Lim Group

Actually, no two days are the same. I obviously collect my emails, I’m in a lot of meetings, I’m on client sites, I’m doing finance forecasting, M&A. I’m also a leader, a coach – a therapist. It’s quite a variety. So I don’t really have a typical day. I do a lot and it changes from day to day.

What Do You Enjoy Most About the Role?

What I enjoy the most about my role is the flexibility, the variety, the meeting and greeting of new people every day. I think if I was just to work in a one-stop 9 to 5 job doing the same regimented things, I would be a pretty sad, boring person. I absolutely love the flexibility and the variety that the role offers to me.

What Is your Biggest Challenge as Group Manager?

The most challenging aspect about the role is working remotely. I’m quite a people person, and so when I’m trying to be that coach with my team you sometimes can’t actually get those physical connections correct. And I feel like I’m sometimes just not nailing that leadership aspect, and I really struggle with the remote aspect of it.

Every other element of the job you can sort of navigate, but I’m a people person, so I like seeing my team face-to-face and actually combating challenges in a phyiscal setting rather than the computer screen all the time.

To solve the remote challenge, I have had the privilege of being able to have the face-to-face connection by going, you know what, we just actually just need to map this out together. I’m going to jump on a plane and we’re going to solve it together. And I love that about the job.

Then you can overcome the challenge when you’re actually having those remote standoffs and go, you know what, this isn’t working, let’s just be together for the day and solve the problems together. That’s worked a lot.

How Have You Seen The Jonas ABC Differentiators in Action?

The good thing about the Jonas ABC’s and how I utilize them every day is that I’m absolutely decentralized and I get to make decisions with autonomy. And one of the examples of that right now is that we’re having an initiative of bringing a new product to market.

I was able to see what the market needed and actually launch that initiative without having to go to the stakeholders and sit there and beg for an initiative that I knew was going to make the business more successful.

Not only that, but throughout my career I’ve got to experience first hand our values of the shared learning. I’ve been able to go to America, the UK, New Zealand all parts of Australia to go and visit other Jonas companies, learn about how they operate and take those best practices and then implement them in our everyday business, which I absolutely love.

And I love buy and hold. I still have products within our portfolio that we have bought and are holding forever. I actually use that in our sales tactics when I’m selling to a customer on that buy and hold philosophy because it means we care and that we’re not going to get rid of anything anytime soon.

Leverage our vertical market software expertise. Jonas has completed 200+ acquisitions and our parent company, Constellation Software, 1,200+.

How Has Your Experience Aligned With The Jonas ABC Differentiators?

The values have influenced my journey at Jonas because I’m able to be autonomous, but then I control my own destiny, and that’s what Jonas allows you to do, and which I absolutely love. I am in control of where I want to be and how I want to get there, and Jonas allows me to do that.

What Gets You Excited About The Future of Jonas?

What gets me excited about the future here at Jonas is I do not know what is around the corner, and I absolutely love and thrive off that. I’m a very dedicated, hardworking person, but not knowing is the most exciting thing about the future.

For example, AI, who knew that was coming? And that’s been such a huge pivotal moment for everybody. Learning all about how to use AI and where it can take us, is very exciting to me. I can’t wait to see where it goes.

Recent Posts