Rise Mentoring APAC
Application date extended to 21 April 2023 for the Rise Mentoring program
The Rise Mentoring Program in APAC is open to women working, or aspiring to work in the media technology industry based across the APAC region. This could include women working in technical/engineering roles, through to those working in support roles, such as marketing and PR. It will run from May-November 2023.
Find out more and apply
Full details and the application form can be found on our main Rise Mentoring page
How the Rise Mentoring Programme works
Our mentees benefit from a range of support, including:
- At least 12 hours one-to-one contact with your industry mentor;
- Monthly mentee meetings and access to industry events to help broaden your networks;
- Regular training sessions – from careers mapping through to creating your personal brand and boosting resilience and assertiveness.
- Peer-to-peer support from your fellow mentees, as well as guidance and support from the Rise team.
Any questions?
If you’d like to ask us any questions before applying, please contact Claire Doughty who will be able to help.
Interested in becoming a mentor for our 2023 programme?
Please contact Claire to discuss further.
Success Stories
I never imagined how dramatically 6 months could change my career, my outlook, and my goals – now I feel like the sky is the limit!!!
Rise has kept me so motivated and I really look forward to every session. Just wanted you to know how much of a difference all of your hard work has made during such a crazy time for everyone.
I’ve recently been appointed in a new role and I really feel my Mentor has supported me to get me into this mind-set. This, along with the seminars/catch-ups etc, has really helped me feel grounded in an uncertain year. Thank you so much.
Being a part of this mentorship scheme (especially during this strange year of 2020) has been so empowering. We may not have been able to meet in real life (yet!) but we’ve really got to know each other and been a support for each other. A big thank you to everyone involved!
When others comment on how far you have grown and developed in 6 months you know every minute has been worth the time and effort put in.
The last 9 months have been transformative for me. I'm like a butterfly whose wings will never be clipped again! The Rise scheme has been instrumental in boosting my confidence as a woman working in the broadcast sector. I've always known that I'm very employable. What has changed now is the confidence and belief in what I'm worth to an employer. This scheme, meeting all the people involved and what is has done for me has been life changing. I repeat...LIFE CHANGING. I know I'd have been alright without the scheme but I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, it will change the trajectory of my career. Thank you for investing in the programme. It has made a difference and it has mattered.
Mentees
Alankaram Narayanan
Alankaram Narayanan is a media & entertainment professional who has worked as a Graphic Designer & Video Producer in the content creation industry and has recently transitioned into a business development role. She intends to use her business, technical and creative acumen to disrupt & democratize the creative industry.
Apoorva Buttan
A highly committed, well-networked and enthusiastic academician & practitioner with over 10+ years of teaching experience in leading private university. A self motivated, ambitious person with a doctorate in Mass Communication. Possess excellent creative, marketing, administrative and communication skills. Adept at applying constructive and effective teaching methods that provide stimulating learning environments. Adaptive to latest pedagogical techniques in the domain of mass communication and digital marketing. Proficient in training and consultation on digital marketing and social media marketing. A parenting influencer who enjoys sharing mother-daughter journey on Instagram.
Evita Won
I have been working in the broadcast/Media entertainment industry for over 10 years. My roles were always mixture of Pre-Sales and After-sales support on software and hardware, gaining valuable experiences in providing world-class customer application/technical support and handling challenges of solutions design and project management in fast-paced and dynamic environment. And now I am in the sales role to support my customers further at the very front end.
Grace Rebecca
I am Grace Rebecca from Chennai, India. Organized and dependable candidate successful at managing multiple priorities with a positive attitude. Main objective is to pursue a challenging career in a dynamic industry that provides an opportunity to enhance my talents and to contribute to the company's growth. I am glad and very much look forward to my journey with Rise. Thank you for the wonderful opportunity!
Hyun Jung Lee
HyunJung is a specialist in global leading technology industry. She has lived in China for over 4 years when she was in primary years. Since then, she has been continuously engaged in international events like exchange student program, global internship, trading and sourcing products from various countries. Currently based out of Seoul, S.Korea, she is managing technology sourcing in global IT industry. Her main interests are strategic sourcing, supply chain management, digital transformation.
Junko Tomita
I have experiences working in several industries after graduation from junior college. After I worked for 4 years at the first company, I went to study abroad in Boston to make my dream come true. It was a great opportunity to know the new world more, not only learn English. After 2.5 years, I came back to Japan and restarted my career based on marketing and part of sales. I’m currently working as a marketing manager at Avid Technology, Tokyo, Japan. My hobbies are traveling abroad, watching movies, baking cake, and Hawaiian Hula dancing.
Kavya Rajagopal
A task driven and wilful Quality Control Specialist in the post-production industry with over 3 years of experience and a zest for problem solving, risk management and training. Currently responsible for overseeing the quality of work within the team and the UX/UI testing for the platform to ensure we are leading the industry standards.
Lisa Maskell
I’m Lisa Fiona Maskell, a Senior Manager - Localization for Deluxe, India, the world’s leading creation-to-distribution company, offering global, end-to-end services. I began my career in this industry in 2005, and since then I’ve experienced various facets of Localization. I’m a passionate baker in my free time and enjoy globetrotting
Prajakta Jadhav
Prajakta Jadhav is a software product management professional having 15 years of experience in the IT industry. She has extensive experience in solutioning software applications used within the Entertainment industry. With the interest in streaming media and live production, Prajakta has been exploring and looking for different opportunities to contribute.
Priyanka Singh
Total years of experience is 3 years of HR Domain in IT industry, worked on recruitment, onboarding formalities, exit formalities. I have Worked with mid level organizations where I was more focused on recruitment. Also taken care of employee engagement activities on Fridays and Festivals. I have completed my Master's, Graduation and schooling form Lucknow which is my native city as well.
Saniya Sood
I’ve been working with subtitling and localization industry for close to 10 years. I started out with creating subtitles and editing them, and then worked with various processes and teams over the years. I enjoy working with people and have worked a team lead/manager for different teams as well as trained people on many workflows. In my current role, I manage clients and the work coming in from them as well as a team of people who make it all possible.
Shivani Kochhar
I am Shivani Kochhar, working as Senior Manager Sales System APAC, Global Technology and Operations at Warner Bros. Discovery based out of Gurugram, India. Major part of my 24 years’ experience is in the Media and Broadcast Industry. I am responsible for collaborating with customers to envision, plan and implement business focused solutions, operational efficiencies, while managing costs and risks.
Si Ling Cheng
Bio coming soon!
Swapna Nadkarni
I have two decades of experience in the M&E Localization space. Having started in television production, I moved to English captioning, and have grown with Deluxe across operations, project management, localization quality. I also led Product for Localization which gives me the perfect blend of technology and operations in localization.
Shellyna Agustheen
After extensive years of thriving in the stock content industry, growing a business’ Australasia market, Shellyna has taken the call to venture into something new -the broadcasting industry. She is currently with Grass Valley managing its Channel Partners across APAC. Being an interior design enthusiast, you will most likely catch her being creatively indulged in sketching, painting, or layout designing when not at her workstation.
Vanessa Mok
Vanessa has been working in people and culture for around 5 years currently in a software development company for Asia Pacific region, based in Hong Kong. She is also an amateur designer, getting involved in different projects to turn ideas into solutions in her free time. She is keen on exploring new challenge and meeting new people - a full-time explorer!
Wing Tung Shek
Bio coming soon!
Zubaida Nila
Zubaida is a virtual production research student and visual effects compositor for feature films & commercials. She has also recently led the postproduction of projects published by Netflix Malaysia. In the long run, she aims to dedicate herself in creating a diverse community of the evolving VFX and film industry.
Mentors
Andrew Tan
Andrew Tan is the Vice President, APAC at Pixotope. He is responsible for leading Pixotope’s business in APAC. Prior to joining Pixotope, Andrew has over 10 years of sales leadership experience having held such positions at Shutterstock, Ross Video and Kramer Electronics. Totally more than 20 years of industry experience in the region, he has also held Product Marketing positions at Avid and Pinnacle Systems.
Greg de Brassac
Currently Vice President – APAC & Global Head of Channel for Grass Valley, Greg has worked in a variety of roles across Sales, Pre-Sales and Project Delivery for Grass Valley in APAC, the Americas and Europe during his 12 years with the organisation. Prior to that Greg was a customer of Grass Valley, leading technology and operations for the TV1 General Entertainment Partnership, a channel provider to the Foxtel platform. Greg lives in Perth, Australia with his wife, Gillian, children Jamie and Gracie and dog, Bear.
Leena Singarajah
Leena Singarajah is a senior executive with 26 years of commercial results and leadership and the sports, broadcast, media, and content industry. Her extensive experience covers commercial and growth strategy, securing and managing key client relationships, financial performance and profitability. She is also well versed and thirves in global mindset and cultures. She has previously worked for ESPN, ESPN STAR Sports, IMG, Scripps Networks and A+E Networks. A major focus in all of Leena's roles have been to develop business strategies to grow distribution, audience and ultimately monetisation. She has launched television channels, created digital content platforms, built local and regional advertising sales franchises and led businesses through digital transformation. She has also helped companies enter new geographical territories, diversify product portfolios, and convert strategies from B2B to B2C. During her sports career, Leena was responsible for content acquisition and programming for the ESPN and ESPN STAR Sports channels where she managed a multi-million dollar regional budget and acquired over 10,000 hours of programming negotiating with over 100 global sports rights holders and distributors. Specifically during her 15-year sports agency career at IMG, she was responsible for overseeing content and channel distribution of the world’s largest sports catalogue into Asia, as well as responsible for business development and other media-related activities for IMG Media across Asia Pacific. She has worked closely to help global sports federations like the IOC, ATP, European Tour, MotoGP, Wimbledon, Tennis Australia, and the FIVB expand their footprint into Asia Pacific, as well as working with Asian-based sports federations grow their footprint globally. She helped to launch Golf Channels across South East Asia in the 2000s as well as IMG’s first and fully-owned 24-hour sports channel, EDGESport.
Liming Fu
More than 30 years working in TV broadcast & media industry within international companies, extensive experiences for creating business, brand building, managing and operation on team work, customer relationship and distribution channels, marketing and technology in broadcast. especially for APAC region.
Melissa Soobratty
Senior Media Director at World Table Tennis (WTT) and oversees all areas related to content to drive forward and further professionalise the organisation’s vastly expanding media operations. This includes overseeing commercial broadcast deals, live production plus social and digital media. She has accrued a wealth of experience in the fields of sports media, OTT, business development, strategy, and production over the years both in Europe and Asia. Her previous roles include Vice President, Media at Football Marketing Asia (FMA), Business Development Director, APAC at Endeavor Streaming plus commercial roles at StarHub, Setanta Africa, Fox Sports, and BBC Worldwide.
Myleeta Aga
Founder and Managing Director at AnKi Media, Myleeta Aga is an entrepreneurial, content leader experienced across the media and digital content businesses in multiple countries and functions. Previously, Myleeta was Netflix’s Director of content for Southeast Asia and Australia, responsible for content strategy, acquisition and originals in key markets including Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Australia. Before joining Netflix, Myleeta held senior roles at BBC Studios, where she led the company’s operations across Asia following her stint as SVP South and Southeast Asia – including channels, TV and digital sales, production, consumer products and Global News distribution, as well as BBC Player She also spearheaded several BBC productions in the region including Dancing with the Stars, The Office:India and Criminal Justice. Prior to joining BBC Studios, Myleeta helped co-found TV guide channel, What’s On India. She has also worked as Executive Producer at Discovery based out of Washington DC overseeing multiple factual and entertainment series from conception to execution. During this time she earned two Emmy nominations for her work as executive producer on Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.
Nancy Curiel Diaz
Nancy Diaz Curiel is managing director at Digigram Asia Pte Ltd. She has been working for Digigram for more than 10 years, in the audio broadcasting industry. She oversees the company's strategy and sales across the APAC region with her local team based in Singapore. Passionate about people and new technologies, she has been dedicating her efforts in increasing her company's market share in the region, while developing a trustworthy network of partners and resellers. This third culture kid loves sharing and communicating with others, and is currently involved in a mentorship programme with a reputable French university, sharing her experience, network and guidance with young graduates. She is looking forward to learning from new inspirational personalities and contributing in empowering women in her side of the world.
Naomi Kim
Naomi Kim is the Head of APAC Marketing at Rescale, leading APAC marketing and BDR team with over 20 years experience of demand generation, channel enablement, and marketing communications in Media and IT industry. Prior to joining Rescale, Naomi was Marketing Manaer, APAC at Avid in Singapore and Korea, and marketing manager at Motorola Solutions, developed a GTM strategy through vertical marketing campaigns. As a Marcom specialist, Naomi was responsible for the fast paced sell-through promotions whilst enabling over 1,600 distributors and resellers at Hewlett Packard.
Matt McDonald
For the past 15 years Matt McDonald has been General Manager of SPTL Holdings Pte. Ltd. which is the only owned and operated broadcast facility for Sony Pictures Television. Currently they broadcast over 60 linear television channels via satellite, fiber and also stream to OTT platforms from their Singapore base. They operate five carriers on three different satellites, primarily servicing the South Asia market, but with feeds into the Middle East and Europe and Latin America. Prior to SPTL, McDonald worked at CNBC Asia for 11 years and started his broadcasting career at Television New Zealand in 1986
Peter Bruce
Peter Bruce is a 30+ year veteran of the broadcast and media industry. He started his career in a production studio at Digital Visions, Austria. Peter has worked with the innovative pioneering companies such as AMPEX, Sony Broadcast and BTS / Philips Broadcast/ Grass Valley in the APAC region. Establishing the IABM APAC regional office in Singapore of which he ran for 6 years.
Rupali Sarkar
Rupali Sarkar is currently working as a Senior Executive‐ Sales & Ops Support at ARK Infosolutions, Mumbai, a renowned media distributor organization in India. In this role, she is responsible for the end-end business development and management across Pan India. She works closely with end customers and resellers/partners to improve workflows and constantly build and maintain long-term relationships with them. Rupali possesses 12+ years of rich and diverse experience in Media Broadcast and AV industry across Sales, Pre-sales, Engineering and Business Development and she really enjoys the process of taking an idea and turning it into a real project. Having started her career with an intense passion to work in the creative world, she completed her education in electronics and telecommunications engineering with a post-graduation in media management. She is also a certified Trainer and the Leadership Coach and also started a Career & Wealth management coaching programs for women since January 2022.
Sangeeta Mahawar
Sangeeta has 20 years of commercial, operations, partnerships and project management experience working in the APAC media, sports broadcast and broadcast tech space. Her experience comes with end-to-end delivery for any initiative be it to negotiate and secure exclusive content rights for live sports rights and non-live content or, building trust with B2B partners to provide them with the broadcast tech solutions for their linear and digital, OTT services, she manages the operations and owns the processes and multiple projects till it's delivered successfully. She is energised when working with people like colleagues, management, partners etc and is great at aligning communications across regional teams, finding ways to effectively collaborate using shared tech tools and building consensus within teams is what she thrives on. She has worked for ESPN STAR Sports / FOX Sports , The UFC, Arqiva, Warner Media and Disney.
Shad Hashmi
Shad Hashmi is a digitally-focused broadcast executive with broad T.M.T. expertise. His previous role at BBC Studios saw him launching digital products across the Global Distribution division, leading on partnership initiatives with Telcos and running broadcast operations. Prior to this he held commercial and engineering roles at Encompass Digital Media and CNBC. Shad also tries to give back to the broadcast community by spending his time mentoring as well as working on his Linked In vlog: T.M.T. 10 Cents focused on digital transitions and the Media, Telco and Technology.
Sharifah Ahmad
As the CMO and Head of Global Projects for Torque Video Systems, Sharifah orchestrates all aspects of publicity and driving brand growth in line with the overall business strategy, while supporting operational execution. She also oversees project management, from initiation to implementation. In between business travels and demanding project schedules, thanks to a supportive work environment, Sharifah lives the spirit of volunteerism through various community services, as well as academic programmes with the youth.
Shweta Jain
As APAC Head of Business Development for Media and Entertainment at AWS, Shweta is responsible for providing strategic guidance for AWS M&E industry vertical across Asia Pacific region. With 23 years of extensive work experience in leadership roles across media technology and new business initiatives, Shweta has a deep understanding of the challenges as well as the innovation which the industry thrives on, which in turn has helped her earn the trust of many media executives around the globe. She works closely with the media companies in the region on their initiatives to leverage cloud technology to transform their core workloads utilising the power of AI & machine learning, and drive viewer engagement and monetization across all consumption platforms. Shweta is a business builder with deep technical expertise. She started out as a software developer, building applications to drive broadcast automation, content production and integrated newsroom workflows as well as some of the industry-first initiatives in India such as real-time data analytics for elections and cloud-based mobile journalism platforms. Over the course of two decades she worked in the media industry, she built high-performing teams delivering world-class viewer experiences and also launched a new digital tech business delivering solid business outcomes, winning multiple awards for industry innovation on the way.
Simon Choi
Simon Choi is the Product Optimisation Director APAC at Hogarth Worldwide. Based in Singapore, he is A production studio technology professional with over 15 years in the media industry (TV broadcast and marketing communications) with extensive experience in project management, system design, sourcing, procurement and setting up of production studios across the APAC region. He is an avid fan of films and documentaries, with a passion for learning about the technology innovations that transform the industry.
Zin Breckenridge
Experienced Director with a demonstrated history of working in the leisure, travel & tourism industry. Skilled in Negotiation, Business Planning, Event Management, Team Building, and Management. Strong professional graduated from University of yangon
