Tribe is in a search for a new Community Lead, as our awesome Michelle Goh is moving on to new challenges. We asked Michelle about her job and also her journey with Tribe.
The start
I’m Michelle – Tribe’s Community Lead. I’m from Singapore – but I’ve spent around ten years job – hopping through various countries. I’m not sure how to fit my whole background into one paragraph – but let’s just say it started with observing spiders to wrangling penguins, founding a cinema, and finally being a community manager at a coworking space.Â
April 2020 saw me stumbling into Tampere, homeless with 3 grumpy cats and not speaking a single word of Finnish in the middle of a pandemic. As an extrovert (to a fault!) it was challenging – no friends, no job, no network, no events. I sat in my AirBnB desperately trawling through Facebook and LinkedIn to find my community in this strange new city.Â
Lo and behold – there was Tribe Tampere, hosting virtual events for Tampere’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. I started attending these events, and finally ventured curiously to their old premises at P47 during their closing bash. Stepping in, I could feel the energy and enthusiasm coursing through the room. I met so many Tribers that day, who were nothing but welcoming and supportive. When they encouraged me to apply to join Tribe as a Community Lead – despite being 8 months pregnant, I went for it. Best choice EVER.
The Community
As the Community Lead at Tribe, I am responsible for maintaining relationships with key players in the start-up ecosystem and creating synergistic encounters. It has been tricky with COVID – but we’ve managed to make do with virtual roundtables, mentoring sessions and our infamous bi-weekly fellowship round-up! Every day I get to meet inspiring founders, change makers and talents, and everyone is always willing to help and support each other for the cheap price of a coffee (which Tribe provides on the house – what a steal). Now 7 months, 2 talkoots, 82 zoom meetings, 1 karaoke night and 426 bad jokes later, I finally feel like I’ve found a community where I belong.
The flexibility of Tribe’s structure can be challenging for some. It requires bucketloads of self-starting initiative as we don’t believe in a culture of top-down or micro management. But at the same time it provided me with the freedom within my work to develop skills for my career growth. I always had an interest in People Operations – and when Tribe started expanding – I took the opportunity to develop Tribe’s hiring processes. The experience helped me land a full time job as a talent agent in a recruitment company.Â
Looking into the future
It is a bittersweet moment, stepping into this new role. But you ain’t seen the last of me yet – Tribe’s open door policy means that anyone is able to be part of it – and I would like to give back to the community that has helped me so much. So do say hello if you see me running a workshop, rabble-rousing at a Zoom event and most definitely come get a big fat hug once COVID lifts and I’m slinging beers at Tribe’s legendary happy hours 🙂
Interested in continuing Michelle’s work as Tribe’s next Community Lead? Read more and apply now HERE