Melody Chen founded POP Partners because she is passionate about helping start-ups, SMEs and scale-ups with their Recruiting and HR challenges. Her mission is to be a true HR Business Partner and support clients on their way to success.

 

She was formally Head of People, Southeast Asia (including India) for a Chinese fintech company (Wecash Asia Pacific) where she focused on recruiting, performance management, compensation and benefits, and manpower planning for new market entry. She also implemented the 1st formal performance review process for Southeast Asia.

 

Prior to Wecash, she was the Recruiting Manager for McKinsey & Company Southeast Asia (SEA), where she led a team of 8 to double the size of consultant pool by experimenting with new approaches in 7 countries in SEA. Given her leadership role, she also worked with the people Director and Partners on planning, drawing talent roadmaps, setting up programs and policies and supporting performance reviews.

​

In the early stage of her career, Melody worked as in-house recruiter for Lucasfilm Singapore (yes, the company that produced Star Wars movies) and Consultant in an executive search firm - Europhia Consulting.

 

Melody has a Global MBA from IE Business School in Madrid and graduated from a top business school in Toronto (Schulich School of Business, York University) with a degree in International Bachelor of Business Administration (Honours). She also holds a postgraduate diploma in HR and Talent Management from Singapore HR Institute.

 

Because of her diverse background (grew up in China, Singapore and Canada; studied in Singapore, Canada, France and Spain), Melody not only brings her experience and expertise in HR, but also her global perspective and cultural understanding that are beyond her focus markets in Southeast Asia.

 

Melody loves traveling. She took a sabbatical for few months to travel and volunteer in South and Central America in 2018. She enjoys learning about people’s stories and sees that as an opportunity to gain new perspective, knowledge and inspiration.