Meet Gladys — Principal Program Management of the Coupang Taiwan Retail team

Hello, my name is Gladys, I currently work in the Retail Selection Planning team as a Principal Program Management.  Our team oversees the new selection planning for all categories within the Coupang Taiwan Retail organization. I joined Coupang back in January 2022. 

We’re curious to hear more about your journey to Coupang. What attracted you the most?  

Actually, when I first joined Coupang, the company had been in Taiwan for just over half a year, during that time I was still in a gap year, and I wasn’t really looking for a job. One day, I received a call from a recruiter who asked me if could come help them temporarily with payroll operations and I thought “sure why not”. After working at Coupang for just a few days, I decided to join permanently and started as a Human Resources Business Partner (HRBP). After graduation, my previous experiences had been in HR, so it was familiar. 

At first, when I heard about Coupang, I had no idea what Coupang was, the information at the time was very limited, after when I joined, we were working from a shared office space. After I joined, I got to learn about the company and understand what Coupang was doing, its mission and successes globally.  

This year at the end of March 2025 I became Program Manager for the Retail Selection team. My HRBP role at Coupang offered me more experience in strategic planning compared to other HRBP roles in Taiwan. In the past 3 years, I have been deeply involved in a more general part of business planning on the back end, and I believe that what Coupang is doing is very innovative, and attractive. That made me want to transition to a more front-line position and have a more hands-on role, this is why I switched to Retail. Within the Retail business, we get to go into the nitty gritty part of the business, with more cross functional collaboration with other departments across the company. 

What capabilities are essential for Coupang's Retail Selection team? 

I have been with the Retail teams for only 3 months but it that short time, I feel like I’ve grown and learned a lot. The Retail organization at Coupang is fast paced, as a Program Manager (PM), cross department collaborations and communication are important. PMs, alongside Brand Managers (BM), have to be able to clearly communicate the goals, understand the bottlenecks, what are the breakthroughs and methods to have to fix and solve issues. For that to happen we need quick problem-solving capabilities and be flexible to manage projects & programs that move quickly. Coupang is a company that focuses on and values data, there is always a story behind the numbers where we can look for answers in the data. 

What are you looking forward to the most with Coupang?  

I think whether it is in terms of short-term or long-term goals, I see the future of my career with Coupang. Here we are reminded every day of what we can do to bring wow experiences to our customers. It’s very exciting, especially in Taiwan, where our culture tends to be a bit more conservative and less accepting of new things, Coupang has created an environment where one can grow and do things that are different.  

Any words to applicants interested in Coupang? 

One important thing to know is that Coupang has been bringing innovation to the local market since we launched in Taiwan, but we have seen the results, the market is accepting us, and we are attracting more customers every day. For people looking at growth opportunities, if you desire to work with us and build & innovate with breakthroughs that lead the market, come join us to bring the future of commerce to Taiwan.