Having studied mass communication in Singapore and completing internships in marketing before moving to the UK to study linguistics and sociology at the University of Manchester, my life experiences so far have taught me to constantly adapt to change. This learning has already come into play since joining the Gripple Graduate Scheme. Despite having been with the company for only a month, I have been thrown into various situations both in and out of my comfort zone. I have acted as a guide and translator for the Gripple Japan team during their HQ visit, as well as working on reasonably big projects such as reviewing and giving recommendations for the Japanese brochures. This has reinforced what I have felt from day one – that the company places a huge amount of trust in its employees.  

This trust has translated into a sense of autonomy that I have not experienced in my working life up to this point. Whilst the scheme undoubtedly has a structure, I have experienced a lot of freedom in how I wish to carry out my projects.

One of the challenges for the current graduate team is to fundraise a large amount of money for charity, which will involve working as a team to organise one large event. We have been independently coming up with the ideas and are mostly free to plan it however we want, which is consistent with the working style I have experienced thus far in other areas of the company.

I will be completing rotations over the next 15 months in departments such as finance, production and GLIDE, the employee-owned company that represents all the shareholder members who work in its partner companies and keeps those companies accountable. While these are only a sample of what is to come, I can envision myself learning quite a bit over the course of the scheme due to just how new all those areas are to me. Whilst only having been here for a brief length of time, I am incredibly excited about the things that I can set into motion for the future on both a personal and professional level.

Kris Chua, 2022 Gripple Graduate Scheme

After graduating from Sheffield Hallam University with a first-class degree in business enterprise management, I joined the Gripple Graduate Scheme in September 2022. My course at university taught me the importance of collaborating with others, challenging the status quo and thinking outside the box to make connections that others might not see. I believe this background is what drew me to Gripple and its unique culture. Within my short time in the company, I have already been exposed to a range of experiences, including a week’s rotation in production. I thoroughly enjoyed this rotation as it not only gave me foundational knowledge of our products and processes, but also allowed me to talk to a variety of people with a range of skill sets. The connections I made, and the knowledge I took away from my time on production empowered me to speak up in high level meetings to suggest ideas for our new cross-improvement digital transformation strategy.

My home base is central marketing, where I work with a team of talented individuals who create a range of applications that are essential for business function. In my very first week I was made project lead to create a new application that will be integral to the sales team, both regionally in the UK, and globally when it gets rolled out to our international branches. My line manager launched the first meeting to introduce me to the other members involved and entrusted me with overseeing and organising the rest. This included a variety of responsibilities, including creation of digital assets, setting key deliverables in anticipation of launch, communicating tasks that needed completing to the team, conducting a gap analysis of existing assets and scheduling meetings where I could assess everyone’s progress and update the team on project development.

The culture at Gripple is unique, trusting and encouraging and allows people to grow and progress without constraints. I can already see opportunities for career progression and a network of support to help me achieve this.

I look forward to the rest of my rotations across the business in a range of areas, getting exposure to new departments in the company and making a network of friends along the way!

Becky Malkin, 2022 Gripple Graduate Scheme

Check out our current graduate and placement opportunities here:

https://www.gripple.com/gripple-careers/graduates-placements/