From Corporate Collapse to Leading the Room: My UNCHARTED Journey. By Agnes Wong, Head of Experience

Okay, grab your coffee, sit down, this is a long one.

So apparently I’ve been doing TEDx TinHau Women for three years now, which is wild, because in my head, sometimes I still feel like the confused new girl who wandered into an open house not knowing a single soul. But the actually wild part? I took on a bigger role every single year, and now I run a team.

A friend of mine took the stage at TEDx TinHau Women in 2021 — she’s a mental wellbeing coach, and her talk was about a certain body part nobody ever talks about out loud (you can check out her talk here). Watching her up there refreshed a memory I’d almost forgotten: I’d watched TED talks on YouTube for years, but had zero idea Hong Kong even had its own event until right then. Bold. Empowering. I remember sitting there, freshly 30, surrounded by sharp, fearless women, thinking: okay, what am I actually doing to give back here?

Fun fact: I grew up wanting to work for the UN on girls’ education. Adulthood happened, and I got a corporate job instead — turns out corporate had other plans for me too.

In 2023, I saw TEDx TinHau Women’s open house on Instagram and messaged them a few days too late to sign up. Worst they could say was no, right? They said “you missed it, try next year.” So when 2024 rolled around, I didn’t hesitate.

I finally made it onto the committee, not knowing a single soul, half-expecting some intense interview where I’d have to sell myself like a LinkedIn ad. None of that happened. I started as an Experience Manager, running wellness and fitness partners at the fair, which taught me the theatre talks are only half the story — there’s a whole world of activations outside in the foyer too.

2024 also turned out to be one of the hardest years of my life, and not because of TEDx. Within about six months of each other, I lost my job — I’d been managing one of the biggest QSR accounts in Hong Kong — and a five-year relationship. I went to therapy. I moved back in with my parents in my thirties, which is its own special kind of humbling.

When your days are just job-hunting, interviews, and rejection on repeat, you start asking a much bigger question than “what’s next.” You start asking who you really are once the job title’s gone. I think about it every single day: nobody’s eulogy is going to mention your fancy corporate title. It’s about your values — how people actually saw you as a person.

Working on TEDx, of all things, is what gave that question somewhere to go. It wasn’t a job, nobody was paying me, but it gave me a reason to get up and a room full of people who didn’t care what my

LinkedIn said.

The year after, I somehow ended up running the entire fair. I genuinely don’t remember agreeing to that, it just happened. That was also the year Jen Flowers started managing my team — she’s the Chair and one of the founders of TEDx TinHau Women (and a speaker herself – watch talk her here). For a while, she was also my actual boss at my day job who became my mentor, so I genuinely could not escape her.

Funny story: I originally went to her just asking for help finding a job. She started referring me around, then apparently decided that was a waste of everyone’s time and hired me herself instead. Later, she pushed me into another job entirely. None of that was TEDx business — that was just Jen deciding, more than once, that I was worth more than I thought I was. Watching her lead a room without ever raising her voice was the first time I thought maybe I could take up that kind of space too. She has this way of putting you on the spot in front of everyone, then just watching you rise to it, because she already knew you could before you did.

There were sleepless nights that year, actual tears, actual blood at one point (event production is not for the faint of heart). But watching it all come together, reading the messages from partners and committee the next morning, made all of it worth it — and reminded me I was more capable than I’d been giving myself credit for.

None of this was ever the plan. But my mentor pushed me to put my hand up for Head of Experience and a seat on the leadership team, so I did. Did I know what I signed up for? No. Terrifying? Yes. Loving it? Completely.

The biggest shift moving into this role: there’s no rulebook anymore. Just decisions, instincts, and hoping you made the right call.

What TEDx TinHau Women actually gave me wasn’t really a network — it’s a community. It’s your therapist, your boss, your family, your career coach, depending on the week. Women who put each other up instead of tearing each other down, who’d rather tell you how amazing you are than compete over minor things. This world is cruel enough without us adding to it. And sometimes, you go straight to the top. (Hi, Jen.)

Three years. New career, new responsibilities, new friends.

Two years ago I was a girl with no job, no relationship, and no real idea who she was outside of the corporate world either. Now I run a team, I’ve survived more sleepless nights than I can count, and I’ve stopped waiting for anyone’s permission to take up space — in the room where decisions get made, or just in my own life.

Turns out losing everything was exactly what let me build something better, something of my own, my UNCHARTED journey.

See you on October 2! Book your tickets here.