Computerworld Hong Kong: In the past decade, your career focused mainly on the vendor side. How did you make the transition from vendor-rep to enterprise-user?

Ted Suen: People think I have a strong vendor background as I've worked in that capacity for the last 12 years. But I spent the first half of my career in a corporate IT environment. I started as a system programmer in late 80s.

Later, I tried different roles including database administrators and system analyst in different corporations including Chase Manhattan Bank. I started my career on the vendor side when fate brought me into EDS in 1998.

Since then, I took various roles -- from project management of different government-related projects to a management role for EDS' regional and global clients of IT outsourcing. Before EDS was acquired by HP, I served as Managing Director of EDS Hong Kong. After the acquisition, I served as the Director of IT Outsourcing for Greater China region. Before leaving HP, I was managing the Global Service Desk for Asia Pacific region with a team of 2,000 people.

When I was approached by head-hunter for the MTR Corp Head of IT position, I was driven by the challenge of the role, thus decide to give it a try and applied for this position.