For the second year running, Cisco has joined r é n for an annual workshop to give back to the community. After a fundraising pasta workshop with our beneficiaries at Casa Cucina last year, the team has linked up with us this year at Food Parc to make their own pizzas. Aside from donating to us, they also purchased our locally sourced r é n eggs to support our initiative. Unfortunately, Black Rain was hoisted twice that evening, so our beneficiaries were unable to attend, but everyone from Cisco still braved the weather to come.

“As a company, we have a programme where our staff get allotted a number of hours every year to take time off work and, instead, spend that time doing CSR activities,” explains James Michie, Vice President Supply Chain Operations at Cisco. “We’re a very global company, and we want to engage locally wherever we have offices, so r é n has been a fantastic organisation to support over the past two years.” 

Throughout the event, it was clear to see how closely knit the Cisco team in Hong Kong was, and Commodity Manager Tsuiting Lew tells us it’s all thanks to a fantastic culture fostered by the company. “You can see we’re all very close,” she says with a smile. “We’re maybe 20-ish people, so the community in Hong Kong is not very large, but we all call this city our home, and even though we all serve different functions on the team, we’re all very closely knit. Cisco has a very good culture, and all of us are very dedicated to our company’s success, but at the same time, we love a good time. Work hard, play hard.”

“The entire management team believes in giving back to the community where we’re living in,” adds Marco de Martin, Senior Vice President, Global Supplier Management. “We employ people all over the world, and we treat our employees like family. It’s important to us to give back to the palace where we live; I’ve personally lived in Hong Kong for 16 years, and I live in Singapore now, but wherever I go, it’s important to give back to the local community. When you live in a place, you gain a lot out of it. I’ve always considered myself a very fortunate person, so I want to make sure everybody has a chance to get to where you’re at in life – and you’ve got to give back in order to do that.”