Sora Moon is a Business Analyst in Zulily’s Strategy and Planning team. She has been at Zulily for one year and has already been recognized with Zulily’s Leading with Purpose award. Recently, she took a few minutes to tell us more about her passion for process improvement and foodie travel.

What brought you to your role here at Zulily?

When I graduated with my bachelor's degree in psychology, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I went back to school for my master's in industrial psychology. While in school, a friend suggested market research. I’ve always enjoyed looking at the big picture and making recommendations for business improvements. Finding this role at Zulily, where I balance the big picture view against process improvement has been perfect for me; it’s a balance I’ve been searching for my entire career.

That sounds amazing. So you’ve been here for a year—what’s your favorite thing about your job?

It’s hard to name just one thing! I'm in a position where I train others in our Merchandising team on reporting and analytics while still working on new projects. It's cool to meet new people and share ideas and solutions—and I love speaking with team members across the organization. I also love our managers. My manager in particular is so encouraging and genuinely makes me feel supported while working on any project.

Have you been working on anything interesting recently that can be broadly shared?

I won Zulily’s quarterly Leading with Purpose award because of my work on improvements to our team’s processes and tools that have made data access easier and decision-making quicker. I’m doing some fine-tuning and making further improvements now, and these tools will be used across the company.

How did this project help support our teams and our business?

We had no real way of tracking vendor plans in an all-in-one format within our Merchandising team. My original goal was to improve efficiency within my own department, but then another team caught wind of the project and offered to help. Our Strategic Planning and Analytics teams partnered to create tools that have allowed us to have one consistent “source of truth” across teams.

How does this process improvement support Mom and her shopping experience?

The improvements help our buyers do their jobs more efficiently and focus on the right products. By setting goals at the vendor level, the tools help keep us accountable in helping the vendor grow with our business. By monitoring vendor plans, we can always look for new opportunities and make sure we are supplying new products while maintaining a high level of quality. This positively impacts Mom's experience while shopping.

Any advice for those who have ideas for how to do things differently or make an improvement, and don’t know where to start?

Don’t be afraid to try new things (Be Brave). Spend time meeting with new people outside of your department to get ideas and find team member and/or customer and partner pain points you could help fix. Having this mindset helps us all, and ultimately improves Mom's experience at Zulily.

Before we wrap up, any cool or interesting facts that people may not know about you?

A distant dream of mine is to open a “barcade,” a place where people can enjoy an excellent mix of games, drinks, and music. Also, I'm bi-lingual; I can speak Korean and English. Before the pandemic, I traveled a ton to other countries like Laos, Thailand, Ireland, and many other countries that are known for good food. I love to travel for food, eating is one of my favorite activities abroad.