Jason Shin was working his Sunday afternoon shift at Noel Leeming, his part-time job while at university, when a female customer walked in and asked for help to set up her new house with some appliances.

Two hours later, she’d spent around $20,000.

Jason takes up the story.

“Not so long after, the same customer walked back in - with receipt in hand. Red flags and alarm bells started ringing in my head as experience had taught me, that usually resulted in a refund of some sort – saying goodbye to my commission.

But, she smiled and handed me her business card. She was the (then) Regional Manager of the BNZ in Canterbury and asked me if I would like to work at the bank.

I politely declined, explaining that I was still a student and had no interest in working at the bank, especially as a teller. She said that wasn’t what she had in mind and asked me to call her mobile if I wanted to hear more.”

Jason’s mother was annoyed he’d turned down the offer, and suggested he get in touch with the woman to find out more.

Hence a young banking advisor was born and over the next six years, Jason enjoyed several roles with the bank – finally as a Senior Associate in the bank’s commercial property finance team.

Jason’s future was looking bright.

“However, although I say I am a Kiwi at heart and New Zealand is the only country I would ever fight for, on the outside I am still oriental-Asian yet I had never lived in Asia and it was something I personally wanted to try.

“I wanted to see how I would perform in an environment where things move much more quickly, where every corner and turn in your life would be a mystery, an unexpected event or challenge. This helped me decide to put everything down from a career standpoint and to just... go.”

Today, Jason lives in Tokyo where he manages the North East Asia team of ByteDance's Global Talent Acquisition Centre. ByteDance is the parent company of TikTok, with about 110,000 staff across Asia.

Thirty five million people come in and out of Tokyo for their day-to-day lives but Jason says the "stick to yourself" mentality of the culture and infrastructure allows him to live a busy yet peaceful life.

“Outside of Tokyo, any city you go to, feels almost like a different country – the culture, the views, the people and sometimes even the dialects are so diverse, it's really interesting to explore.”

Jason says one of the lessons he learnt at College has stayed with him throughout his life.

“It taught me to be a man who takes accountability. There will be times in life when you must do things or be responsible for things that you don’t want to be responsible for. But my advice is, be accountable and do them to the best of your ability.”