Meet Chhorn MoungChhorn Moung - IT Solution Engineer

Chhorn Moung has worked in VAE’s Information Technology team for eight years and really enjoys the work environment. “People are very good here. Everyone is helpful, honest, respectful,” he says.  

Chhorn has seen the business grow a lot since he started in 2015. “It was small then. I was number 55 or 56 in the organisation, and now we have almost 400 employees.”

His role has grown and changed over that time too, which is one of the aspects he enjoys about it. “When I joined, VAE had very basic IT infrastructure. We gradually upgraded and upgraded to what we have now, which is more complex and advanced.”

“So I’m still learning. We’re still fighting the great cybersecurity risk every day to make sure the network infrastructure is secure. It’s an ongoing battle, which is challenging. Every single day we see all sorts of new threats coming in." 

"The goal posts are always changing and we have to make sure we do enough to protect against the new threats.”

Chhorn felt he knew it would be a good work environment at VAE Group from his very first week.

“On the Friday afternoon, Ben Carter the CEO carried beers in his arms and offered one to everyone. Then he came up to me and said, “Hey Chhorn, want a beer?” So it was my first week and the CEO already knew me by name. That’s my impression of Ben: he’s a great guy; he wants a great one-to-one relationship with people. And I thought, Hmmm, that’s a very good culture and a good person for a company like this.”

Difficult beginnings provide perspective 

Chhorn was born in Cambodia. Due to an ongoing civil war, his family were forced to flee the country when Chhorn was five years old. “Mum and I walked across the border through jungles and rivers. We joined a refugee camp in Thailand, and we were in the camp for about five to six years.”

“The purpose of staying in the camp is to escape the gun fighting but also to allow the international community to take you under United Nations humanitarian support. So we waited and waited until one day the New Zealand Government picked our family. When I say my family, it was just my mum, myself and my stepdad. My birth father was executed during the conflict in Cambodia.”

“When I was growing up, my mum would remind me all the time about what we had been through. Whenever I had an issue or hardship, she would always say, “What you are facing now compared to what you faced before is nothing,” and that made me feel better.”

“I know what poverty is and I know what hardship is.” Those experiences still help Chhorn today. “Whatever situation I’m dealing with, I always compare it to that environment before, and I know I can manage it.”

Chhorn remembers clearly how difficult it was to adjust when he first emigrated to New Zealand. “In the refugee camp, you eat food that’s not fresh; you just eat food that’s been donated. When we came to New Zealand, we came to a government camp for a couple weeks to assimilate. This lady in the camp gave me a fresh red apple. I remember as a kid, holding that apple, and I smelled it, and I had never smelt anything so fresh before. I was afraid to eat it.”

“Learning English in New Zealand was very hard. I spoke my home tongue in the refugee camp. They taught me reading and writing in my home tongue but not in English so when I came to NZ, I was starting from scratch.”

Chhorn completed school in New Zealand and studied a Bachelor of Science majoring in IT. In 2008, he migrated to Australia seeking better work opportunities. After working in a few other IT roles with different organisations, he joined VAE in 2015.

“When you ask me what’s my biggest achievement, well, it depends on how you look at life. I have three beautiful kids who are healthy. That’s from a family point of view. From a personal professional perspective, achievement is all about respect. I try to be respectful in whatever I do. I think about karma – if you do good things and talk respectfully to others, they will respond back in the same way. That to me is achievement. So respect is my mojo – that what’s I want to achieve."

Looking to the future, Chhorn is enthusiastic about continuing to work as a valuable member of the VAE team, negotiating whatever challenge the cybersecurity world throws up next.