Semonie Kong is two years into the journey of building a world-class contingent workforce program at Atlassian, a provider of team collaboration and productivity software. As the contingent workforce program lead, Kong oversees a program of contractors across the United States, India and Australia. She also manages the supplier relationships with many of Atlassian’s vendors.

Having worked across both the managed service provider side of the contingent workforce program ecosystem in prior roles and now being part of the enterprise side at Atlassian, Kong has a well-rounded view of the contingent labor industry. She is passionate about building lasting relationships with vendors and hiring managers and has seen many program successes at Atlassian off the back of the rapport she has developed.

Through her efforts, there is increased visibility and insight into total talent at Atlassian and a growing interest in the strategic nature of contingent workers for resourcing. Kong recently earned a Certified Contingent Workforce Professional certification and Project Management Professional certification, which she plans to put to use by implementing the learned methodologies and formalizing training. Kong suggests that the key to success is building lasting relationships through shared interests and stories and understanding mutually beneficial outcomes.