Meet Holly Ling: Paint Application Manager

Holly Ling joined Datacolor eight years ago. Today, she’s an Application Manager focused on our paint industry solutions and has two decades of pigment experience to her name. We sat down with Holly to learn about her career path, the most important color she ever chose, the strangest material she’s worked with, and more. Read on for her answers.

Holly’s Title: Application Manager – Paint

Years at Datacolor: 8

Datacolor Office: Shanghai

Education: Master’s in Polymers Science

Favorite thing to do outside of work: Watch movies

What is the best part about working at Datacolor? Being able to help our customers and being called “Teacher Ling”.
Who do you look up to at Datacolor? Rik Mertens. He’s nice and patient and helps me a lot at work.

What’s the most important color you ever had to choose? My red car. This was the first time they used Ciba DPP pigment to make the red automotive coating in more of a warm yellow than a cold blue. [Editor’s Note: This is clearly an answer from a paint and coatings expert!]

Can you tell us about your career path? I am an application engineer. I started in the pigment business 20 years ago. In 2004, Ciba (a Swiss pigment company) asked me to join the color service team. My colleagues thought I was very brave because I entered a totally new field.

What surprised you the most when you started working in color? That color matching software made managing color easy.

What is the most interesting material you’ve worked with so far? Color matching for teeth.
What inspires you when it comes to your job? Practice. And listening to customers about their color challenges.
What trends are you seeing in the paint industry? Color is becoming more and more important for industrial companies, and professional service is becoming increasingly important for customers. [Read our case study on Nippon Paint for more about China’s paint service trend].