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The Whole Marketer Ep143 - Building Brands with Soul with guest Siew Ting Foo

Published on: 18th February, 2025

Episode #143. Today’s topic is a technical and leadership skill exploring building and leading brands with soul, which doesn’t just arise from the company strategy or tactical execution but from the passion, love, and responsibility of the leaders and people in the business.  

Abby’s guest who is passionate about this topic and author of ‘Building Brands With Soul’ is Siew Ting Foo. An impactful and influential marketing leader, Siew Ting is named consecutively, six times as Asia's most purposeful and influential CMO, and named Asia and China's top woman leader, having worked on brands including Unilever, Mars, Diageo, Fonterra and most recently, HP.  

In this episode, Siew Ting shares her definition and characteristics of brands with soul and why it’s important, the five pillars, human-centric leadership, global brands to local markets and how she connects to her team through ‘Friday emails’. 

Plus Siew Ting’s career highs and lows and advice for marketers of tomorrow. 

00:00:00 Welcome and introduction to ‘building brands with soul’ 

00:03:45 The Five Pillars of Brands with Soul  

00:05:13 Writing the Book for future leaders  

00:06:29 Why is Human Centricity important  

00:09:15 Siew Ting’s Personal Discovery and Purpose 

00:11:00 First 100 Days Framework  

00:15:21 How to Create Global Brands with Local Soul  

00:19:49 Building Internal Belief 

00:22:27 Authentic Leadership through Friday Emails 

00:25:51 Personal Career Highs and Lows 

00:27:36 Advice for Future Marketers  

Host: Abigail (Abby) Dixon FCIM/ICF | LinkedIn

Guest: Siew Ting Foo | LinkedIn 

Siew Ting Foo will be part of The Marketing Society's Global Conversation  How CMOs can build Brands with Soul, a Virtual event covering many of these topics discussed, on 27 February 2025 - find out more here

The Whole Marketer podcast is here to support and empower the people behind brands and businesses with the latest technical tools, soft and leadership skills and personal understanding for a fulfilling marketing career and life as a whole. For more info go to www.thewholemarketer.com 

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About the Podcast

The Marketing Society podcast
The Marketing Society is a progressive global community of senior marketers. Our purpose is to empower our members to be brave leaders. Since 1959, we have grown into an influential network of 2500 members.
The Marketing Society is a progressive global community of senior marketers. Our purpose is to empower our members to be brave leaders. Since 1959, we have grown into an influential network of more than 3000+ members across our global hubs: London, Scotland, Hong Kong, Singapore, UAE and New York. Our members are mostly senior clients (over seventy per cent) from brands such as ASOS, Barclays, IBM, Disney, HSBC, Mars, Samsung, Unilever and Vodafone.

Everything we do is through a brave lens – pushing boundaries, tackling taboos, providing comfortable spaces to have important conversations and building meaningful connections. We speak up, inspire one another, share best practice and discuss the challenges and opportunities we face. We work together to make our industry better for business and better for the world around us.

Attend our global programme of events, access the latest thinking online, including over ten years of best practice award-winning case studies. Have your work recognised as part of our Marketing Society Awards and Star Awards competing against the best of the best. Progress your career via professional development like our Marketing Leaders Programme, and get discounted tickets to industry events.

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