Some decisions are easy to make, and when Jayne Leung was approached to join Facebook to set up a Hong Kong office back in 2010, it didn’t take long to say yes.
She was already a big fan of the social media platform, using it to keep in touch with friends and family around the world and feeling part of their lives despite being thousands of miles away from them. So the chance to work for the company, with responsibility for hiring a team and building the business in what looked certain to be a fast-growth market, was one she just couldn’t turn down.
“I was ‘employee number one’ in Hong Kong,” says Leung, Facebook’s head of Greater China. “In the early days, that meant working in coffee shops, renting serviced office space, and shopping in supermarkets for the most basic supplies.”
These days it is a matter of keeping up with the phenomenal rate of expansion. That involves mapping scaleable solutions for new business clients, recruiting year-round, and running a range of training and outreach programmes on the new digital universe.
It is some distance from where Leung started, but in many ways also a natural destination for someone with her childhood ambitions and interests.
Growing up, she attended Heep Yunn School in Ma Tau Wai, where she made her mark editing the school newspaper and on teams for debating, swimming and several other sports.
“From an early age, I wanted to go into the advertising industry,” she says. “It seemed like a cool, glamorous profession and, later on, I saw how a good advertising campaign can change people’s minds about a brand.”
As a first step, she completed a degree in communications and image studies at the University of Kent in Britain in the mid-’90s, while also taking a course in black and white photography. Returning to Hong Kong, she joined Storm Communications, a full-service ad agency, as a junior account executive and couldn’t have been happier.
“I remember shedding a tear in the elevator after getting the job offer,” she says. “It was a dream come true for me.”
The work itself involved close collaboration with clients, as well as with in-house creative, production and media planning teams. It was a chance to learn the ins and outs of the industry and taught her not to undervalue yourself and what you can contribute – even in a first job.
“Never assume you are too young or too new to make an impact,” Leung says. “I worked on some memorable campaigns including one for Iridium, a high-end satellite phone which was breakthrough technology at the time. It was a big project and a fun ride, building product awareness for an exciting brand, with a lot of scope for different media planning.”
A pivotal moment came, though, with the late-’90s internet boom. Somewhat experimentally, the company set up a digital department, and Leung was co-opted as one of the founding members. “I didn’t have a clue, but thought I’d give it a try and see what happens.”
Soon after, she got a call from online ad company DoubleClick, which at that stage had just a handful of staff in Hong Kong but big plans for expansion in Asia. Leung ended up joining and was with them for eight years, staying through an acquisition by Google, before moving on to The Rubicon Project. This was a start-up which needed her by then impressive combination of tech, management and local-market expertise.
“Along the way, I learned about my strengths and what energises me,” she says. “For instance, I’m excited about building things from scratch and I like being a bridge builder between a US company and their operations in Greater China. That’s been a recurring theme and, obviously, it’s why I was given the role with Facebook.”
Facebook now has close to 14,500 employees worldwide and is Facebook is forecasting that, by 2021, video will account for more than 70 per cent of all mobile data traffic. There is a big push to work with more clients in FMCG, e-commerce, travel, financial services and telecommunications, and. And with the tech space evolving so quickly in so many other ways, Leung is clearly not short of challenges.
“There is never a boring day and never a perfect solution,” she says. “You have to keep adapting at both the company and the personal level, apply all your experience from different roles, and be ready to adjust or iterate as necessary.”
The main targets at present include expanding the client-facing team and promoting the platform as an essential sales and marketing tool for businesses across the spectrum. In a bid to offer “thought leadership” in digital marketing, there is also an initiative to drive industry-level conversations with third parties about trends in advertising and changing consumer habits.
“People use their phones all day and watch less prime-time TV, but the ad spend is still not proportionate,” Leung says. “The consumer is moving faster than the [advertising sector] and marketers are not keeping up with the pace of change.”
In other respects, the company emphasises work-life integration, actively encouraging staff to achieve professional success and personal fulfilment by having other interests outside office hours. Showing the way, Leung is a keen photographer and scuba diver, often combining the two on trips with her husband around Asia.
Earlier this year, they also went on a tailor-made two-week safari to see the great migration in Kenya and Tanzania.
“The landscapes, the sunsets, and connection to nature were really amazing,” she says. “It was planned as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but it was so good we will definitely be going back.”
KEEPING POSTED
Jayne Leung’s tips for success in the new digital economy.
Focus on fortes “The chief thing is to know your strengths and leverage them. Research shows that people try to overcome their weaknesses, but that way they don’t achieve as much.”
Break out “In the new economy, with technology affecting so many different sectors, it is important that ‘traditional’ businesses are not restricted by pre-set frameworks.”
Act swiftly “Individuals and organisations must move fast to find new approaches and solutions. The technology space is now changing at such a speed that you have to learn and adapt constantly.”
Stay flexible “We encourage people to think about ‘jungle gym-ing’. In other words, they should not just think about climbing the ladder but aim to get more experience and exposure by shifting to other functions in order to build new skills and strengths.”
Dare to do “In general, don’t be afraid to take risks. Rather, be bold and ready to fail sometimes because the experience gained may be an asset in the longer term.”
This article appeared in the Classified Post print edition as Like minded.
