After Hours: Queen of the kitchen Stefanie Liew

Interacting with various personalities at work and managing a team can be similar to cooking, where one has to think on his or her feet and balance the flavours of the dish with different ingredients, said Zenith Singapore's executive director, Stefanie Liew, who discovered her passion for cooking in 2007.

Living in Shanghai in 2007, Liew often faced difficulty in attaining ingredients commonly found at local markets in Singapore and Malaysia. But this didn't dampen her spirits. She put on her thinking cap and began improvising recipes to fulfil her cravings for comfort food from Southeast Asia. The first dish the Zenith executive director cooked was curry chicken with white rice as it was close to home.

Fast forward to 2012, Liew, together with her sister, put her passion into a project form and launched a cake pop bakery named Bake-A-Licious, specialising in made-to-order cake pops for customers.

"I was thinking about what I should do and one of my friends told me that cake pop was a growing market back then. At that time, I was taking a break from work and my sister joined me in Shanghai. She had some spare time on her hands too so the both of us decided to do something with it," Liew said.

"We have always loved the word 'fabulicious' so we thought, why not turn it into Bake-A-Licious?" Liew said. Check out the interview here:

Bake-A-Licious' first event was a 12-year-old child's birthday party, and its client base eventually expanded to include a community of mothers, among others. Liew and her sister came up with about 50 different designs for cake pops.

Eventually, Liew realised dessert was not her forte and eventually took a three-month break to pursue a culinary course at Sunway Le Cordon Bleu, where she eventually received level one certification. She often invites friends on Saturdays to try out her new recipes.

Formerly a business director at OgilvyOne Greater China, Liew was appointed to the newly created role of executive director at Zenith Singapore earlier this year. Her main focus will be on Zenith's global clients as the Singapore business becomes more international.

She reports directly to Helen Lee, MD of Zenith Singapore, and will work closely with Jason Tan, head of strategy and Publicis Media’s Practices to deliver a range of digital marketing solutions. She has more than 16 years of digital expertise in client management across Malaysia and Greater China.

Do you have a unique passion you pursue after office hours? Share with us at janicetan@marketing-interactive.com.

(Photo courtesy: Stefanie Liew)

Previous episodes of After Hours:
After Hours: Professional Doodlers Joji Jacob, Jessie Lam and Eugenia Clara
After Hours: Valerie Madon Cheng’s Licktionary