Circles.Life's Delbert Ty takes on global CMO role at Coffee Meets Bagel

Former Circles.Life head of marketing, Delbert Ty, has joined dating app, Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB) as global CMO. He was formerly with Circles.Life for over five years and currently has an advisory position with the firm. In his new role, Ty (pictured) will be responsible for scaling the growth of CMB, while reporting to CEO Arum Kang. 

Ty has also had marketing experience working with the likes of Duracell and P&G. On his new appointment, he told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE in an interview: "CMB holds a dominant number one spot in Hong Kong and a close number two spot in Singapore. We want to extend this lead further while amplifying the incredible organic growth we’re seeing in the other markets."

Riding on the back of CMB's #DitchTheList campaign in Singapore and Hong Kong, Ty said he plans to take it a step further by bringing in his experience at Circles.Life, in which he has used a mixture of "an unconventional brand design approach coupled with strong digital marketing fundamentals" that are founded on great unit economics. Ty added that the environment in CMB is one with visionary leadership while still having feet firmly planted on the ground. "Dawoon Kang, our chief dating officer, in particular, has been leading this charge since day one. It’s rare to see a brand that is so well-understood and loved, not just internally but also publicly," he added.  

"When I first met with Arum Kang, I was so impressed by how strongly she felt about her vision for CMB. In addition, I’ve seen how not just founders, but all the leaders, truly work hand in hand with every single person in the company," he added. Ty also told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE talks are underway for him to possibly relocate to the bay area. "It’s a big change that I’ll have to plan at some point in the future given the global nature of the role. However, at this point, there are no hard dates yet. I am looking forward to the environment and the network of talent I’ll be with," he said. 

Separately, Nelson Allen took on the newly-created role of VP for growth at Circles.Life last week, where he will lead growth for Circles.Life’s B2C operations as well as the regional marketing function, including brand development, customer acquisition and strategic partnerships, with a focus on accelerating the company’s global expansion plans. 

More of the interview here:

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: What prompted you to take on the role?

Ty: I have a career end game, which is to be one of the world’s best growth advisors when it comes to consumer tech. For me to be able to back that up, I need not only a consistent history of growth, but also a diverse one, spanning multiple verticals and geographies. 

Looking back at my career, I think of P&G as the place where I learned the fundamentals of business building and branding. Then comes Circles.Life, which is my first foray into consumer tech. This is where I get to stretch my understanding to the limits for the first time given the blank slate in which I found Circles.Life to be in. 

Now with CMB, I see it as a new challenge, taking complete ownership of an existing brand that’s well-loved globally, and scaling it while remaining faithful to its core. This in addition to a new vertical, new geographic scope with the US being a big chunk of the business, and the people I’ll be working with, made this a no brainer decision!

One weird story of serendipity I want to share is how I actually met Dawoon Kang in Singapore well before I joined Circles.Life. 

This was when I had just left P&G and I was really looking to get into tech. As I was figuring out my next step, I stumbled upon a Block 71 talk that Dawoon Kang was conducting. There I heard directly from Dawoon Kang the amazing growth that CMB was seeing in this part of the world. 

I knew then that there was something special about CMB. Who would have thought more than five years later, I would find myself working with her and her sister, Arum?

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: What were some of the biggest lessons you learnt during your time at Circles.Life?

Ty: The biggest lesson I would say I’ve learnt in my time at Circles.Life has been all around designing and scaling teams that are fit for use for the particular business or vertical. When I joined Circles.Life the marketing team including me was just five people. Now with all the countries, combined with regional folks, there are more than 40 people in marketing. 

Coming from P&G, a traditional CPG player with global scope, I was thinking of reapplying much of the same thinking when initially scaling teams at Circles.Life. This led to some poor choices in terms of role design and people, relative to what Circles.Life truly needed at that point in time. What might have been right for P&G, wasn’t for Circles.Life.

This experience has made me reflect on how critical it is to design for what is most important for a particular business. What kind of marketers are most critical to a business' growth? Do we need marketers who specialise in SEO? Do we need marketers who specialise in community building? These are all questions that I thought about to design a team that I believe is best for Circles.Life in the vertical it’s playing in. 

I’ve taken this learning to CMB, where I’ve put together a full-blown framework to think this through, resulting in a design that’s best for one’s respective business.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: What would you say has been your proudest campaign at Circles.Life?

Ty: Our first big campaign where we vandalised a train station in Singapore will always have a special place in my heart as it proved the thesis of how a relatively unknown brand can be famous overnight. 

However, beyond the campaigns, what I’m actually prouder of in my time at Circles.Life is how my ideas eventually translated into real innovation that pushed the boundaries of what people thought telcos could do. One such example was how we were able to simplify signing up for a postpaid telco plan even simpler by us literally handing out SIM cards in the streets of Singapore before COVID-19. 

This might sound straightforward, but there was a lot of work on the technology and cooperation with the regulators to make sure this was secure. 

This is just one of the many examples that I love about my time at Circles.Life, how a marketer like me, from P&G, having zero experience in telco, zero experience in startups, zero experience in technology, can grow into someone that can make this impact.

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