Jean-Michel Wu steps away from CEO role at Grace Blue

Marketing and advertising recruitment firm Grace Blue Partnership's Asia Pacific CEO Jean-Michel Wu (pictured) will be transitioning to a consultant role with the company, and stepping down from his CEO position. Managing director Helen Duffy will be stepping in for day-to-day ops.

Wu, who announced his departure to clients last month, first joined the company in 2016, and was responsible for leading its expansion across the region. With offices in New York,?London,?Singapore?and?Shanghai, Grace Blue works with clients such as?Spotify, IPG, DDB, LEGO, Dentsu Aegis Network, Mother, Havas, Coca-Cola, Ford and R/GA. Wu was also involved in the opening of the Shanghai office, as part of his remit when he joined years ago.

No stranger to the ad industry, prior to the role at Grace Blue, Wu was chief talent officer with McCann Worldwide Group Asia Pacific for a period of two years. Before that, he spent over a decade with WPP in a number of senior talent-related roles, with over six years leading the WPP network?s leadership talent acquisition across Asia.

In a conversation with Marketing, Wu explained that he will now be far more involved in the coaching and consulting of both big and small agencies. He declined to name his clients.

"Grace Blue is still very dear to me and I think we have done a good job in building up the team and offerings for the last three years. But, what I wanted to do was in a different direction, and not focusing purely on executive search. I would actually like to be doing more work for the HR talent industry," he added.

Wu was quick to add that marketing and advertising is still an industry he feels strongly for, although it has changed drastically since his early years. "I still love the creativity, so I am not going to leave the industry. I love the coaching and that is more of my passion than anything else. It is really about, dare I say, touching heart about people's careers and people's lives," Wu said.

Here's more from his interview:

Marketing: When you say you want to remain involved in the industry, which aspects do you mean??

Wu: Creative aspects of marketing, and I definitely want to stay within the agency world - whether it be PR, media, creative. But maybe a touch or so on the marketing side that wants to become more creative. That generally is an area that I want to tap on.

Marketing: Do you see a lack of coaching and training in the industry??

Wu: Within coaching and development, a 100%. I just see that there is a need that can be fulfilled. Coaching is also something that comes from within - where the person wants to be coached. You might meet somebody and think they need to be coached,?but until he/she realises that for herself, it wouldn't happen. It has to come from within. So I would say yes, there is a need but whether people know there is a need is another question. But I am not here to see this as a business opportunity and jump into and make money from it, that is really not the point.

The other thing is, I do see the trend of companies spending less on people in terms of wellness, recruiting strategy and overall HR approach. It has been reduced, and training and development has been cut more and more as people look to be more efficient and look at their own margins. I have seen the cutting of training and development initiatives ramp up excessively in the last couple of years, and it is tough to testify any of those strategies and projects for the larger groups and it is a huge shame. That is why you see so many people wanting to leave larger agencies, and see an attraction to the other areas such as management consulting and big data or marketing.

There is always the conversation of "brain drain". I don't like the term "brain drain" and at Grace Blue we call it the migration. People also want to work for ethical companies. It has really come quite ethical on where you are going, and about how ethical you are about doing certain things [that matter to talent]. And I think right now, especially with the social platforms and data issues, people will have to make a decision ethically where they should be going.

Marketing: What made you finally decide the time was right to venture out and do this on your own?

Wu: The time is never certain but I wanted to do more and I wanted to give back more. That and the fact that my wife is supporting our little family and my move in a big way. She is incredibly supportive and it was something that I wanted to do for a long time and help the industry more. After having children, that kind of has changed me rather than being more about me.