KFC Malaysia CMO Angelina Villanueva steps down after more than 5 years

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Angelina Villanueva has left her CMO role at KFC Malaysia five and a half years after joining the company in August 2015. A+M understands she will be returning to Singapore. KFC's spokesperson told A+M that a replacement has yet to be named. During her time at KFC, Villanueva (pictured) was responsible for marketing initiatives including creating Malaysia Day murals to express love for the country, a music-parody video to show how much its customers are missed during the Movement Control Order, as well as a digital cookbook as part of its social-led #KepciKitchen campaign last year.

In 2019, she also worked with the teams at UM and Ensemble for a marketing campaign titled "WOW My Burger’s Now Hot & Cheezy Volume 1", featuring a songs list with mock titles of famous songs. That same year, Villanueva also tapped Naga DDB Tribal to serve up 12 different ads to celebrate the 13 states of Malaysia and its variety of languages and dialects ahead of Malaysia Day.

Prior to KFC, she was with Star Media Group as senior GM, group marketing and corporate communication for four years, according to her LinkedIn. Villanueva also worked at Ogilvy for approximately 16 years, starting her journey as account director in Singapore before working her way up as business unit director, group talent director, and GM based in Kuala Lumpur. Villanueva declined to comment on A+M's queries.

In a previous interview with A+M as part of the Futurist edition, Villanueva said marketing is fast becoming a scientific discipline, with data at its core. According to her, the saying that “half the money spent on marketing is wasted, the trouble is knowing which half”, will eventually be debunked as marketing is "becoming increasingly attributable".

"With the access to data and technology today, we must remember that all the investments made will not be useful without creativity. We may have all the complex data points and systems to organise and automate to serve ads, but at the end of the day, it depends on how fast we are on the uptake to make the right decisions and find creative and interesting ways to be relevant," she explained.

She added that for this, the marketing industry fundamentally requires the mainstay marketing skills of creativity, gut instinct and critical thinking. She believes that in this new world order, these skills are more important than ever to truly unlock the value technology presents.

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