Marketing Talent Awards judge Frances Koh on the demanding nature of marketing

Frances Koh, who is currently a senior consultant at WorldVision is a known face amongst the marketing community in Singapore. Through her stints with companies such as Sephora, Mediacorp and McDonald's, she is known to be results-oriented. Now in her role as a senior consultant with charity organisation World Vision, Koh's role is to drive marketing and digital acceleration in the Asia region. Prior to this, she was the head of marketing and eCommerce at Sephora (LVMH) Singapore. She joined Sephora in 2017, from Mediacorp, where she was vice president of trade marketing and communications. In Mediacorp, Koh was responsible for trade marketing and communications to increase brand awareness and preference among its clients and partners. Meanwhile in 2010, Koh was heading several of the marketing projects in McDonald’s Singapore, also tasked to reposition the McCafe business. Koh, who is one of the coveted judges for Marketing‘s first Marketing Talent Awards, shares with Marketing the importance of investing in talents as well as what she looks out for when hiring. Celebrate and reward your star employees and teams at the inaugural Marketing Talent Awards 2019 and attract new talent. Entry submissions close on 10 May—start your entries now! Marketing: Why do you think talent retention is such a problem in the marketing/advertising community? Talents are often highly-driven and need to feel that they are progressing fast enough in comparison to their peers. Organisations also have their own established culture and structure that sometimes, may not be seen as conducive to support their goals in the long-run. It's also not easy for organisations to effectively create a highly engaging and empowering environment. It takes commitment from both their own people and the leadership team to make it work. Marketing: What needs to change to ensure young talent stays in organisations? Ditch the one-size-fits-all approach in managing people and engage them better by fostering regular two-way communications. There may be presence of unrealistic expectations but it’s better to make these known in the open than to second-guess them. There is always a "WIIFM" (what's in it for me) mindset and leaders of today need to recognise this in order to cultivate their resilience and sustained motivation. Marketing: As a judge what do you hope to see in the submissions for Marketing Talent Awards from the rising stars? Beyond the finesse in developing a radical successful campaign with measurable outcomes, I’ll be looking for evidence of how the team/individual is in constant pursuit of category breakthroughs in the thought process and how well they have managed risks/uncertainties and made a positive difference to the company. Marketing: What do you make of the awards? Our industry is highly demanding and investing in talents is the least we can do to fuel these passionate bunch. Marketing: What about the veteran marketers? What will you be on the look out for? One who’s able to build and lead a strong team to take adversity in stride and accelerates the business dominantly. Marketing: One important tip for our veteran marketers? Evolve, embrace and advocate for humility whilst striving for differentiation. Celebrate and reward your star employees and teams at the inaugural Marketing Talent Awards 2019 and attract new talent. Entry submissions close on 10 May—start your entries now! Read also: Marketing Talent Awards: Judge Linda Locke on Singapore’s talent retention Marketing Talent Awards: Prudential’s Goh Theng Kiat on talent diversity