Stephanie Caunter joins AIA Malaysia to lead customer strategy and marketing

Stephanie Caunter has joined AIA Malaysia as head of customer strategy and marketing, reporting to CMO Heng Zee Wang. She is responsible for developing the company’s customer strategy and driving initiatives which provide distinctive, personalised and meaningful experiences to AIA's customers.

Caunter (pictured) told A+M in her personal capacity that she will reorient AIA's business processes and approaches around customer journeys, whilst leveraging on technology, digital and analytics to deliver better outcomes and business growth. This is in line with AIA’s ambition to lead in customer experience.

"The role is one that I am very excited about because I am joining an organisation that is already at the forefront of the industry. In my personal experience, as their customer before joining, I found their use of technology to enhance customer experience to be quite impressive. I am excited about how I can help to take these efforts to the next level," Caunter said.  

She is currently looking to hire for several roles in two main areas: customer experience and campaign marketing. On the customer experience front, Caunter said she is seeking individuals with design thinking and customer journey mapping experience. Specifically, she is on the hunt for people who really understand how to get into the consumer’s head, and are able to visualise how AIA's interactions with them need to be revamped or amended to provide outstanding experiences.

"In this role they will also need to be able to work with multiple stakeholders, and be able to communicate and influence them towards a course of action. They will need to have strong business acumen and good interpersonal skills," she said. 

At the same time, Caunter is also seeking a few individuals for campaign marketing. In the senior-most role, she needs someone with leadership skills as he or she will be managing a team of five to six individuals. The individual also has to be creative, customer-obsessed, and tech-savvy. He or she will work closely with Caunter and other key leaders across the organisation, to work out campaigns and strategies which engage customers and drive business results.

"We will also work on strategic initiatives. For example, enhancing the existing customer relationship management system, revamping the email marketing platform, exploring new communications channels such as WhatsApp for Business and more," she added.

"I chose to join AIA for a few reasons. I have long admired the brand and what it stands for. AIA’s purpose is to help millions of people live healthier, longer, and better lives. This is something that utterly resonates with me as I have long been a big believer in physical fitness and nutrition and increasingly overall well-being too," she said.

Caunter added that the AIA Vitality programme always impressed her with its approach i.e. using the principles of behavioural economics to promote healthy habits such as being active and eating healthy. She explained that it incentivises customers with great benefits and rewards for taking steps, however small, to improve their health and well-being - which makes the programme ever more relevant during the pandemic.

She was previously with ADA as head of marketing, regional for more than two years, during which she led brand building, lead generation and supporting prospecting efforts across all of ADA’s nine markets in the region. She also developed its brand and marketing strategy from scratch. Prior to that, Caunter worked as the global director, marketing and communications for Catcha Group for close to a year. In that period, she led the Group's PR, branding and digital marketing efforts with the aim of catapulting the Catcha brand further as a global disruptor that is proudly Asian, her LinkedIn said.

"I knew that in my next role I wanted to be super customer-focused, have clear accountability for business growth, and continue to expand on my digital and tech skills. So when this opportunity came along, it was kind of the perfect fit. Plus the experience speaking with AIA’s various leaders was nothing less than impressive," she added.

Caunter looks forward to building upon a very solid base and team to bring new ideas, fresh perspectives to the table, while learning from what has already been done. She is also excited about working with new technologies, and collaborating across an organisation that is moving quickly and strongly towards the future. "At the end of the day, I hope to contribute significantly to AIA’s long-term strategic priorities and help make it a clear leader in customer experience," she added.