Women to Watch Greater China 2023: Laurien Lee, iProspect

Laurien Lee

CEO China
iProspect 
Shanghai 

Combining 20+ years of multi-disciplinary experience across omnichannel communications and brand corporate teams in APAC, Laurien Lee took the reigns of iProspect China in April 2021, and despite pandemic conditions, was able to steer iProspect China to record +131% New Wins / Business and +7.7% agency billings in 2022.

Among the ways Lee led her team to achieve these outstanding results was by ensuring that, throughout the pandemic, a healthy flow of conversation remained. Lee also created market firsts for Saint Laurent on Xirang metaverse engaging 100,000+ new avatars in real time; Hilton being the first hospitality brand to complete Tencent Wechat Mini-Program API docking optimisation driving +50% actual room bookings in eight weeks, and Balenciaga to realise a series of culture community hubs through creation of all-new OOH placements in Shanghai.   

As a leader, Lee is a firm believer that people are the cornerstone of what makes an agency great. Since taking up the post as CEO of iPropsect China, Lee has boosted recruitment with a focus on Gen Z talents, as this profile group would speak and best represent the composition of clients’ customers now and in the future. This led to a structural shift with 40% of iProspect talents aged under 24.

Committed to investing in and training new talent, Lee has personally designed a series of agency workshop trainings, and ensures all new and existing talents undergo a series of new or refreshment trainings especially in ecosystems tools and data analysis, leading to 60% of new on-board talents to obtain Alibaba, Bytedance and Tencent ecosystem certifications within six months of joining.

Lee is also leading iProspect China with a focus on sustainable growth, and with clear addressables to clients’ business challenges. And in this sphere, the design of an accelerated media framework and innovative thinking are core constituents to the backbone of iProspect’s strategies and planning works. Lee was the China leader to kickstart on integrating Dentsu Connect (a total solutions platform) for Kering Group which allowed stakeholders to access the same business information anywhere anytime.

Lee has steered iPropsect China through one of its toughest times during the Covid 19 pandemic and has been praised by colleagues as an inspirational leader, one who is vital to iProspect’s global leadership board inspiring and shaping the thinking of her peers around the world.