Michael Maedel: Asia’s young talent are being promoted too quickly and not given enough experience in Western markets
Asia’s young advertising talent are being promoted too quickly and are not being given enough exposure to mature Western markets to gain much needed skills and experience, a former regional agency boss has suggested.
Michael Maedel, the former APAC chairman of JWT, said in an interview with Mumbrella that high demand from Asia’s growth markets is pressuring ad agencies to move talent through the ranks before they are fully prepared.
“As there is so much demand, agencies are looking to progress careers very quickly. So agencies are hiring people from a relatively junior level who have not had the chance to build a level of experience that is helpful to clients,” he said.
Though it may not seem obviously beneficial to do so, agency networks should look to place their best young staff in markets in the West for a period of time, to give them the experience clients are looking for in agency execs.
“What we haven’t done is put enough Asian talent in Western markets. It does happen on a small level, but it has to happen much earlier,” Maedel said.
“Typically in Asia, you have to reach a certain level, to senior account director or higher, before you might be considered for a move around the network and overseas,” he explained.
“If you identify that an individual will play an important part of the company in the future, you have to move them at some point. Clients are doing this much better, as they have a bigger scale on which to operate,” he reflected.
Maedel also stressed the need for agencies to rethink their approach to training.
“Training needs to be seen from a longer term perspective,” he said. “You don’t train people by sending them on a three-day day workshop and that’s it for the year. It’s a sequence that’s leads to a defined target over time. It’s not an ad hoc course and a salary increase.”
“Agencies have to understand that training does not immediately generate revenue or return. If you send someone on a good training course, this will not mean that the client will immediately increase their budget the next day. It’s a mistake to connect cost with return,” Maedel said.
The highly regarded executive recently took a job to to run recruitment firm Grace Blue’s Asia operations. Maedel was chairman of JWT Asia Pacific for almost eight years. Over a 42-year career, he worked for JWT for 25.
While I agree on his thoughts regarding training, Mr. Maedel should fully realise that Western executives also to learn the ropes while in Asia. The common problem – and it is a big one – is Western executives are parachuted into these positions where they’ve no idea what’s going on.
And by the way, at the very least, Asia executives going abroad can speak English.
ReplyThis is a good problem to have in that Asians can rise to the top for Asian operations in agency networks.
From what we have seen in the breakdown of corporate, government and social governance on US and in Europe, I would be hesitant in expounding the virtues of posting to those 2 region, given that Asia’s digital revolution is proceeding differently from the West and the Asian premium clientele and its consumer middle class is a different kettle of fish when compared to the West.
Local expertise is needed to make local operation work.
ReplyThis discussion is not about foreign talent coming to asia and their levels of training…that is a separate discussion…please dont make this into a east west conflict as your defensive tone suggests.
Maedel is commenting on how agencies in asia are promoting people before they have acquired the skills that are required to do that job effectively in the eyes of the client. He is absolutely right. You only have to pop into any agency and spend some time chatting to some of these “award winners” to realise how out of depth they are.
It’s all very well doing some scammy guinness or jeep posters and somehow sneaking into the top job….let’s see how long such persons stay there.
ReplyMr. Maedel is right to focus on experience. It takes 10 years to season a leader and we cannot expect to churn out leaders without a few business cycles under their belt. But we can speed up development by 1) hiring agile learners in the first place, and 2) knowing what hard lessons to focus on. We can provide these opportunities now without having to move our bed Asian talent to the west. These crucible experiences can happen in Asia. Give them mentors like Mr. Maedel to grow them. Challenge the young talent. But as he says, don’t rush it.
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