Creating Vu-sibility: The Future of Advertising Leadership
The following written collection is Bryant Vu’s Leadership Visibility Project which was a part of his participation in the 2023 Future Asian Leaders Program. Through a series of LinkedIn posts, Bryant touches on his intersectional identities and how it impacted his leap into the advertising industry. Spotlighted below is his outlook on the future of advertising leadership.
Where do I see the leadership in advertising going from here? Well, thanks for asking.
We are only just starting to see Asian Americans and other people of color break into leadership, and I think it will be a really exciting period of transformation. Of course, there’ll be a better understanding of cultural nuances and less awkward/problematic feedback during creative reviews, but it’s more than that.
While many of our peers have been set up in America for generations, we are only just starting to break out of the survival state. Many of us have immigrated to America ourselves—dealing with everyday discrimination, the daily task of in-real time language translation in their brains, and the looming fear of their work visa being revoked.
Many of us come from immigrant families, who were shop owners, factory workers, or office workers who worked tirelessly for us children to get an education. Those who are second generation are all too familiar with having to fight our immigrant parents to get into this creative field because it’s not DLE (doctor, lawyer, engineer). After all, they didn’t come to America just for us to not make big money.
On top of that, we had to navigate finding our careers without prior knowledge or connections. How’re we expecting our dry cleaner owner and nail tech parents to set up an advertising job for us when they don’t even know what a Creative Director is? Let’s be honest ... do they understand what we do now?
Some of our parents had to face their own hardships as boat people, and we children will never know that type of suffering. However, we have had to navigate our own dark waters, but as we Marco Polo our way through our careers, we are pioneering paths for the future generations of BIPOC advertising professionals.
Having faced these types of hardships, I believe the incoming generation of diverse leaders will manage their teams with a different type of empathy, intelligence, and stealthy grace that the industry hasn’t seen before. They carry on the experiences of being caught in between two worlds—adapting, challenging, and overcoming the current system having grown up the polar opposite way. Driven by the intense desire to change their environment from within, they’ll make impactful changes behind-the-scenes with humility, rather than large gratuitous motions.
The next generation will have high consciousness of others and the landscape, fierce protectiveness over their team, and 𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵 a basic proficiency in technology. With greater tools at their disposal such as personality tests, management trainings, TEDx Talks, and even therapy, they’ll approach managing others holistically to achieve greater results for the betterment of all. A “Tiger Manager” of sorts—equipped with high emotional awareness, adaptability, and resourcefulness of using the available information available.
Sure, it seems like I’m making broad strokes, but I’ve seen this type of leadership in action from the likes of Melissa Zabala and Kipp Jarecke-Cheng, as well as caught glimpses of it from my cohort mates in my Asians In Advertising Future Asian Leaders Scholarship program.
The system isn’t broken by any means … actually maybe RTO and people retention. But, if we continue to have these types of leaders integrated within the system that understand the struggle of others just through their own experience to drive higher performance and optimizations from within, I’m hopeful that the harsh edges of the advertising industry will become a bit more accommodating of difference.
These experiences cannot be invalidated because these are our daily struggles, our stories, and our truths. It’s unfortunate we have had to experience this, but we all now have the chance to wholeheartedly embrace this change.
I think it’s due time we all warmly welcome Advertising to her #diverseera!
--
Bryant Vu is currently a Project Manager at Level Studios. Read other pieces from Bryant’s Vusibility Series in LinkedIn:
