Shen is Asia Regional Senior Sales and Marketing Manager, based in Rouse’s Hong Kong office. She is involved in all aspects of sales and marketing, supporting Rouse colleagues both throughout the region and globally.
Marketing professional services differs from marketing products in some very obvious ways: while products are tangible and their features can be readily viewed and compared, professional services are intangible, ongoing, variable, and often involve the establishment and maintenance of long-term and trusted relationships. Much has been written about the essential personality traits of the professional services marketer and while the lists vary, they always include and emphasise things like being eager to learn; curious; adaptable; and enthusiastic and able communicators. Shen’s personality is well suited to the role and, even though she wasn’t planning a marketing career at the outset, her training and experience over the years have been the perfect preparation.
Shen’s early years were spent in Singapore. She grew up in a traditional family and from the outset didn’t really feel she fitted in. She did everything that was expected of her: she behaved well, was always polite, and excelled at school. To all outward appearances she was the perfect, totally compliant, oldest child. But in her heart, she was already rebelling. Her parents’ ambitions and expectations were simply that she should go to University, the course didn’t matter, and then marry. She did go to university, studying Chemistry at the National University of Singapore. But she had chosen Chemistry pretty much at random without any guidance or real interest and, not surprisingly, found she didn’t enjoy the course at all. Still, she graduated and in her present role all her past learning and experience is relevant even if indirectly.
From there, still without any guidance and relying entirely on her own initiative, she found her way to various jobs including a secretarial position in a law firm. There, her abilities were obviously quickly noticed – it wasn’t long before one of the partners suggested she should think about studying law. Always curious and keen to learn, she enrolled for a long-distance Legal Executives diploma course. When, later, she moved on to a medium sized firm, and then to an international firm, people looked at her degree and diploma and decided she could be doing more than secretarial work. That is how she moved into the world of business development and marketing. For the next few years, she continued working in various law firms, both national and international, in legal business development and marketing roles. Her love of learning never left her and at one point she decided she would study law and enrolled in the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL)course at the BPP University in London, studying long-distance part-time. She enjoyed the intricacies of the law - even though it was difficult fitting the course in with a full-time job - but ultimately she realised that studying part-time it was going to take her a very long time to qualify. So, she decided to abandon the idea of being a lawyer and to concentrate on her legal business development and marketing career instead.
In 2014 she moved to Hong Kong. This was a very important step for her: she felt she was leaving behind the constraints of life in Singapore and would be able to live a freer and more independent life, which has proved to be the case. She is very happy there. Always curious and always eager to learn, she has worked with several major law firms in various business development and marketing roles over the years. She joined Rouse in 2023. She is enjoying all aspect of her current work, including the opportunity to travel to other Rouse offices in the region. So far, she has been to offices in China, Thailand and Indonesia. She is also enjoying the environment at Rouse, which she says is very different from what she has experienced in other firms. Inevitably, however, she is not standing still: in her spare time, she is now studying counselling and psychology. She loves learning and is studying these subjects out of interest, but also to understand people better. As with all her other studies and experience, however, it is very relevant to her work as a professional services marketer.
Between work and study, Shen doesn’t have a lot of time for other activities, but several years ago, when she realised she wasn’t exercising enough, she decided to get back into physical shape and engaged a personal trainer. Through that, she was introduced to weight lifting, and she loves it. She is convinced that if you want to live a full, active and independent life, it is important to maintain both mental and physical strength. So, at weekends, if not socialising with friends, or doing research and writing papers, she is likely to be in the gym lifting weights. Or she might be listening to podcasts. Two of her current favourites are The Daily Ketchup, a Singaporean news commentary podcast, and Diary of a CEO, or DOAC, in which Steven Bartlett, a British entrepreneur, investor and author, interviews various CEOs, experts and leaders of interest. DOAC is a double acronym: both Diary of a CEO and Dreamers, Open-Minded, Awareness and Connection – just the thing for a professional services marketer!