Exploring Leadership Project

An interview with Suya Wang - the co-founder of the westOeast

IMPORTANT STATEMENT: The following information regarding Exploring Leadership Project is part of a course assignment in PRL 424 (PR Leadership and Management) from August 2022 through December 2022 at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University. All information is intended to be sourced appropriately. This whole interview is credited to Ms. Suya Wang.The following video, infographic and blog content can not be downloaded and spreaded without permission.

On December 4th Sunday night, I had a one-hour profound conversation with Ms. Suya Wang, the SU Newhouse alumna and also the co-founder of the westOeast, Since I am currently working at westOeast as an account executive intern, Suya as my boss is a great role model and ambitious entrepreneur to provide me with intensive perspectives of communication management so that I had opportunities to learn valuable experiences from her.

It was hard for me to condense this in-depth conversation and convert it to a 2-3 minute video only. I tried my best to cut to the chase and extract the best parts. The infographic at the bottom will show the topics we generally covered.

westOeast is "a digital marketing agency that navigates western brands to success in China & Chinese brands'​ global expansion." And the organization has been founded in 2017 by Ms. Suya Wang (based in Toronto China) and another co-founder Mr. Su Ming (based in Beijing).

When I first saw the company name on the recruitment list of the Newhouse Center Development Center micro-internship, I was impressed by the name and job description. I asked her how does the company's name come up to her mind and what the turning point to make her establish westOeast. Suya explained to me two motivations to urge her to establish the company.

• Over seven years of working experience in Ogilvy China and another eight years of study and working experience in North America, she had dedicated herself to explain her clients, supervisors, co-workers, peers, vendors, and suppliers "how the Chinese market looks like, how the audiences are perceiving the content, how they are trying to understand the overseas brands, trying to sell services or products to the Chinese market, etc. Therefore, an idea suddenly popped into her mind, "why not start to work for myself" and form own business to present these outreaching concepts.

• Secondly, she thought she is ought to have more responsibility on her shoulder in trying to display what a real Chinese community is in front of international clients. She described the work as an "obligation to tell the real story, as a communicator." And there were many misconceptions and stereotypes out there about how to do business in China and how to get along with the Chinese media, and the way to handle all stuff content censorship. Most importantly, she encourages the company's Chinese employees with overseas experiences also are responsible to be the ambassador, or like the bridge, to connect both sides and eliminate the prejudices. In other words, "to tell the real stories for both ends."

I admire that she is very diligent and responsive in establishing a new cross-cultural marketing company at such a young age.

• The business model of westOeast: flat organization, around 28 people in the company. The key strategy she mentioned is to make everyone grow together so that the whole company can on the same page.

• She is forced to be a "workaholic" because she worked with international clients. It surprises me that she has to work on Sunday night because the team in China is on Monday morning.

• the digital-nomad company, work-from-home mode advantages and disadvantages

• What kind of manager or leader you are?

• As a leader, any challenges/dilemmas that you may have experienced or are currently confronting?

Service:

• Work on the internal and external branding (optimizing our website & podcast, etc)

• She is one of the main anchors of the company's ongoing podcast. And she talked to many successful PR professionals such as Chris Pereira, the previous HUAWEI PR senior director in North America. He dealt with the PR crisis when Ms. Meng Wanzhou's sanction in Canada. Suya's takeaway makes me deeply feel that a professional communication practitioner needs to be resilient and solve problems at crunch time, especially reckon with the cultural and political barrier, which makes things more complicated.