Fifteen years across agency, client-side and three companies of my own — two exited, one venture-backed. I plan the media, design what the media points at, and have taken a brand from formulation to retail in six countries. Most people do one of those.
A flighting chart, because that is how I think about time. Hover any bar for detail.
They’re usually three different hires.
Media plans, funnel architecture and the daily work of making a budget produce revenue. Meta, Google, TikTok and marketplace ads, with reporting that shows what actually moved rather than what looked busy.
Client CPP down 50% · 76% ROAS lift from creative testing · USD 20k MRR portfolio at Elixus
Naming, identity systems, packaging, art direction and bilingual copy. I make it myself instead of briefing it out, which means the creative and the media plan come from the same head and stop contradicting each other.
Orkid packaging · NAJ & Bélle · LEAN Wellness · identity work for SME, retail and government
Three founded, two exited, one venture-backed. I have sat with chemists through formulation, raised from institutional investors, won the retail listings and carried the P&L — not advised someone else on doing it.
LULU, exited 2015 · Bfab, raised from 500 Startups, KK Fund and Captii · Orkid, exited 2022 across six markets
Where the three meet
Since 2021 I’ve sat between a client and the team delivering for them — Account Director at Elixus, now Client Servicing Manager for APAC at Novacom across six markets. Most people in that seat relay a brief in one direction.
I can do more than relay, because I’ve run the ad account, designed the brand and carried my own P&L. I can tell a client early whether the goal is reachable on the budget in front of us, and tell the team what the client actually meant. That is usually what someone is buying when they hire an agency lead: not a messenger, but a person who has been accountable for the number before and will say so honestly while there is still time to change the plan.
The chart above is the data. This is the part it leaves out.
I trained as a graphic designer and ended up running media budgets. The two have never felt separate to me — a campaign is only as good as the thing it’s pointing at.
Through school and university I went by Ladyesah, selling custom-made apparel to people who found me through my blog and MySpace. KL’s creative scene was small then and the local press called me an IT girl, which felt absurd at the time. It was my first company, and I learned the thing I still work on now: an audience comes before a product does.
I finished a graphic design degree at Curtin and came home to Netccentric, the company behind Nuffnang and ChurpChurp. Microsites, banners and campaign assets for accounts across Asia Pacific. It was the first time I understood that design doesn’t exist on its own — it serves a media buy, and the buy has a number attached to it.
At iM4U, a national youth volunteering platform, I ran social and content for a community that grew from 117,000 to 600,000 in a year. I picked up Adwords, Analytics and Facebook buying because the campaigns needed it. Three times we put a hashtag at the top of Malaysian Twitter. That period turned me from a designer who could market into a marketer who could design.
I founded LULU as CEO — a booking platform for independent beauty and fitness professionals — and it was acquired by HMH Technologies inside the year. Then Bfab, where I was CCO and we raised a mid six-figure USD round from 500 Startups, KK Fund and Captii. I ran marketing and brand, and the company picked up coverage in more than forty beauty and tech publications. I left in December 2016.
Orkid Cosmetics was a halal, millennial e-commerce cosmetics line I built from nothing: working with chemists on formulation, designing the brand and packaging myself, then getting it into six countries, including Singapore, the UAE, Mauritius and Hong Kong, plus every Playup Advance store in Malaysia. The Matte Suede Liquid Lipstick took Best Local Matte Lipstick in the CLEO Beauty Hall of Fame. Sold in 2022. Running your own P&L changes how you read a media report — you stop asking what the campaign did and start asking what the business did.
Account Director at Elixus, then Client Servicing Manager (APAC) at Novacom across six markets. What I bring to client work now is the thing I didn’t have at twenty-five: I know what it feels like on the other side of the invoice, when the spend is your own money and the quarter isn’t going well.
Running underneath all of it: REVOLT, the consultancy I started in 2010 and never stopped. It’s where I take the work I want to take.
Four that show the range: paid media, brand building, enterprise programmes, audience at national scale.
Inherited fifteen months of account history from a previous agency. The audit found most of the budget running against objectives that were never going to produce a sale. Rebuilt the account structure, pixel and product catalogue from the ground up, then let creative testing settle the argument about which assets actually sell furniture.
A halal colour-cosmetics brand built from nothing: formulation with chemists, brand and packaging design, retail listings, and the influencer engine that carried it. Sold in 2022.
Client and digital lead across six APAC markets. A content strategy refresh lifted social engagement, and a twelve-month roadmap now aligns organic, search and EDM to what the market is actually searching for.
Social and content lead for a national volunteering platform. Grew the community fivefold in a year, built the microsites that registered volunteers in every state, and put the campaign hashtag at the top of Malaysian Twitter three times.
Identity, packaging, campaign creative and paid-media case studies — still done by hand, not briefed out.
Furniture & Choice MalaysiaMeta Ads rebuild · case study
Orkid CosmeticsHalal branding & packaging
Ayam Brand FranceProduct photography & rebrand
Faces of BorneoPaid ads case study
ComvitaPaid ads & digital
HaosPackaging rebrand
NAJ & BélleBrand identity & collateral
MypawLogo & brand identity
LEAN WellnessLogo & branding
Full portfolio on Behance.
Mostly on digitalisation, and on getting more women into the room.
Mostly for the ventures, which is the honest framing.
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Plus 50+ beauty, business and tech features across the ventures.