“Women hold up half the sky,” communist revolutionary and founding father of the People’s Republic of China Mao Zedong once famously proclaimed. Yet despite more than half a century of communist indoctrination and more than three decades of globalized capitalism, China is still a patriarchal Confucian culture that ranks a dismal 99th place among 144 nations in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap study for 2016—well below neighbors such as the Philippines (7th globally and 1st in Asia Pacific), Singapore (55th globally and 5th in Asia Pacific), and Vietnam (65th globally and 7th in Asia Pacific).
This environment makes the rise of Polly Chu, Chief Creative Officer of J. Walter Thompson Beijing, all the more remarkable. Chu has won 51 international awards including silver and bronze at Cannes Lions, Gold pencils in One Show, Grand Prix China 4A, Gold Kam Fan Awards, and Silver at the London Festivals; was named China Adman of the Year in 2006; and advised the government on the Beijing Olympics in 2008. She began her career in Hong Kong more than 20 years ago and has worked in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing on both international and Chinese brands. For the March-April 2017 Gender issue of adobo magazine, Chu shares her insights and anecdotes.
Uphill battle
In an exclusive interview with adobo magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Angel Geurrero, Chu spoke about her observations, experiences, and insights as a woman leader: “I think that in China, girls are still facing frustration in their career path. Being treated equally is still a question. In the advertising industry, we are lucky in a way. That’s where people are open minded. But on the other hand, was still not equally treated, I will say.”
“Example: even me sometimes, when I face some traditional clients, they are looking for some guys with white hair they will respect. And when they see me, they would kind of look like, ‘Oh, I need to talk to a woman.’ I can tell from their face. Maybe their world is a male-dominated world, so they are expecting the agency will match their culture as well. But to all us, there’s nothing like that. Because in an advertising agency, we’re supposed to be equal, everyone should share the thinking, whether you’re a woman or you’re a guy. But then to your clients, because they can’t get used to the hierarchy. When they face the agency people, they will be a little uncomfortable and I need to deal with it,” she reveals.
At the 2014 Spikes Asia, Chu, along with Valerie Cheng, then-Chief Creative Officer of J. Walter Thompson Singapore and now head of Creative Shop, Southeast Asia at Facebook, gave advice to Asian women who wanted to rise to the top in the advertising industry. Chu advised, “If you don’t like advertising at all, quit. If you don’t love it enough, quit. This is a choice. Let’s face it and then we conquer the challenge. Whoever wants to be in senior management in the advertising industry has to be a tough woman physically and mentally.” She also gave encouragement, saying, “If they are new to the industry, try it you because love it. This is an industry that is full of excitement. You have lots of things to see you can understand different accounts or brands and you have lots of opportunity to explore your life.”
This same theme of toughness she reiterated with her interview with adobo magazine: “To become a senior management woman in our industry, you have to have high IQ because you have to deal with the clients, and the clients are tough, and you need to be smiling enough to deal with your colleagues or your co-partner, and you need to be interested in everything. You need to be curious about new technologies, products, or brands and also about international trends.”
Mind the gap
Chu highlights women-friendly policies, noting, “In our agency, we are more flexible to women employees. I talk to my creative or even the producer or my staff, and if at any time they need to leave like for a family, they need to leave in afternoon, just go ahead, even for the fathers.”
Nonetheless she notes that there is much that needs to be done to close the gender gap in China. “I think for female creatives, the proportion of all wrong. Only 20 or less that 30 percent of female in the industry, and even in China.”
Polly Chu sees womanhood as a strength, not a weakness. She attests, “I think women are very powerful. We can be the anchor of the family because we multi-task. We can face the situation in a very calm way because we have babies to take care. We need to protect our family, we need to protect everything. So if we use that power in our career, we can be the anchor of the team, taking care of the team, and taking care of the business. I think we could use our advantage.”
