Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase

Background
Proud of her humble beginnings, Priya was always self determined and developed a “can do” attitude at a tender age, when she realized that she cannot change her circumstances till she is challenged to change it herself. Witnessing countless setbacks and failures from childhood, Priya was always sure about one thing that education and learning was everything that she needed to succeed and pursue her dream. With her warm altruistic personality profile, she was nominated as one of the 8 leaders for the first cohort of Future Leadership programme. It is notable that she stood by her decision to be part of the initiative to drive a happy work culture, thus creating and facilitating a healthy work environment in the agency. As a media planner, servicing Levi’s Malaysia and Singapore, she has shown immense desire to lead, be the change in every step taken and transcend the boundaries. As much as her favourite phrase is “I love my job too much”, her other love lies deeply in fine arts. On the balancing act, Priya is a seasoned classical dancer for 20 years, having performed for numerous charity drives. Holding on to her passion for fine arts, she has now expanded her wings to Odissi and Ballet as she believes one should never stop learning.

What’s Special about You & Key Achievements
When Priya was onboarded to the Levi’s account, a significant change that she brought to the account internally is her kind, understanding and eagerness to learn personality. Turning to her biggest strength is her ability to stay resilient despite the challenges she endures at work and how she intercepts challenges with full optimism, always. During the first few weeks of onboarding into the account, despite having little knowledge on media planning, she stayed resilient, actively listened and absorbed feedbacks. In simple terms, there is no turning back when it comes to Priya, everything is entirely henceforth. Gillian Chan the Director of Client Leadership quotes Priya is someone who you can always count on as she has this incredible attitude of taking the ‘IM’ out of ‘Impossible’ and turns it into ‘PRO’ at solving ‘PROblems’! As she progressed over the months, she was assigned the responsibility of handling Dockers along major brand launches under Levi’s such as Levi’s 501 Originals, Levi’s EOSS, Holiday and Levi’s Ramadan, where she applied media planning strategy and learnings which resulted to positive campaign delivery and success. Above all, she was always able to see the positive side of people and encourage teammates to maintain staying calm and composed during critical situations, a commendable act. For instance, during incidents such as major campaign overspends or underspends or even when conflicts occur within multiple parties, she resolves them with notable patience and admirable tact. She respects everyone without prejudice, takes initiatives to enhance relationship among colleagues thus elevating the spirits of those around her. Aside from her day to day task, she also dedicates her time in many of the initiatives parked under the Future Leadership Program, inclusive of executing a fireside chat with aspiring women leaders from the industry and initiating a buddy onboarding program.

Leadership Skills
As a potential leader, Priya believes in bringing forward a compassionate, empathetic yet thoughtful approach to her leadership style as she believes “you don’t have to be in a position of influence, to influence”. In addition, Priya’s relational skills are exceptional – her deep listening, effective assertion, and self awareness are the skills to influence the system around her in an authentic way, with which she explores many opportunities to overcome daily challenges. A very good example is when leading campaigns, she has showed excellent leadership style, internally. As a result, many adored her working style that they gained trust and respect for her. Moving on, when she was onboarded to lead the Singapore Levi’s account, there was an immediate significant change in a healthy work culture among agencies which has led to increase in productivity and trust among multiple parties. Upon onboarding, she promptly connected with all agencies to understand their concerns and ways to accelerate the account’s performance. Therefore, within days, she was able to collate their feedbacks. Notwithstanding, Priya has audited the account and identify gaps and quickly suggested ways to move forward as a capable media planner. Therefore, internally there was an instant relieve on the account progress. A positive one. Everyone saw her as a strong aspiring gatekeeper with immense dedication to transform the account and accelerate the progress. Witnessing the recent change that happened to the Singapore account, Tony the Client Director from Singapore quoted “There was a moment when we needed her to step into a vacated role and she took it without questioning, picked up the gaps with gusto, explaining the moving pieces that has been sidelined, and has given the role and account a new life!” Priya an effective assertive leader, believes in honesty and transparency in expressing her opinions and feelings. This makes her a natural leader.