What separates great marketers from average ones? They do not walk the roads that others have paved, they innovate and choose their own paths to better results. Felicia Li-Gaillard, CMO, Aboitiz Data Innovation is one such marketing leader who has been constantly improving on existing solutions, monitoring data, and testing ideas and assumptions to come up with path-breaking solutions. A seasoned multileader, Felicia has 16+ years of B2B marketing experience across media agencies, ad tech start-ups, and big tech. Previously, she was th Head of APAC Marketing for Facebook Gaming and Audience Network at Meta, and the Head of Marketing of APAC at MOPUB, a mobile advertising business unit at Twitter. As a marketing director, she was instrumental in helping ad tech start-ups, Eyeota and Integral Ad Science, establish their regional marketing function and enhance the growth of their businesses.

A dynamic professional and marketing strategist with rich expertise in marketing leadership and business development, Felicia is effectively contributing to Aboitiz Data Innovation’s mission of utilizing data science and AI to drive business and sustainability outcomes in the financial services, power, and smart cities industries. Let’s hear it from her.

How would you define Aboitiz Data Innovation as an organization and its current position in the market?

Aboitiz Data Innovation is a forward-thinking data science and AI startup with a strong commitment to research and a human-centric approach. Our heritage is rooted back to the Philippines’ over-a-century-old Aboitiz Group. Our headquarters is in Singapore to leverage its status as a leading global innovation hub with a thriving ecosystem. We are committed to making a very positive impact and transformation through innovation, sustainability, and excellence by leveraging advanced data science techniques but at the same time using human-centric AI approaches to develop solutions that transform businesses and advance communities across sectors such as financial services, power and smart cities.

Tell us about the latest strategic plans you have adopted to expand/optimize operations and engage new audiences in the market.

My role is to oversee the planning, development, and execution of ADI’s marketing initiatives to bolster its presence and growth within the region. Our goal is to be the driving force for the Aboitiz Group in its digital transformation to become the Philippines’ first techglomerate. Moreover, we are looking for opportunities to grow our market beyond the Philippines and be a leading data science and AI solution provider across the APAC region. We are now working on ADI’s inaugural AI Summit in the Philippines (AI Summit PH 2023), which is set to become the largest and most significant conference on AI in the Philippines. This very first AI Summit will showcase 60+ stellar speakers, AI trailblazers, and the best industry leaders to share their knowledge, trends, insights, and solutions around the breakthrough use of AI in accelerating sustainable business growth and development. In the meantime, we’re laser-focused on increasing brand awareness and working with our strategic partners to tell our ADI story how we empower businesses to harness the power of data-driven insights and human-centric AI for transformative outcomes and sustainable growth.

"Our goal is to no t only be the drivin gforce for the aboitiz gro up to become the phi ippines’ first techglom erate, but also to become the ap ac lead er in tr ansforming businesses & advan cing communities thr ough data science & ai inno vation"

Tell us about your leadership approach. What are the methodologies you follow as a leader?

What describes my leadership style is the passion that I have for my work, the commitment that I have for my organization, and the focus that I have for my as well as the organization’s future ahead. My teams, previous and present, describe me as an authentic leader. I lead from the front and mentor and empower my team to grow, evolve, and then help them to become the best version of themselves. Throughout my journey, in all my roles, I have been fortunate enough to work under amazing mentors who taught me to own the road and challenge the status quo while embracing my authenticity. I have learned a lot from my seniors and the people around me. Hence, I believe it is very important that people have someone to look up to for inspiration; I want to be that inspiration and create the same kind of environment and culture for my team.

What is the future destination you are heading towards?

It is an amazing opportunity that is given to me by ADI to join its leadership team and we are very bullish about the company’s growth and expansion. I am looking forward to working with the team to represent ADI to the whole Asia Pacific region and become the leader in the data science and AI innovation space.

What advice would you give to budding industry leaders?

In today’s constantly changing business world, the biggest challenge for marketing leaders is to help their companies to achieve growth goals despite the current macroeconomic challenges. But at the same time, we can operationalize data science and AI, which present us with multi-fold opportunities and carry forward a lot of optimizations in our processes and get the maximized impact. Marketing function, a lot of the time, has been misinterpreted as 'a cost center'; in today’s marketing, I want to break down this common misconception, but to justify that we need to do a much better job and use data to showcase our strategic capabilities to our leadership team. Marketing is not just about telling a great brand story; apart from having a creative side, marketers must also know how to use the power of data to present in front of their leadership team how they use their margin budget to influence and contribute to the bottom line of businesses.