Rhys Taylor
Rhys Taylor is Non-Executive Advisor to NZTE—the New Zealand Government international trade initiative; member of the Executive Council for Leading Change; and Managing Director at marketing and communications firm Publicis Groupe. Previously he was Managing Director at VML and Dentsu.
Prior to this, Rhys had an entrepreneurial journey building three startups:
- Saasu software has been acquired by ERLY Group,
- Acclipse technology acquired by Wolters Kluwer, and
- Caught! photography merged operations with SnapStar.
He is a British and New Zealand citizen calling Hong Kong home. And has lived and worked in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.
Updated February 2025.
Personal note
I guess I'd hope to be described as a creative business leader—not zany creative but someone curious enough to care about where ideas come from and committed to the craft of how they spread. I've built my career in marketing—both corporate marketing departments (client-side) and marketing agencies (vendor-side). With particular experience growing business into, out-from, and across Asia-Pacific.
It's important to realise a brand is about more than just expression—it's action. Internally it galvanises culture to give people clarity and space to do their best work seeing as they’re giving up the most important hours of their day for it. Externally it's a monetised customer franchise that systematically grows its audience, wins hearts over minds, and gets customers to move the direction we want. Inextricably linked to performance.
As for the marketing faculty—in its simplest form it's about organising information. Might sound a bit plain but if you can establish a clear picture of your desired audience, the value your product or service provides them, map the physical and digital environments your audience and product share, and connect data points from behaviour to business impact you're almost there. It's a largely unregulated and therefore non-standardised practice so I break down a few approaches to common scenarios at the websites listed in the main menu.
Life in Hong Kong is fast-paced and Cantonese culture is something special—worth learning about. I enjoy meeting past colleagues, clients, and alumni as they travel through Asia. And if you think I can be help in your business journey we can talk more. Thanks.
fudcap?
Portmanteau of fear, uncertainty, doubt; and capital. The raw chaos of the world and its calculated but imperfect counterforce in the form of market structure.
