Women to Watch 2020: Caroline Campbell Troman, Brave Bison

Caroline Campbell Troman

Executive vice president and managing director for Japan and Asia Pacific
Brave Bison
Singapore

Caroline Campbell Troman more than doubled the size of Brave Bison’s business in Asia-Pacific in one year, overseeing expansion into two new markets and helping it secure a major deal with Panasonic. On top of this, she is a leader who prioritises local impact and gender equality.

Campbell Troman worked for blue-chip businesses Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL for over 15 years in senior digital sales roles. Her first Asia role saw her lead programmatic sales for Yahoo in 2014, until she joined AOL Platforms as commercial director of APAC in 2016. In 2018, Campbell Troman was lured to social video company Brave Bison to lead the high-growth JAPAC region.

Under her leadership, Brave Bison has recorded strong results in JAPAC over the past year. An expansion into Japan and South Korea and new business wins of Lark and Tencent helped the business to increase revenue in the region by 115% from $2.1 million in 2018 to $4.72 million in 2019. Specifically, Campbell Troman helped to secure Brave Bison’s deal with electronics giant Panasonic to lead the creative execution of its Olympics social video campaign series in the UK, US, China and Japan. Campbell Troman’s prior experience participating in the London 2012 Olympics for the ABA Boxing helped push the deal over the line. Campbell Troman has also extended Brave Bison’s partnership approach—in which it works with complementary businesses like Unruly and Adcolony to conduct joint pitches—beyond just business to include co-hosting workshops and events.

When it comes to work culture, Campbell Troman in December organised a team-wide two-day volunteering initiative with Care for Cambodia, a charity focused on providing supplementary education for children in cities and rural villages. The team used the opportunity to create a film to aid the charity’s future fundraising efforts. The business leader has also implemented weekly team Japanese classes, flexible working, team CSR initiatives, team hackathon initiatives, and voting rights in the recruitment process to ensure every candidate is the right fit culturally. Campbell Troman is a strong proponent of nurturing female talent, and Brave Bison’s JAPAC team currently has a 50-50 gender split. Her colleagues say her greatest attribute as a leader is her capacity to facilitate trust amongst the team, enabling the business to take bigger risks and move faster than the other agencies.