Women to Watch 2020: Caroline Hsu, The Hoffman Agency

Caroline Hsu

MD, Asia-Pacific
The Hoffman Agency
Hong Kong

Caroline Hsu’s professional life has come full circle, from her origins as an account manager at a PR agency in Taiwan, to expanding a PR agency into Taiwan as its APAC managing director. But don’t be fooled into believing she is single-minded, as the life and career of this tenacious go-getter drawn to new experiences has been anything but ordinary.

Hsu is a self-proclaimed ‘third culture kid’ and tech junkie who is Taiwanese, but grew up in Saudi Arabia before going to university in the US and trying her hand as a reporter. In 2001 she returned to her roots in Taiwan to join Ogilvy-affiliate Era PR to work with many of the global tech companies based there, eventually in both in-house and agency roles. Perhaps none was a bigger challenge than joining Google in 2008, where Hsu built the communications team for Taiwan and Hong Kong from the ground up, handling everything corporate, policy, product, business, social, internal and crisis communications.

During this time, Hsu stepped out as a mentor, not only acting as the Google@Women chairwoman for Taiwan, but working with young entrepreneurs at universities to apply their talents. Always fond of new technology and emerging opportunities, Hsu joined then-startup Appier in 2015 as its CMO, taking on a global marketing role before joining The Hoffman Agency two years later.

Now overseeing nine markets as APAC managing director, Hsu has expanded Hoffman’s footprint, opening a third China office in Shenzhen and hiring new talent in Indonesia. Knowing the Taiwan market intimately, Hsu defied expectations by opening a new location there, growing it from zero to $719,000 in revenue with 19 full-timers in 12 months. Known as a “grandmaster for closing a deal”, Hsu’s results-driven leadership has produced double-digit agency fee growth in APAC for the past three years, with resounding success in Greater China making her region the revenue engine for Hoffman globally.