Women to Watch 2023: Maureen Tseng, The Hoffman Agency

Maureen Tseng

Managing director, Southeast Asia
The Hoffman Agency
Singapore

Maureen Tseng joined The Hoffman Agency 27 years ago as the company's first Asia Pacific employee. Despite personal circumstances that led her to temporarily step back into a part-time role, her return to full-time leadership as GM in 2018 has proven that an openness to challenges and continuous growth can lead to tremendous success.

In just four years, she was appointed managing director of Southeast Asia, a challenging role created to capture the region's growing tech market.

Under Tseng's bold leadership and despite economic uncertainties, her focus on building the company's core strengths and values led to her implementing the 'One SEA' model, bringing together regional markets in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. A move that allowed agencies in the region to select clients that were aligned with the company’s expertise and values instead of prioritising billings. As a result, she delivered high-value strategic results to ambitious clients who sought corporate strategy and complex problem-solving.

Tseng has cemented Hoffman’s regional footprint and opened opportunities for growth and profit, offering world-class multi-market services to all six key markets in the SEA region.

Her leadership style embodies openness and growth. Whether Tseng's support takes the form of training the next generation of communication professionals or promoting greater female platform representation, she strives to create a supportive and inclusive environment that encourages engagement and empowerment.

Aside from organising training, workshops and opportunities for active participation, especially from women, she has also formalised a team of social connectors to build synergy across the SEA offices and create a pipeline of virtual and physical social events that encourage employees to interact beyond work conversations–closing the gap between senior and junior staff.