Women to Watch Greater China 2023: Shuang Xu, BCW

Shuang Xu

Managing director and chief growth officer, China
BCW
Beijing

As chief growth officer and a key business growth driver at BCW China, Shuang Xu has kept double-digit growth for all major accounts over the past five years. In the shadow of the pandemic and economic slowdown, she maintained 20% growth in 2021 and 26% in 2022, as well as a 100% pitch win rate in the past 24 months.

This past year, Xu led her team to win six industry awards across APAC and Greater China in 2022, recognising everything from their innovative use of social media, to the way they used digital to aid a CSR campaign, along with other integrated consulting and campaign work. 

Xu is passionate about digital transformation and walks the talk within WPP, having built the first partnership between BCW and sister agency GroupM. Through her efforts, the two agency groups began to share data platforms, enabling account teams to develop more effective media engagement strategies for clients. Her passion and actions led BCW and six other technology partners to win the WPP Tech Award for the implementation of a predictive analytics planning solution for corporate communications. 

Xu co-founded an HR consulting business from scratch. By applying her early career experience, she partnered with BCW China’s people team to design and implement a unique competence-based talent management model. This new model helped the agency to hire, develop and retain the best talent, whilst achieving a zero turnover rate for staff directors and above since 2019, as well as a 100% client retention rate over the past two years. 

But that’s not all. Xu created a learning and knowledge-sharing platform ten years ago when she first joined BCW, which incorporates a mentoring programme, a regional training programme and a curriculum for Chinese PR professionals. She also founded a book club to encourage young professionals to read and share through online and offline channels.

Passionate about writing articles and encouraging new ideas and practices among industry professionals, Xu leads training classes for industry associations such as 17PR and CIPRA to encourage innovation.

Xu started her PR career at Edelman in Beijing and moved to the US for in-house roles. Then she joined BCW China as associate director in 2013 and moved up to be chief growth officer in 2021.