From the pharmacy counter to the hospital board paper

Mandate

Lead brand, digital, international patient services and screening marketing within the advertising and professional limits that apply in each market.

Outcomes

• Withdrew 34 testimonial videos and replaced them with 41 medically reviewed explainers
• Replaced bill-linked facilitator commissions with fixed fees; international admissions reached 11,600 in 2025
• Removed add-on sales incentives at screening; follow-up referrals after isolated marker results fell from 410 to 140
• Began twice-yearly publication of patient-experience survey results in 2021

Decisions in context

I lead marketing for three hospitals and two screening centres serving patients who often travel to reach us. My five direct reports cover brand and digital, international patient services, the Indonesian offices, screening marketing, and content and compliance review. Clinical content is approved by the medical review panel, and treatment prices by the hospitals and finance. I report to the group chief executive and present to the board on enquiries, admissions from abroad, facilitator arrangements and advertising compliance. Since 2022 I have also reported twice a year to the risk committee on facilitator audits and complaints. The decisions I am proudest of reduced short-term revenue or reach: withdrawing testimonials, ending bill-linked commissions and removing screening sales incentives. I have explained each cost to the board directly and tracked its recovery openly.

Reason for the move

Current role; seeking one compatible non-executive appointment alongside it.

Mandate

Grow and organise international patient activity, mainly from Sumatra, with information patients could rely on.

Outcomes

• Opened the Medan information office in 2016
• Published typical bill ranges for eighteen common procedures from 2017
• International admissions rose from 8,400 in 2014 to 11,000 in 2018

Decisions in context

This role taught me how a medical journey across a border is decided: in a family conversation in Medan, with a facilitator's advice and a price that often turned out to be wrong. I built an international team of 31, opened the Medan office in 2016 and gave patients written information in Bahasa Indonesia about procedures, travel, payment and follow-up. In 2017 I persuaded the hospital chief executives to publish typical bill ranges drawn from actual invoices for eighteen procedures, against concern that competitors' lower headline prices would win the comparison. Some did. Bill disputes from international patients fell sharply the following year. I also began to see the weakness of facilitator commissions linked to bill size, though I did not change them until I had the authority and the border closure gave us a clean break.

Reason for the move

Appointed group chief marketing officer when the role was created to combine domestic, international and screening marketing.

Mandate

Build a consistent group identity for separately branded hospitals and launch the screening business.

Outcomes

• Launched the Novena screening centre in 2012, reaching 21,000 visits in its first full year
• Introduced medical review of all clinical content in 2010
• Unified three hospital identities under the group name by 2013

Decisions in context

I joined a group whose hospitals had grown separately and spoke about themselves in different ways. My first change was procedural: from 2010 every clinical statement in our material went to a doctor for review before publication. It slowed us down, and the hospital teams resented it for about a year. I then led the work to bring three hospital identities under one group name, keeping local names in use where patients knew them. The largest project was the Novena screening centre in 2012. I wrote the first package descriptions with the screening doctors, explaining what each test detected and what it could not. The centre reached 21,000 visits in its first full year. With a team of twelve, I learnt how much marketing in a hospital depends on clinicians trusting the marketer.

Reason for the move

Promoted to lead international patient services as admissions from Indonesia grew.

Mandate

Manage hospital and consumer-health clients and the medical and regulatory review of their material.

Outcomes

• Grew the hospital portfolio from two clients to five
• Built a claims-review checklist adopted across the agency in 2007
• Retained every hospital client through the 2008 downturn

Decisions in context

Agency work showed me many hospitals at once, and how often their ambitions outran their evidence. Clients asked for rankings nobody had awarded, outcomes nobody had measured and patient stories chosen to move an audience. I managed the hospital accounts and the review of their material with an external medical adviser and a regulatory specialist. In 2007 I wrote a claims-review checklist that the agency adopted for all healthcare clients. I also learnt the commercial side of refusal: a client told no too often moves its account, so the useful skill was finding the true and specific claim that still interested a patient. I grew the hospital portfolio from two clients to five. Serindah was one of them, and in 2009 its chief operating officer asked me to join.

Reason for the move

Joined a client, Serindah, to work on the hospital side of the decisions I had been advising on.

Mandate

Grow analgesic, cold-remedy and herbal brands within medicine-advertising rules in two markets.

Outcomes

• Rebuilt a herbal-range campaign around dosage clarity after a claims review, holding sales level
• Grew the analgesic brand's pharmacy distribution from 1,100 to 1,650 outlets
• Prepared submissions for Malaysian advertisement approval with regulatory affairs

Decisions in context

At Halvenor I managed brands that people bought for pain, colds and general wellbeing, including a range of traditional herbal products with long histories and limited evidence. Medicine advertising was controlled in both Singapore and Malaysia, and I worked with a regulatory affairs colleague on every claim. Our Malaysian advertisements needed approval before publication, which taught me to write copy that could survive line-by-line examination. When a review removed the strongest line in our herbal campaign, I rebuilt it around clear dosage and use, and sales held steady. I also learnt that pharmacists were our most important audience: a product they would not recommend did not sell, however much we advertised. By 2004 I wanted to see healthcare marketing from more than one company's side, and an agency offered that.

Reason for the move

Moved to an agency to work across hospitals and drug companies as well as consumer health.

Mandate

Prepare in-store promotions, shelf information and supplier campaigns for the store network.

Outcomes

• Rewrote shelf information for over 300 products with pharmacists' review
• Coordinated about forty supplier promotions a year
• Introduced a pharmacist sign-off for any health claim on store material

Decisions in context

My first job put me close to the moment of purchase. I wrote shelf cards, organised supplier promotions and prepared leaflets for thirty-eight stores. The pharmacists were my most useful critics. When one at our Tampines store declined to recommend a herbal tonic for the purpose my card described, I understood that I had written a promise she was expected to keep. After that I asked a pharmacist to read any health claim before it went into the stores, and my manager made the practice standard in 1997. I had no staff and no budget of my own; my work was reviewed by the marketing manager. The role gave me a lasting respect for the person who must answer a worried customer's question about a product someone else has promoted.

Reason for the move

Joined a consumer-health manufacturer to manage brands directly.