April 2016

China and the Résumé that Didn’t Slip Between the Cracks

Photo Caption: My relationship with Zhong evolved into a friendship. This photo shows her with my kids (Diego and Pilar) in their younger days during a day trip to San Francisco. I had the good fortune of calling The Hoffman Agency my employer for more than 16 years, beginning my journey [...]

Talk About Being Truly Global

Malaysian girl in Silicon Valley. Who would have thought? Sixteen years ago, I made my way to San Jose. It was 1999, my 10th month into a great job at Intel, and I was loving every bit of it. Little did I know that things were about to change drastically and [...]

March 2016

One-year Assignment in Singapore Does Not Include Prized Alfa Romeo 164

We took Lou Hoffman’s word for it 20 years ago when he decided there was opportunity in Asia Pacific for a relatively small, independent, San Jose, California-based public relations consulting firm. Few of us working in the agency at the time had ever been to the region, let alone knew anything [...]

And I call it “Kismet”

Have you ever felt that some things in life were meant to happen exactly the way they had and that even if you had the power to change the past, you wouldn’t have done it any other way? I’ll bet that many would feel this way about a past love, a [...]

My Encounter with the Singapore Political Process

Ray Schuster started our Asia Pacific operation in Singapore. It wasn’t easy. We didn’t have an international expansion department. No, I take that back. Ray was our international expansion department. He navigated the government regulations. He found our office space and oversaw the buildout as well as played interior designer down to [...]

The Chairs

We talk about the launch of Asia Pacific as if it were one launch. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Every single office had to be started from scratch. Behind every single office stands an individual who believed in our mission and worked 24/7 to make it happen. For the [...]

Kindness and Gratefulness Characterize My Memories of Asia

Congratulations to The Hoffman Agency (HA) for 20 years in Asia Pacific. Lou, Ray Schuster and Maureen Tseng had one heck of a vision. It is great to see that their vision has materialized. From the outside, it seems like the company is as strong as ever having reinvented itself as a [...]

Fond Memories of Hoffman AP

When Lou asked me to contribute some thoughts about the 20th anniversary of Hoffman AP, I told him I was truly honored because being involved at the beginning meant so much to me, not to mention providing an opportunity to hone my global communications chops. Moreover, it was such a stroke of [...]