Amy Tiang: Leading Marketing With Purpose | Physical Access Control Solutions, ASEAN & India, HID

For Amy Tiang, Senior Manager, Marketing Communications, Physical Access Control Solutions, ASEAN & India Sub-continent at HID, marketing has never been simply about campaigns or communications. It is about understanding people, building trust, creating clarity and connecting diverse perspectives across markets and cultures. From navigating the complexities of ASEAN and India to embracing the opportunities presented by AI, Amy’s career reflects a distinctly human approach to modern marketing leadership.

In this conversation, Amy shares the experiences that shaped her leadership journey, the challenges she has navigated as a woman in a senior role, and her views on ambition, authenticity, wellbeing and building high-performing teams. Above all, she reflects on the kind of leader she hopes to be: one who opens doors, builds trust and proves that leadership can be both ambitious and deeply human.

1. Take us back to the start of your career. What drew you into marketing, and what early experiences shaped the kind of leader you have become at HID?

I didn’t enter marketing because I loved advertising. I entered because I was fascinated by people – why they trust certain brands, why they say yes to one solution over another, and how emotion quietly influences even the most rational business decisions.

What shaped me most was working across different cultures in ASEAN and India. Because of the rich culture in different regions, the same message rarely works everywhere. What resonates in India may fall flat in Singapore or Indonesia. That taught me humility, curiosity, and the importance of listening before speaking. My mantra – good marketing is not about making noise; it’s about making complex things make sense.

To me, leadership isn’t about having the loudest voice in the room. Some of the most influential moments in my career came from listening carefully, connecting people with customers, partners and teams across very different cultures, creating clarity when everyone else was overwhelmed by details.

2. Marketing has changed enormously, especially with data, digital channels, and now AI reshaping how brands reach people. How has your approach evolved, and what do you think great marketing leadership looks like today?

To me, the biggest shift is that information is no longer scarce — attention and trust are.

Everyone has dashboards, automation tools, and now AI-generated content. The challenge is no longer producing content but producing meaningful relevance.

I spent a lot of time thinking about campaigns earlier in my career. Today, I spend more time thinking about customer journeys, trust, and long-term relationships. Especially in B2B, people don’t make million-dollar decisions because they saw one clever ad. They buy from companies that consistently show understanding, credibility, and value.

AI excites me because it removes repetitive work and gives us marketers more time to do what humans do best – strategy, empathy, storytelling and judgement.

It exposes weak marketing. If your message has no real insight or humanity, AI can generate endless versions of it, and nobody will care.

I think great marketing leadership today is knowing what should be automated and what should remain deeply human. The human part – empathy, intuition, timing, and storytelling – is still where real differentiation happens. In short – data-informed without becoming data-obsessed.

3. As a woman in a senior role, what barriers did you encounter on the way up, and how did you navigate them without losing sight of who you are?

The biggest barrier wasn’t always external for me. It was learning not to shrink myself. There was the quiet assumption that technical industries are led by technical men, and marketing is there to support rather than shape business outcomes. There were rooms where I had to prove credibility more than once.

Instead of trying to become 'one of the guys', at some point I stopped asking, ‘How do I fit in?’ and started asking, ‘What perspective can I add that isn’t already in the room?’ By combining commercial thinking with empathy, relationship-building, and long-term vision, things changed.

Another challenge was learning that being authentic doesn’t mean being soft. I’m naturally warm and relationship-driven, but I’ve also had to make difficult decisions and hold firm positions. The lesson for me was you can be empathetic and still be decisive.

4. Many talented women hesitate to put themselves forward for leadership. What advice would you give your younger self, and what would you say to the women coming up behind you now?

I would tell my younger self: stop waiting until you feel completely ready.

Many women prepare until they feel completely qualified, while others apply when they’re only partially ready. Most leadership opportunities come before you feel fully prepared.

I’d say: your voice matters earlier than you think. Don’t wait for a title to contribute ideas. And for women coming up now, I’d encourage them to build both competence and visibility. Do excellent work, but also let people know what you’re working on, what you believe in, and where you want to go. Opportunities often come to people who are not only capable but also seen.

To emphasise, ambition is important, but so is designing a life that still feels like yours. Success is much easier to sustain when it’s connected to who you really are. Don’t build a career that looks successful from the outside but feels empty on the inside.

5. Tell us about a moment or a decision you are particularly proud of at HID. What did it take to make it happen, and what did you learn from it?

I’m proud of helping position marketing as a strategic growth driver across ASEAN and India, not just an events function, by building regional programmes that connect partners, consultants, and end users around real business challenges rather than product pitches. It required aligning multiple countries, different cultures, sales teams, and channel partners with a shared vision.

What I learned is that transformation rarely happens through one big announcement. It happens through consistent credibility – delivering results, earning trust, and showing that marketing can influence revenue, relationships, and market perception at the same time.

People remember how you help them succeed, not just what you sell them.

6. Leadership often means making hard calls and managing through uncertainty. How do you stay grounded, and how do you build and motivate the teams around you?

I stay grounded by remembering that titles are temporary, but how you treat people stays with them. I’ve learned that calm is contagious.

When things are uncertain, teams don’t expect leaders to have every answer. They look for clarity, honesty, and steadiness. I stay grounded by focusing on:

• What I can control

• Transparent communication

• Protecting team morale

• Keeping a long-term perspective

As for motivation, I’ve found that most high-performing people don’t just want or need instructions – they want ownership and purpose. I try to give my team room to contribute ideas, make decisions, and grow beyond their job descriptions.

Tough periods in life actually made me a better leader, because they taught me resilience and perspective, so do not fret over the hard calls and uncertainty.

7. How do you think about balance and wellbeing alongside an ambitious career, and is 'balance' even the right word for how you approach it?

I’m not sure 'balance' is the right word because life rarely stays balanced for long. I think of it more as alignment. There are times when work demands more and times when family or personal wellbeing needs more attention.

What matters is whether your choices align with your values.

Travel, moments of solitude, good conversations with like-minded people, and time with my daughter help me reset. They remind me that my identity is bigger than my job title.

8. When you look at the next generation of women leaders, what do you hope changes in the industry, and what role do you want to play in making that happen?

I hope women no longer feel they have to choose between being respected and being themselves.

I’d like to see more leadership environments where different styles are valued – not just the loudest voice in the room.

The role I want to play is simple: to make the path a little less lonely. I want to be the kind of leader who opens doors, shares what I’ve learned honestly, and shows that leadership can be ambitious, human, and authentic at the same time.

I don’t want to be remembered as the woman who climbed the ladder fastest or highest. I’d rather be remembered as someone who opened doors, built trust, and proved that leadership can be both strong and deeply human.