Leveraging comms to drive high stakes Business Transformation
Lesson 1: “Transformation needs to be visible in the work, not living in a deck somewhere.”
In our conversation with Graham van der Westhuizen, Studio X Lead in ASEAN South Pacific, he shares the complexities of leading transformation in a global, interconnected environment. For him, successful transformation is not just about integration or new ways of working. It’s about making sure that every single person feels they have a stake in the vision and can see the impact of their work on the overall transformation.
GRAHAM’S KEY INSIGHTS
Embed transformation into everyday work: Instead of creating separate transformation initiatives, integrate new ways of working into existing projects. This ensures the change is tangible and not just a theoretical exercise.
Tailor communication for diverse teams: Different regions and teams have unique communication preferences. Adapt the message delivery to suit local nuances and create champions in each market to advocate for the transformation.
Leverage culture as a unifying force: When merging teams from different agencies or businesses, co-create a shared identity by acknowledging past legacies while building a new culture together. This approach fosters alignment and reduces resistance.
Claire: Would you mind sharing some context on the Business Transformation work you’ve been doing at Studio X?
Graham: With pleasure! The Coca-Cola Company has a bold vision to be the best marketing company in the world, and they acknowledge that Marketing Transformation is a critical driver for growth. WPP was engaged as a strategic business partner to enable that transformation. Studio X is the networked agency solution from WPP that brings together the best talent and expertise from around the globe to achieve that vision. My specific role is to lead Studio X across 10 markets in the ASEAN and South Pacific region. We’re essentially an integrated team of WPP agencies across creative, media, production, and data. Our objective is to deliver the marketing output for the Coca-Cola Company in these markets.
Claire: Talk about two behemoths coming together! Studio X represents a shift in the traditional brand-agency model - what exactly makes this transformational?
Graham: The idea of integrated teams working together to service a client’s business is obviously not new. What is transformational about the Studio X model is the exceptionally high level of interconnectivity between our capabilities. At Studio X, we have nine capability leads—heads of departments across media, creative, strategy, digital, tech and data, social, and influencer management—who now form part of my leadership team. This interconnectivity is crucial for ensuring our work translates into meaningful business results for Coca-Cola. It’s not about transformation for transformation’s sake; it has to be evident in the work we produce. It’s also not just about having teams collaborate; it’s about ensuring these cross-functional teams are interconnected to scale capabilities effectively across markets and ultimately deliver growth.
Claire: So you were tasked with building out Studio X for the ASEAN and South Pacific region. How do you get people excited to join and also align to the Studio X vision?
Graham: There’s a saying I love: "People don’t leave jobs, they leave people." I believe the same is true for talent acquisition. People join people, not companies. When I was building my leadership team, I was fortunate to be working with Coca-Cola and WPP, which carry a certain cachet. But I knew I also had to make myself someone that others wanted to work with and alongside. It was important for me to create a leadership environment that attracted talent not just because of the brands involved, but because of the vision and leadership style. People wanted to join Studio X because they felt aligned with our vision and the way we were going to achieve it. I knew that if we can unite everyone around a singular vision, then that multiplier effect would enable marketing transformation to happen.
Claire: How have you managed to garner maximum buy-in to the transformation initiative?
Graham: The first step was to hire the right talent from within WPP, and where there were gaps, bring in external hires. We then needed to galvanise the team around a singular purpose. This wasn’t easy because each WPP agency we pulled talent from has its own storied history, values, and ways of working. The solution was to come up with a North Star—our guiding vision—that was authentic for us as a leadership team and resonated with the cultural nuances of our 10 different markets. We did this collaboratively, ensuring everyone felt heard and had a stake in the vision. It wasn’t a top-down mandate; it was co-created with input from everyone in the team.
Claire: What has been the biggest challenges you and your leadership team have come up against during the transformation?
Graham: One of the biggest challenges has definitely been unlearning. It’s easy to get people to learn new things, but getting them to unlearn old habits is much harder. Many of our team members had been working in certain ways for years, and now we were asking them to do things differently in order to elevate their work. Another challenge was making sure that transformation wasn’t something happening outside of our regular work streams. Transformation needed to be visible in the work, not living in a deck somewhere. That mindset shift—transformation being in service of the work—was a pivotal moment for us.
Claire: During a period of such significant transformation, I am imagining that you must have encountered all sorts of different human needs. How did you navigate that?
Graham: It’s all about listening. As leaders, we must be aware that people have different expectations of us and of the transformation process. Some want to be part of every conversation and validate every word in our vision, for example, while others just want the North Star articulated so they can align and get on with the work. It’s a balance between providing clarity and autonomy. Creating space for dialogue and acknowledging these different needs was key. In practical terms, that meant a lot of one-on-one conversations and small group discussions to ensure everyone felt heard and included.
Claire: In transformation as extensive as this, what role does communication play in ensuring alignment across such a diverse team?
Graham: Communication is the backbone of any transformation. In our case, it was crucial to articulate our vision clearly and repeatedly at every level of the organisation. People needed to understand not just what we were doing but why we were doing it. But beyond just communicating the North Star, it’s about fostering two-way dialogue. I made it a point to listen to the concerns and ideas of my team members, making sure they felt included in the journey. Communication can’t be a one-off exercise. It needs to be ongoing and multifaceted. We had to communicate differently across our ten markets—what resonated in one region didn’t necessarily resonate in another. Understanding these nuances and tailoring our communication approach was key to building alignment and ensuring everyone felt part of the transformation.
Claire: What were some of the tangible ways you communicated with the team to enable alignment?
Graham: One of the most effective initiatives we implemented was a ‘Culture Workshop.’ We brought everyone together—virtually and physically—to co-create our vision. We wanted people to articulate how they wanted to show up as a team, what values they wanted to stand for, and what behaviours they wanted to embody. This wasn’t about dictating the culture from the top. It was about collectively defining what we wanted Studio X to represent. The workshop led to a shared understanding and a set of values that everyone felt they owned. It was critical for us because we were bringing together individuals from different agencies, each with their own culture and history. So, we needed to find common ground and build a cohesive identity that everyone could get behind.
Claire: Once you’d co-created the vision, what was your approach to communicating this shared identity back to the broader team?
Graham: After the workshop, we developed a comprehensive communication plan to cascade the outcomes to the broader team. We created various assets, from digital presentations to in-person meetings, to communicate our new shared identity. But the real communication happened in the day-to-day interactions. We emphasised that the new values and behaviours couldn’t just live in a document—they had to be visible in every meeting, every piece of work, and every conversation. I personally made it a point to embody these values in my own leadership style and interactions. If you want people to live the values, you need to model them yourself.
Claire: How did you make sure that the transformation wasn’t perceived by the studio’s “engine room” as just another corporate exercise?
Graham: That’s a great question. The key was ensuring that transformation was visible in the work, not just in decks or workshops. We had to make it clear that the changes we were implementing were in service of the work, not just something abstract or theoretical. We integrated transformation into our current projects and work streams, making sure that it was aligned with what people were already doing day-to-day. This way, it didn’t feel like an additional burden or another corporate exercise—it felt like an enhancement of the work people were already proud of.
Claire: Can you share a specific example of how communication played a crucial role during the transformation period?
Graham: One of the challenges we faced was getting people from different agencies to feel like they were part of Studio X. We had people joining from Ogilvy, Hogarth, VML, and other WPP agencies, each with their own way of doing things and their own set of values. To tackle this, we initiated a series of “Culture Conversations” where people could share what they valued about their previous agency and what they hoped to bring into Studio X. These conversations were powerful because they helped people see that they weren’t losing their identity or history. Instead, we were creating a new identity that respected their past while building something new. It also allowed us to identify common themes and values that everyone could rally around, which we then used as the foundation for our shared culture.
Claire: What have been the biggest challenges about communication across such a large, geographically dispersed team?
Graham: Communication as a whole has definitely been one of our biggest challenges. Our core team in Singapore is super aligned to the Studio X mandate, but extending that alignment to teams in markets like Vietnam, the Philippines, and Australia was tough. What we realised is that we needed to have champions in each market—people who were aligned with our vision and could act as local advocates for the transformation. We made sure these champions were fully briefed and felt empowered to communicate the vision and values locally. But it’s still an ongoing process. Each market has its own way of working and its own cultural nuances, so we have had to be flexible and adapt our communication approach accordingly.
Claire: Looking back on your journey as studio lead, is there anything you would do differently in terms of communication during the transformation period?
Graham: Yes, absolutely. One thing I would focus on more is engaging with our different audiences within the team. I wish I had spent more time understanding what each group needed to fully buy into the vision and transformation. There were moments where I felt like we were pushing the agenda from the top without fully understanding what our teams needed to feel excited and aligned. In hindsight, I would have created more opportunities for dialogue early on, to better understand how we could get people to ‘drink the Kool-Aid,’ so to speak. It’s one thing to communicate a vision; it’s another to make people feel like they are a crucial part of achieving that vision.
Claire: In a sentence, what advice would you give to leaders driving transformation in complex, multi-geographical environments?
Graham: Be comfortable being uncomfortable: transformation is inherently uncomfortable, and it’s our job as leaders to guide people through that discomfort.
WRITTEN BY CLAIRE KEET