Agency agenda: Burson APAC’s HS Chung on resetting culture for the future

When HS Chung stepped into her role as APAC CEO of Burson, her first priority was clear, and it had little to do with structure or scale. Instead, it centred on culture.

“Before anything else, our priority was really to think like one. Not as two, three, four,” she told Marketing Connected's Agency Agenda. “It was very important for us to really get the philosophy of why we were coming together before we could even do anything.”

Following the merger that formed Burson, Chung emphasised that integration was not about preserving legacy ways of working, but about creating something entirely new. “Many people tend to wish and believe what they are used to can remain. But the reality is, we’re doing all of this to create a new culture,” she explained.

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That mindset shift was critical. Rather than seeing the agency as a continuation of its past, Chung positioned Burson as starting afresh. “We actually consider ourselves about one to two years old. We don’t see ourselves as being the legacy 70-year-old,” she said.

We are now creating a new culture. And building that new culture is not something that’s going to done top down, but built together.

This collaborative approach underpins her broader agenda for the agency across APAC. With momentum building despite macroeconomic challenges, Chung is focused on turning change into opportunity. “Some people might think that’s a challenge, but we see it as an opportunity,” she said.

At the core of Burson’s strategy are three priorities. First is an almost obsessive focus on clients and the environments they operate in. “Be obsessed with the business environment our clients are in,” she added, noting that businesses today are undergoing “transformative change,” particularly driven by AI.

The second priority is to lead in that very space. “We need to be able to really lead in that AI space for communication, so that when clients turn to us, we’re able to lead them and pioneer this area,” she explained.

Finally, Chung stressed the importance of execution. “It’s really about not just setting these goals, but thinking about how we can operationalise it. And this goes back to the idea of building one collaborative culture.”

That culture also plays a key role in navigating change internally. Transparency and communication, she said, are essential during periods of transformation. “It all comes down to having a clear vision and a strategy, and transparently communicating that to the people,” she explained, adding that organisations must continuously listen and respond to employee concerns.

Looking ahead, Chung believes PR agencies must evolve into strategic business partners, as the future is pointing towards a reality where agencies play a bigger role at the C-suite and board level. According to her:

We should, and will need to aim to be a business solver, a problem solver.

For Burson, that future is already taking shape, grounded in a new, unified culture and a clear ambition to lead in an increasingly complex, AI-driven world.

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