Exit interview: Roche Vandenberghe on building brands, shaping lives and leaving a legacy

Across advertising, financial services and telecommunications, Roche Vandenberghe (pictured) has built her career around a central question: how can brands create value for both the business and the people they serve? As she prepares for her next chapter, that question continues to inform her views on marketing, leadership and the legacy leaders leave behind.

The former chief marketing officer of Globe Telecom believes marketing must go beyond winning consumer preference. It must also give them a reason to keep it in their lives, while driving growth that lasts.

Having worked across Southeast Asian markets including Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines, Vandenberghe is now looking towards opportunities to challenge the status quo, contribute to the industry and help the next generation of leaders navigate a changing business landscape.

One challenge she is particularly keen to address is the growing role of artificial intelligence. While recognising its potential to transform how businesses operate, she believes leaders must remain mindful of the human qualities that give progress meaning.

“In our rush towards automation, we cannot forget the human spirit behind all of it,” she said.

For Vandenberghe, embracing new technology and keeping people at the centre of business are not competing priorities. The task is to ensure that innovation continues to serve people, with trust, critical thinking and empathy remaining integral to the decisions businesses make.

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When connectivity becomes more than a service

Early in her advertising career, Vandenberghe conducted market research in southern Vietnam, visiting people's homes to speak with consumers about a mosquito coil product. The experience gave her a direct view of how people use products and what they value, reinforcing the importance of grounding marketing decisions in their everyday realities.

That consumer-first perspective followed her into financial services. During more than a decade at FWD, Vandenberghe said she was proud to have helped build the business from a newcomer into a top-three player.

She saw an opportunity to make life insurance more relevant to young Filipinos, many of whom did not see it as a priority. Her team developed a gamer-focused insurance proposition addressing health concerns associated with gaming. The initiative attracted first-time insurance buyers and helped make insurance more accessible to a younger audience.

Her move to Globe in March 2025 offered a different challenge. Rather than building a relatively new brand, she was joining an established telecommunications company with the opportunity to contribute to a broader role for connectivity in the Philippines.

“What really attracted me most was the shift from pure connectivity to nation building,” she said.

For Vandenberghe, Globe's challenge was not simply a matter of awareness. The brand was already widely recognised; the question was how it could remain relevant in people's lives, including by making digital access more meaningful across socioeconomic groups.

There’s no Filipino who doesn't know Globe. But what's important is: what role does Globe play in their lives?

During her tenure, Vandenberghe focused on aligning the marketing team around a shared mission and a set of principles covering customer centricity, data-driven decision-making and marketing's role as a growth driver.

She also highlighted The Blueprint, Globe’s platform for sharing its innovations, alongside efforts to strengthen internal storytelling, budget governance and the attribution of marketing activity to business outcomes.

The work reflected her view that a brand's direction cannot rest with the marketing team alone. Teams across the business need to understand the mission and take ownership of it, she said. Without that shared conviction, even a strong strategy can struggle to translate into action.

Balancing brand building with business growth

For marketing leaders, the pressure to demonstrate short-term returns can make it difficult to sustain investment in longer-term brand building. Vandenberghe, who has experience carrying profit-and-loss responsibilities at FWD, said the two should not be treated as competing priorities.

“At the core of it, it should never be an either-or choice,” she said. “Long-term brand building must be commercially grounded in present reality, and short-term performance initiatives must build rather than erode future equity.”

For Vandenberghe, commercial accountability and long-term brand equity should inform the same decisions, rather than pull the organisation in opposite directions.

That principle also informs her approach to technology. AI offers marketers opportunities to improve efficiency, support decision-making and explore new ways of working. But its growing capabilities make human judgement more important, not less.

As technology becomes more embedded in our lives, it's also very important that we become more intentional about protecting the qualities that make us human.

Critical thinking and fair judgement are among the qualities she believes leaders must protect. Marketers should question AI-generated outputs, consider the context in which they are being used and remain accountable for the consequences of their decisions.

For Vandenberghe, adopting AI is not simply about how quickly or efficiently a team can work. It is also about whether the technology helps produce better outcomes for the people the business serves.

Leadership beyond the campaign

Vandenberghe's experience across markets has also shaped her approach to leading teams. Different markets and cultures influence how people make decisions, what motivates them and how they respond to change, making a single leadership formula difficult to apply.

Rather than expecting everyone to work in the same way, she emphasises understanding individuals, recognising their strengths and helping them work through their fears. Developing people, in her view, is part of the work of building an organisation that can continue to grow.

As her responsibilities expanded, her focus increasingly included governance, creating opportunities for others and contributing beyond the immediate demands of a role.

“Experience comes with responsibility,” she said, pointing to the importance of sharing knowledge, mentoring others and helping advance the industry.

That sense of responsibility extends to her personal advocacy for inclusion through Special Olympics, including her involvement with Special Olympics Pilipinas and the Special Olympics Asia Pacific Advisory Council.

Her work with the organisation has reinforced her belief that a corporate career and a commitment to societal impact need not be separate. It has also sharpened her concerns about the risk that AI could widen existing inclusion gaps if the needs of marginalised communities are not considered as technology develops.

For Vandenberghe, inclusion requires more than discussion. It calls for businesses and leaders to consider who benefits from progress, who may be left out and what they can do to address that gap.

It is another expression of the principle running through her approach to marketing: business decisions should account for the people affected by them, not just the results they produce.

A legacy that extends beyond the role

Vandenberghe does not view a leader's contribution solely through individual achievements. Organisations continue to change after a leader leaves, and the work is rarely complete when a particular tenure ends. What matters, she said, is whether the people and systems developed during that time can continue to make progress.

Ultimately, the legacy is not just what you accomplish yourself. It is also what continues to grow through the people and the organisation after you have moved on.

As she considers her next chapter, Vandenberghe is drawn to opportunities closer to the heart of the business, where she can challenge established ways of thinking and help drive change. She is also investing in her understanding of corporate governance.

Alongside those professional interests, she wants to champion the role of people in an increasingly AI-driven world, particularly by supporting initiatives that build trust and give younger generations a strong human-centred foundation.

Her focus on emerging leaders reflects a broader view of what it means to contribute over the course of a career. The work is not only about what a person can deliver while holding a particular title, but also about what they can pass on to others.

“Keep building a better world. Never lose sight of the people behind the business, and never stop asking how else I can contribute more,” she said.

“The title and the responsibilities may change, but the purpose should remain the same.”

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