Amrita Randhawa did not say ‘yes’ when offered her first CEO role at the age of 34. The conversation about relocating to China, with her two career mentors, happened without her fully understanding exactly what they were asking.
She had not said ‘no,’ and so they took that as a ‘yes,’ and she soon found herself on a plane to Shanghai with a daughter who was eighteen months old, and a P&L to run in an unfamiliar market.
It worked out rather well.
Amrita admits her career has not been a carefully planned ascent, but a series of “careening accidents” that led her from one opportunity to the next. Her current role as CEO, Publicis Groupe Singapore and Southeast Asia, is the only exception: in 2021, she was drawn to the challenge of leading a portfolio of communications agencies across six diverse markets.
She wishes more women would step into leadership roles before they feel ready.
“Years ago, I remember talking to an amazing internal candidate to lead our largest account who said, ‘I can’t do this job yet, I’m still developing the right skills.’ I said, ‘Who isn’t?’ Many women think they need to arrive at a point of perfection, when in fact, being a leader is not about having all the answers.”
Since then, Amrita has tried to be as honest about her successes as her failures.
“Personally, I can tell you about 30 mistakes I’ve made in the last 10 years alone: times when I have not just failed but failed miserably. These stories are an inextricable part of who I am, so I try to tell them often. I don’t think we talk about failure enough in our industry.”
As CEO in a fast-growing region, it would be easy to assume Amrita values alignment, order, clarity. In fact, it is the “messy middle” where she feels most alive. She believes there is no perfect insight, no single route to reaching a solution. That messy grey area where things don’t fit? That’s where things get interesting.
Amrita agreed to take part in HER MARK, a photography series honoring the women who shape advertising and communication, so that she could reflect on her own voice, and encourage others to protect theirs.
“When everyone in a room is saying ‘no’, it’s easy to retreat to the same perspective. No one wants to upset the client or the boss; conflict is seen as bad. In these slightly uncomfortable moments, protect your voice. Don’t be afraid of saying the one thing everyone is afraid to say, because alignment is so often a euphemism for mediocrity. The most aligned campaign is usually the most boring one on the planet.”
I can tell you about 30 mistakes I’ve made in the last 10 years alone: times when I have not just failed but failed miserably. These stories are an inextricable part of who I am, so I try to tell them often.
Amrita developed her own voice with the help of two teachers. After grading dozens of papers, Mrs Dhiman pulled Amrita aside and noted that her ninth-grade essay was completely different to her peers. She realized that having an unconventional point of view is not a flaw, but an asset. A seed was planted.
Mrs Egan, her middle school teacher in Garden City, New York City, also left an indelible mark. The only Indian in her school, Amrita was an awkward 11-year-old girl struggling to fit in. It could have been a hellish four years, but Mrs Egan looked out for Amrita the entire time she was there – importance of a duty of care hit home.
Both teachers – their high standards of excellence balanced with compassion and humanity – continue to shape Amrita today, helping her lead with empathy in an industry that’s being upended by AI.
“Let’s be honest, it’s a tough time for our industry. When I joined, there were endless opportunities. Today, there is so much fear, transactional thinking, talk of restructuring. This industry was built by people – not by efficiency, systems, processes. We can’t forget that.”
She also worries about our future.
Asia’s advertising industry benefits from having far more women in the C-suite versus a decade ago. Topics like perimenopause – something her mom’s workplace never even thought to discuss – are no longer taboo, leading to progressive workplace policies at Publicis from menopause leave to breastfeeding rooms and mental health support.
“When women are part of the conversation, society benefits. But in politics, nothing much has changed. I keep telling my daughter: get into politics, change the world. Because I do worry about the conflicts we are seeing around the world at this moment in time. And I wonder if we had more female voices in politics … maybe the world would be less extreme.”
Making your mark implies a sense of past and future. For me, it is almost an emotion: it means honoring where I came from, while showing my daughter what kind of person she can be, too.
She describes her greatest power as standing back: there is nothing more fulfilling than building teams, creating the conditions to do something extraordinary, and then getting out of the way.
The story she is most proud of from her career belongs to someone else: a 22-year-old and his boss who walked into a room and said eSports was going to be huge in China at a point in time when the numbers did not support this. But Amrita and her then CSO and COO recognised the passion. They backed the team, sheltering them from P&L pressure, giving them room to experiment, and watched a team of three become 20.
“Sometimes, the biggest flex in leadership is being able to say: I had nothing to do with that,” she explains.
She has enjoyed plenty of shiny career milestones but hopes her legacy will be defined by the not-so-great moments when there were big problems to solve, when she chose to lead with integrity and learn from failure. These are the moments that truly matter in leadership.
For Amrita, “making a mark” means honoring where you came from while bearing responsibility for the future. There is a certain spirituality in the idea: the sense that you are one part of a longer story, a single chapter in something larger than yourself. The mark is not what you achieve; it’s how you show up for people in tough times.
As for her mark, she imagines it is red. A broad, unapologetic stroke of red – not the delicate kind, not the careful kind, but the start of something unknown.
HerMark is a visual and narrative study of women shaping the marketing, advertising, and communications industry. Branding in Asia is publishing the ongoing series in partnership with HerMark.
Learn more at hermark.world
