Women to Watch 2025: Mimi Lu, Dentsu

Mimi Lu

Head of strategy for APAC Media
Dentsu
Singapore

Strategy, for Mimi Lu, has never been just a cog in the advertising machine. From early on, she saw it as a cultural lever: a way to shift mindsets and move products. Starting her career at PHD Australia, Lu deliberately sidestepped the well-trodden digital route, drawn instead to the intricate dance of human behaviour and data, where advertising acts as culture’s nervous system.
Her years in China shaped her deeply. Leading a team across Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, Lu helped her agency grow its work and deepen relationships with clients. She focused on marrying media, social, and entertainment in ways that felt fresh and meaningful, helping brands embed in culture.

When she joined Dentsu China in 2021, Lu introduced new ways of working that allowed her teams to be more flexible and creative. These changes brought new clients and helped the agency earn more than a million dollars extra in revenue. She believes good strategy is not about sticking to one way of doing things but about listening carefully and adapting thoughtfully.

Now in Singapore, Lu leads strategy across Asia Pacific. She works on creating tools and programmes that help people grow their skills and bring together different verticals of marketing—media, creative, and customer experience—so they all work better as one. She wants strategy to be a force that lifts everyone involved and not just a step in the process.

One of Lu's important contributions is Dentsu’s ‘culture-to-commerce’ framework—a model connecting consumer culture to commercial success—which was talked about at the Cannes Lions Festival in June. Complementing this is her design of a regional training curriculum set to launch across Asia Pacific in late 2025. This programme weaves together data literacy, cultural intelligence, and creative problem-solving to upskill professionals at every level, from interns to directors whilst addressing the gaps in media strategy and preparing teams for an AI-driven future.

Her client work echoes this philosophy. With Mastercard, she co-created a new operating model that interlaces strategy, partnerships, and digital innovation. This took the partnership’s Total Relationship Rating from 7.67 in 2023 to 8.5 in early 2025. And has since become a template for integration’s clear, measurable impact across other major blue-chip clients.

Mentorship is another pillar of her influence. Through LinkedIn’s ‘30 Minute Mentor’ initiative, Lu has guided over 30 diverse emerging professionals worldwide, paying forward the generosity that helped shape her own path.

Industry peers see her as a rare blend of visionary and pragmatist. Mastercard’s marketing director praises her strategic foresight for helping the brand “move faster, work smarter and engage more meaningfully.” TikTok’s APAC head of global agencies lauds her “positive energy and deep understanding” as a bar-raiser for meaningful outcomes. And Dentsu’s own global chief strategy officer calls her “a voice for APAC on the global stage” and “a driver of continuous innovation.”

For all this, and more feathers in her cap, Lu unquestionably earns her place in the Women to Watch class of 2025.