Women to Watch 2025: Summer Liu, Starcom

Summer Liu

Head of business development
Starcom
China

Part strategist, part diplomat, Summer Liu keeps Starcom China one step ahead of the brief. She leads with precision, purpose, and believes in building capabilities that make growth sustainable. 

With a background in economics and social innovation, Liu began her career at Mars Wrigley and later sharpened her strategy chops at Mindshare China, where she helped secure blue-chip wins for LVMH and Unilever. 

Her entrepreneurial instincts were honed as GM for a fast-growing startup, where she built commercial operations across China, Japan, and South Korea from the ground up. That founder’s mindset now influences her leadership at Starcom, where her perfect pitch win rate helped the agency ace China’s new business rankings in 2024.

Liu launched Starcom’s first Platform Strategy Hub, creating proprietary frameworks and training over 80% of the agency’s planners. Her frameworks for platforms like Douyin and Rednote now shape day-to-day strategy for clients like Nestlé, Wyeth and Lululemon—and have helped drive a substantial lift in platform revenue.

She’s also leading Starcom’s AI transformation, has is credited with co-developing tools that analyse UGC trends and generate campaign-ready content. Key FMCG and hospitality clients have already adopted this. She leads a team of six.

Liu’s influence, however, extends across the agency network. She brokered new cross-agency collaborations, productised Chinese capabilities for Southeast Asia, and helped establish APAC’s first Rednote Hub to bring China’s digital maturity to the region.

A champion of inclusive leadership, Liu reengineered internal systems to match talent with opportunity, has mentored across Publicis, and quietly helped clients stay away from outdated gender tropes—protecting reputations before a crisis ever struck.

“She doesn’t just close gaps—she builds engines,” says CEO Jessica Zhang. “She leads from within.”

Not one to hog the spotlight, Liu builds systems where credit is shared and business marches ahead. The results speak quietly, but unmistakably for themselves.