From corporate exit to Mad About Marketing Consultancy, Jaslyin Qiyu argues that impact matters more than status

When Dr (HC) Jaslyin Qiyu was retrenched from a multinational after nearly four years, she found herself staring at a blank slate. “The hardest part was leaving the stability and identity I built in my long corporate career,” she recalls.

“It was daunting to walk away from all that, especially when there’s a strong societal expectation here to stay in stable roles at respected multinational corporations.”

Out of that uncertainty came Mad About Marketing Consulting, the company she founded as an alternative to traditional agencies. “Throughout my 20-year career, I often saw companies investing in campaigns aimed to accrue rewards, but they didn’t strongly address underlying issues of customer engagement or sales alignment. I created Mad About Marketing to fill that gap. (It was to be) an alternative to the traditional agency model. I wanted something more flexible, empathetic, and impactful,” she recalls.

The decision to strike out on her own was serendipitous, coinciding with broader shifts in how people were rethinking their careers.

A change in work culture

Across Singapore, the company’s managing director sees more professionals choosing fractional roles and career sabbaticals. She notes, “Particularly among millennials and Gen Z employees in their mid-careers who have built up specialised skills. The phenomenon can be attributed to burnout, disillusionment with long careers in one company, and a greater emphasis on work-life balance.”

What began as a response to economic uncertainty is, in her view, settling into something lasting. “Once employees have experienced flexibility and seen that they can still deliver impactful work outside a traditional nine-to-five job, it reshapes the mindset permanently,” she says. That shift has also changed how many now define success.

“In a corporate setting, we measure success by climbing the ladder to senior vice-president or C-suite roles,” says Qiyu. “Fractional work removes that illusion. It empowers professionals with the ability to build a robust portfolio that reflects their strengths and interests.”

For her, the absence of office politics has been remarkably freeing as “success becomes less about status and more about impactful contributions”.

That message struck a chord at one of her recent talks on personal branding. Attendees from around the world told her afterwards that it made them think differently about their own careers — proof that the questions many are asking cut across industries and borders. And nowhere is this more visible than in her own sector.

Marketing at the crossroads

“Marketing is one of the fastest to adapt because Singapore’s industry has always thrived on agility and cross-collaboration,” she explains. More mid-to-senior-level marketers are leaving corporate roles to become fractional leaders, drawn by the chance to work across industries and broaden their impact.

This movement is forcing agencies and brands to reconsider how they engage talent. According to Qiyu, agencies are exploring partnerships with fractional leaders and integrating them into project-based models, adding, “For brands, fractional professionals enable access to senior expertise without the cost of a full-time hire, which is especially valuable to small and medium-size businesses or businesses concerned about costs.”

Still, she emphasises, local acceptance takes time: “It requires seeing fractional leaders not as freelancers, but as embedded partners driving transformation together.” Some of the most rewarding work has come from helping clients uncover blind spots.

She remembers when “a fast-moving consumer goods client once told me he didn’t realise he might be missing out on a potential new segment of customers because of the way the brand had been positioning itself for the last decade”.

These moments validate her conviction that marketing should enable business, not just visibility. They have also taught her a truth she carries into every engagement: Structural change is never instant, but its impact endures. It is this belief that keeps her focused on the future.

“What excites me is the adrenaline rush of solving problems and seeing the results of what we’ve planned and implemented,” she says. “At the same time, the thought that we are supporting the aspirations of the fractional talent who are part of our talent bench is something that keeps me going.”

Her guiding principle is simple: people and pragmatism. She constantly asks herself, “Does it make commercial sense for our clients, their customers, and our people? Would everyone be better off at the end of it? And if it doesn’t turn out the way I planned, can I live with it?”