Sharon Tan

2023 JUDGE’S PROFILE

Head of Digital Commerce, SEA

Kellogg Company

With 20 years of experience in sales, marketing and general management, of which more than 10 years were focused on starting up and scaling businesses, Kellogg’s head of digital commerce for Southeast Asia, Sharon Tan, has been deservedly recognised as one of the top 25 eCommerce marketers at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s Asia eCommerce Awards 2022.

At Kellogg’s, Sharon operates at the intersection of commerce, consumer and technology, driving the sales ambition for the region’s digital business across the ready-to-eat-cereals and snacks portfolios, comprising Kellogg’s and Pringles.

In her role, this translates to end-to-end management of the digital business including business planning, strategy and development, eCommerce online and performance campaigns, eCommerce brand partnerships, merchandising and promotions, data and analytics – across marketplaces, quick commerce and omnichannel retailers such as hypermarkets and supermarkets.

Against the backdrop of the macro landscape and eCommerce being a new channel of growing importance for Kellogg’s, Sharon’s core business objective can be summarised as fast-track penetration of eCommerce sales across SEA. Sharon was tasked to develop a digital commerce strategy and drive capability building, focusing on building a sustainable business for the new sales channel – which was a strategic pillar of growth in 2022.

In addition to being a channel partner to country teams, with her leadership skill, Sharon guides and directly manages local eCommerce managers in all local planning and execution and actively leads planning and commercial negotiations with key distributors, retailers, eCommerce brand and marketplace partnerships.

Sharon is a big believer of co-brand partnerships, and she and her team actively seeks out brands for eCommerce trade partnerships. In addition to a consumer promotion that is expected of trade partnerships, Kellogg’s and its partner brand came together to drive up visibility of the partnership and promotion, resulting in strong page reviews and unique visitor uplift, and importantly, a double digital sales uplift.

Given Kellogg’s is still new to eCommerce, Tan and her team are focused on building strong foundations and as such, adopt the approach of doing what it knows is right for its business, for the specific market, instead of doing what’s on-trend.

“We will like to think this is where our out-of-the-box thinking comes in. For example, you will find many food FMCG brands have launched and/or even doubled down on D2C, but we have not,” said Tan.

Many FMCG brands operate official stores on all marketplaces, and Kellogg’s has chosen to do this selectively across the region. Sharon shared that many brands have eCommerce teams set up to focus solely on pureplay e-retailers, but Kellogg’s teams have the additional tenant of driving eCommerce penetration in hypermarkets and supermarkets.

Sharon is a firm believer in an omnichannel approach, evident from her previous role at Lazada Singapore, where she spearheaded Lazada’s first multi-category, physical pop-up home, “Come Home to Lazada” which gave shoppers a one-of-a-kind omnichannel shopping experience. She was senior vice president, category director and was responsible for sales across mall, marketplace, grocery and cross-border channels.

Sharon was well-respected in her field as she was previously appointed APAC associate commercial director at Italian pharmaceutical powerhouse, Menarini – during which she led the firm’s cross-border eCommerce entry into China. She spent the earlier part of her career in international creative agencies where her last position was general manager (Healthcare) at Publicis Singapore.