Educator by Day, Dad by Night

I avoided speaking at all costs.

Speech impediment. Paralyzing fear. Zero confidence.

Now I teach others to do the very thing I once couldn’t.

✅ Advise Fortune 500s on AI-driven marketing & sales
✅ Organize CMO Roundtables that bring Asia’s top marketing leaders together
✅ Lecture at top universities across Asia, helping students find their voice

What changed?

Not talent. Not timing.

Just this: I kept showing up. Even when I was scared.

I share this because too many students and professionals still believe confidence is something you’re born with.

It’s not.

It’s built - through repetition, reflection, and real-world reps.

If you’re building yours, I’d love to hear your story too.

P.S. If I could turn my biggest fear into my career - you can too.

Joe Escobedo

I taught 50+ masters students at Singapore Management University 

How to cut their job search time in half using AI.

75% of resumes never reach a human (they get read by the Terminator). 

Instead, I share 3 proven approaches:

1) Use AI to decode the job description first. 

Match your resume bullets to its exact language. Then score for ATS fit before you hit send.

2) Your LinkedIn headline is not your job title. 

"MBA Graduate | Open to Work" is invisible. "Helping B2B SaaS companies 3x pipeline with AI-powered marketing | CMO-track | SEA" gets found.

3) Keep outreach under 75 words. 

Reference something real about them. One specific ask. Read it aloud. If it sounds robotic, rewrite it.

One student rewrote her resume bullet live during the session. 

Before: "Responsible for marketing campaigns." 

After: a specific number, a target audience, and a result tied to revenue.

Remember, 70%+ of jobs never get posted publicly. 

The people who land them sent a good message to the right person at the right time. 

AI makes that faster. It doesn't make it automatic.

Joe Escobedo aka JoeGPT

AI Marketing Advisor, CMO Roundtable Host, Trusted by 25k Leaders, Author (How to Get a Job in Asia)

"Joe, everyone knows you," my friend teased. 

I laughed it off. "No they don't."

Three seconds later, a young woman walked up to our table.

"Are you Joe?"

I nodded.

Her face lit up. 

"I was one of your students in your Boston Consulting Group (BCG) class."

Then she said something I wasn't ready for.

She still remembered my class.

And she informed me she'd just been promoted to Managing Director of a social enterprise (AMGD Global) here in Singapore.

(Why are all my former students trying to make me cry hehe.)

I don't know how many students I've taught over the years. Thousands. 

Maybe more.

I don't always know what lands. 

Most of the time, you just show up, give everything you have, and they walk out the door.

You teach into a void and hope something sticks.

But sometimes, years later, someone crosses a restaurant to find you.

And you realize the void was listening the whole time.

To every teacher, trainer, mentor, and coach reading this... keep going.

You have no idea who you're shaping.

(Thanks to all the people that made this magical moment possible Yvonne Tan, Mei Lee, Julie Wang, and Nadhrah Alhadi...so proud of you!)

21,000 followers.

When I started posting on LinkedIn, I genuinely thought my mom and two classmates were my entire audience. (Hi Mom.)

So hitting 21,000 feels worth a small celebration, and some completely useless-but-fascinating facts about the number 21,000:

🔢 21,000 hours is roughly 2.4 years. About how long it takes to truly master something, according to the "10,000-hour rule people" (give or take).

🌍 21,000 years ago, the last Ice Age was still in full swing. Humans were already hustling, just with fewer LinkedIn notifications.

✈️ A Boeing 747 cruises at about 21,000 feet before reaching full altitude. Still climbing.

📬 More practically: this community is now bigger than many mid-sized towns in Asia.

What I've learned from 21,000 of you: 

B2B professionals across APAC are hungry for practical, no-BS insights on AI, marketing, and doing business across cultures.

That's exactly what I plan to keep delivering.

Thank you for being here. 

The best posts are still ahead (at least I hope so).

Being competent is not a career strategy. 😭

I used to think if you did good work, people would notice. 

Then I started running workshops with mid-career professionals and kept hearing the same story: reliable, capable, even indispensable.

And still invisible when promotion decisions got made.

Sat down with Dawn Fiona C., Alex Loh 劳星裕, and Debbie Yong on The Financial Coconut to unpack why that happens and what to do about it.

We covered:
- 5 real scenarios where capable professionals get overlooked
- How AI has shifted what effort and expertise actually look like
- What leaders evaluate when deciding who's ready for the next level

Especially worth it if you're an introvert or someone who'd rather do great work than play office politics.

🎧 5 Things No One Ever Taught You About Getting Ahead at Work ▶️ Link in the comments

Big thanks to Cheryl Lau for inviting me and producing everything!

Are young Singaporeans redefining success, or just burning out faster?

Cheryl Ng did both before she turned 20.

Study Instagram at 17. Quit from burnout. Return in Poly. Sleep 2 hours.

Breakdown. 

Eight hours of sleep. Better grades. Better focus. 4.0 GPA. 

Advocate for mental wellness while staying ruthlessly ambitious.

Her story isn't unusual in this part of the world. The pressure to perform is real, it's early, and it compounds.

What shifted for Cheryl:

- She stopped measuring herself by titles and output
- She used the goal gradient effect to build habits that didn't rely on willpower
- She reframed AI and uncertainty as tools, not threats

The students and executives I work with across APAC are hungry. 

That's not the problem. 

The problem is most of them have never been taught that rest is a performance variable.

Cheryl figured it out at 20. Some people never do (including me for many years).

At what age did you start treating recovery as part of the job?

(Link to full episode in the comments)

$50,000 in prizes for founders solving one of Asia's biggest challenges.

Asia is ageing fast.

That's what the SUSS Entrepreneurship team is trying to fix with Pitch for Good.

Having partnered with the team and have watched this come together over many months. 

The team has built real pathways for winners: 
- testbedding opportunities
- up to 50,000 in cash prizes 
- flight sponsorship for non-local founders

Grand Finals: 26 August 2026 
Deadline to apply: 17 May 2026

If you're building in ageing-tech, eldercare, or social innovation, this is the one to enter.

Tag a founder who should know about this.

#PitchForGood #Geronpreneurship #Singapore #SocialInnovation #SUSS

A roundtable costs around $10,000+ per session. 

Most companies waste that budget before the invites go out.

I was talking with a CMO last week. 

She was direct about what she actually wants from an executive event: ❌ no sales pitches
❌ no product demos
❌ no awkward cold-table seating

What works in Singapore is a 
✅ room of 10-14 people
✅ a facilitator who can move a conversation 
✅ a topic that ties back to your target audience's KPIs

The value is in the conversation, not the slide deck though. 

Sponsors who understand that get referrals. 

Sponsors who don't get a room full of people checking their phones.

If you've hosted or attended a roundtable in APAC recently, what made it worth your time?

The best marketers aren't the ones who know the most tools.

I've noticed this across every workshop I run in SE Asia. 

The person who walks out with the clearest plan is rarely the most experienced in the room. 

They're the one who came in knowing exactly what they don't know.

That gap — between digital activity and measurable ROI — is what the High-Impact Digital Marketing Masterclass is built around.

8 & 9 April, JW Marriott Kuala Lumpur. 

Topics:
- AI-powered marketing and automation
- Content strategy for lead generation
- Paid advertising (Facebook and Google)
- Conversion rate optimization
- Data, analytics, and ROI measurement

✅ HRD Corp claimable. 
✅ Past participants gave it a 9.5/10 average rating, which I'm told is unusual for a 2-day program.

If your team is spending on digital marketing but struggling to show what it's producing, this is the right room.

Contact Azmina: +60123500766 / Eugene: +60109154521.

Will AI steal my job (or my spouse)?!

I get asked this question a lot. 

For my upcoming Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) (B2B Digital Marketing class), I plan on flipping it around:

- What does AI do better than you? 
- What do you do better than AI? 
- Where do you need each other?

AI wins on speed, synthesis, pattern recognition. 

It can read 10,000 customer reviews and find the three things nobody said out loud. 4 seconds. Not 4 hours.

Humans win on judgment that requires context, relationships, and knowing when the data is lying. 

You can tell when a client is unhappy even though the NPS score says 8. 

AI can't.

The jobs disappearing aren't the ones AI can do. 

They're the ones where people refused to learn how to work alongside it.

The spouse question though? (Still figuring that one out....)

AI is making your employees lazy (or lazier, in some instances.) 

Here's what's actually happening inside most organizations right now:

Someone needs to write a proposal.
They prompt AI. 
They get something 'decent.'
They copy and paste, then send it.

No real thinking. No real creativity. No judgment applied. 

Just a prompt, an output, and a deadline met.
Multiply that by your entire team. Every day. For 12 months.

And you wonder why they're not getting results.

The problem isn't the tool (*insert shocked GIF*). 

It's that nobody taught your people how to use it without switching their brains off.

The AI "gurus" will tell you to move faster. Automate everything. 

I'll tell you something different: 

The most valuable thing your employees bring to work is their judgment. 

Their creativity. Their ability to think.

AI should sharpen that. Not replace it.

If your people are using AI as a crutch instead of a weapon, you're not transforming. 

You're just getting busier and staying average.

𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 25 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩-𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘈𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩 CEOs, 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘎𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘯𝘦𝘳. 𝘏𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 (𝘊𝘟) 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘨𝘰-𝘵𝘰-𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵 (𝘎𝘛𝘔) 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵, 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘺𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴.

Adrian's mission is to enable tech product leaders and stakeholders to create and deliver compelling and profitable products that solve customer problems and generate value. He supports agile product management teams throughout the entire lifecycle, from ideation to launch to optimization, providing actionable insights, best practices, and market guidance. He also publishes research reports and delivers presentations on the latest trends and innovations in CX, product analytics and GTM for product teams.

Adrian Lee

Hello, LinkedIn. Gasp, gasp. Out of breath as we've all been running a marathon the past months. Now, it's less than 2 weeks away. 𝖭𝗈 #𝖠𝖨𝖥𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗀𝗎𝖾 𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾. I can't be more proud of all the #Gartner associates that pulled together to stage the world's premier conference for technology and service providers. All the sleepless nights, the deferred gratifications, the meticulous research and preparation... all for you, #ProductLeaders #𝖳𝖾𝖼𝗁𝖲𝖾𝗋𝗏𝗂𝖼𝖾𝖫𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋𝗌 #𝖢𝖯𝖮𝗌. 

You want to win the #AIRace? We'll meet you out front at the tracks of the #GartnerPL Conference. Coming Soon. https://lnkd.in/gDimSRVr

Gartner VP Analyst | Chair, Gartner Product Leadership Conference 2026 | Driving Compelling Experiences, Impactful GTM | Product Analytics | Conversational AI

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