YT26 | Leadership and Luxury Insights from CEO of Heart Media Group – Olivier Burlot

Meet Olivier Burlot, He is the CEO of HEART MEDIA Group with 26 years of work experience in publishing, fashion and luxury brands, magazines, digital media, marketing communications, and marketing strategy. The company has worked with renowned magazines such as LUXUO.com, L’OFFICIEL, WOW, MEN’S FOLIO, ART REPUBLIK, GRAZIA Singapore, and ESQUIRE Singapore. Heart Media forte is in Fashion, Beauty, Watches, Supercars, Yachts, Art and Real Estate. The company is present in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Saigon, Bangkok, Jakarta, Hong Kong and Shanghai. 

In this episode, Olivier shares his journey from North Africa to Asia, behind-the-scenes challenges of running a very successful media company in Singapore, insights on how to grow the company, the impact of COVID-19 and the pandemic on people and business, and why it is very important for CEO to stay grounded and connected to the people within the company. Tune in for a conversation on the evolving luxury media landscape, talent acquisition, and leadership insights.

Discussion Topics: Leadership and Luxury Insights from CEO of Heart Media Group

• Introducing Olivier Burlot, CEO of Heart Media Group, focused on luxury media and events in Asia.
• Heart Media’s Beginnings: Taking over Heart Media in 2013, its expansion across Asia, and its focus on high-end media, including print, digital, and events.
• Challenges Faced: Challenges faced, including building a digital presence and navigating through the COVID-19 pandemic.
• What’s a Good Thing about COVID-19 Paendemic? Covid-19 helped Olivier pivot the company from a physical distribution to a more digital one.
• Attracting and Retaining Talent: Olivier discusses talent recruitment, the importance of a company’s culture, and the ongoing progress of creating an inclusive working environment.
• Future of Luxury Media: Its attractiveness to young talents, and Heart Media’s evolution towards a strong digital and social media presence.
• Olivier’s Upbringing and Background: His upbringing in North Africa, his move to Asia in the ’90s, and his appreciation for the region.
• Singapore and Environmental Concerns: Olivier shares his favorite part of Singapore, Pulau Ubin, and expresses his thoughts on Singapore’s need to improve in terms of recycling and waste control.
• Wrapping up.

Transcript: Leadership and Luxury Insights from CEO of Heart Media Group

Yana: Welcome to YanaTV. Today, our guest is Olivier Burlot, who is the CEO of Heart Media Group, a company that specialises in organising high end media and events for highly discerning groups of high net worth individuals across Asia. We’re talking about yachts, watches, and luxury. Fashion and art. And today in this episode, we get to know all of you as the man behind the brand and his story, all of you. Tell us about your upbringing.

Oliver: I spent my youth in North Africa. With my parents, I had a very happy childhood with a brother who studied in Paris and came to Asia in the 90s. And since then, since the 90s, I have not been leaving Asia and I appreciate Asia. And interestingly enough, my only brother, he’s also a big fan of Asia and he also lives in Asia. He lives in Bangkok, I live in Singapore. So I would say we are French who have a very strong interest in what’s happening in this region.

Yana: North Africa, that’s very interesting. So thank you for sharing that. In the nineties, you came to Asia. So what was so special about Asia?

Oliver: I finished my studies at ESSEX, which is one of the most famous French business schools. And then I went to Asia as a young graduate to help with Hachette’s office in Hong Kong. Publishing L magazine and that was the middle of the nineties Asia was booming.

We were launching a magazine all across Asia from Hong Kong to China to Taiwan to Korea to Singapore. And basically, I enjoyed the job a lot and I felt what an amazing region it was. And then very quickly after 23 years in Hong Kong, I was sent to China and into Taiwan. I became the boss of L in Taiwan. And I even developed a stronger taste for Asia. Then there was my first company. I was in Hong Kong. And then this is my second company today. And now I live in Singapore. So you calculate that’s around 30 years in Asia.

Yana: What is your favourite part about living in Asia?

Oliver: I would say There is still a lot to be done. Sometimes in Europe, in the U.S., people are a bit blasé, and it’s already very developed. Obviously in Asia, there are still many segments of, for instance, the media market that can also be developed. I think I’m trying to bring some skills which I feel are skills I learned over the years: how to handle luxury media, and how to handle So I’m still very excited on a daily basis. I still feel that I’m learning, but I’m also bringing skills to the team.

Yana: Hot media. So since that’s your biggest baby right now, and you have been at it now for so many years. So when did the company start?

Oliver: Basically the whole adventure started for me in 2013. I took over this company, which was a rather small media company in Singapore, and we’ve been expanding it. Today we are in Singapore, we are in Malaysia. We also have partners in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia. So basically today we have around 80 people networking media and our focus has always been more on the high end media. Today we have print. We have a lot of digital activities, activations, social media, and we also organise events.

Yana: So it’s a very balanced kind of business model, right? That’s very good to hear. And from what I know, talking to numerous successful business people and you are clearly one of them, it’s not always as easy as it sounds when people look at the stories and the results. So with the Heart media, perhaps there was a really difficult time or maybe it was like a particularly difficult year that you had to think about many things work related.

Oliver: I think that’s always a good question to ask because everything looks and sounds very

Yana: easy, especially in the luxury business. Come on, how much more glossy I cannot get.

Oliver: I would say two things have been challenging. The first thing is when I took over this company, there was basically almost zero digital presence. So we have had to build a very strong digital presence with our websites, with our social media. We are today.

Managing around 26 Instagram accounts. We are managing around 22 websites. We have videographers. We have photographers in the house. So this whole transformation has been one of the big challenges. But looking today at our presence online and on social media, I believe that we are doing things right.

Obviously, the second challenge we’ve been facing was COVID. But basically, we are in a very human, very human business. Where people are very important. We don’t have stocks, we don’t have factories, we don’t have buildings. It’s all about brands and behind the brands, the people.

Basically to have COVID and to have a few months. Where we couldn’t be together, where we couldn’t gather, we couldn’t share ideas, we couldn’t interact was a big challenge. Digital transformation and going through COVID, the two major challenges over the last nine years.

Yana: So when you come and you become a company CEO and then you grow it to the way it is right now, I’m sure many people can relate. It’s not an easy journey. So what were the secrets of what were the decisions that you had to make to expand this digital presence? And how easy or difficult was it to find the right people for the job?

Oliver: I think we really went back to basics. What are all of the brands we are managing? And for instance on the men’s side, we have Men’s Folio, which is one of the most famous brands for young, the young generation of guys who are into fashion, who are into this Gen Z, millennium lifestyle.

And basically from Men’s Folio, which had no website, no social media, we’ve been building. A very strong brand and a very strong DNA where when you look at the print, but you look at the social media, you look at the website, you come to our events, you know it’s BenzFolio. And we build this community of readers who really identify with the media.

It was a major challenge, a lot of work on positioning. Positioning of the media, positioning of the image we wanted versus the audience. A lot of brainstorming, a lot of feedback that we also ask. And basically today in that segment of men between 25 to 35, we are doing well in Singapore. We are doing well in Malaysia.

And we also launched in Vietnam around four years ago. And in Vietnam, Men’s Folio is today one of the leading media. Congratulations! but we’re also doing Squire, we’re also very strong in watches, we’re also very strong in fashion, so for each of these brands, we have to think carefully, what is our positioning, what is our DNA, how different are we, what are we adding, you To the whole media scene.

If we add nothing, there is no point in being there. I always tell my team, if we are not adding something specific, in terms of DNA, in terms of contents, in terms of style, feel, vibes, events, there is no point in being there. Thank you very much. So I guess we’ve done things quite right in terms of positioning and pushing the brands.

Yana: And that’s such a great reminder for everyone when it comes to business, the right positioning to really get it perfect. That requires a lot of mastery, skills and luck sometimes. So I’m great.

You guys are doing it. So that was the expansion, the digital expansion. You mentioned COVID. So how did you deal with that given that you are in a people business and everything was shut down for nearly three years?

Oliver: So we actually really try to have constant communication because during COVID, it was very difficult to welcome new people.

It was difficult to basically brainstorm. It was difficult to keep the vibes going. So we really tried to make sure that everybody was connected. That was very important. The other thing during COVID, we also really thought carefully about again, our digital presence to make sure that we were right.

We have a pure digital player, which is Luxio. com and Luxio actually grew very fast during COVID. So we had to think about newsletters, we had to think about all the communication with the readers who were at home looking at digital platforms for luxury news and lifestyle news. I made sure during COVID that all the team could see them.

Even though we were not meeting on a regular basis, there was still this kind of vibes with a lot of progress. We did actually very well during COVID. And I wanted the whole team to feel it was not just one guy, not just the CEO, but the whole team who was behind the push. And we didn’t let go of anyone.

We actually recruited people here. We recruited people in Malaysia. We expanded in Vietnam. The government acknowledged. A tough question. An entirely different perspective. What do you think was a good thing about COVID for you and the company?

For us, just to pivot from a very physical distribution kind of business model to a much more digital newsletter, social media kind of business model. And it helped us a lot. Obviously, some other media groups in Singapore were very big. It was not so easy for them to move. On our side, given our size, we were actually able to move quite fast. We also hired videographers. So today we have our own video studio. So many things that we were not doing before COVID-19.

We did during Covid. At the same time, we also face tragedies. We also face people losing their parents. We also faced people who had very difficult times being alone. Some people who have it are very difficult.

Yana: Moments like mental and emotional moments. I can definitely relate. And some people I know. So I think we don’t talk enough about how difficult it actually is towards isolation.

Oliver: So this is my colleague. You were asking me about what I felt. I think it just taught us that interactivity and human mingling bonding is so important. So I’m trying in my role with the team. To make sure that we have this bonding moment to make sure that we have these interaction moments.

We have lunch, we have evening times, We are trying to have an office which is getting people to interact, a space which is for the people to meet, to have lunch together. We have a lot of art. In the company to show everybody that beyond work, you can also live in a very pleasant environment. So this is something which came after COVID or because of COVID, creating more interaction. Creating a better and more friendly and more inclusive working environment.

Yana: Being CEO for so many years. So what do you feel was the toughest decision you had to make in your life?

Oliver: Any CEO, any leader will always think about the future and especially the future of what is being built and I think the most difficult. task For me has been to find people who can basically take over

Yana: the next generation of leaders.

Oliver: This is something which is always difficult. A lot of companies fail because the leader has not been preparing enough. A succession plan. So on my side, over the last few years, I’ve been really trying to spend time on making sure that in the company we have people who are fully ready one day, maybe soon, maybe one year, two years to take over this company. I don’t believe, I don’t think that a CEO stays at the helm for too many years.

I can Continue to do a good job. There is a need for new creation. There is a need for new understanding of what’s happening around. There is a need for maybe a younger kind of management. So this has been my toughest task to make sure that we have the right people to take over. And today we have identified three key people in the company to really help push the company forward.

Yana: How is your feeling about talent in Asia, like in your industry? Is it easy to find people who you feel are fully qualified for the jobs that you want them to be qualified for? Is there a difference? Between the pool of talent in this part of the world and, for example, Europe or the U.S. or Africa, for that matter, since you’re from there. How do you feel about that?

Oliver: Every country in Asia has a different state of development. So from China, which is a very new society where a lot of people came out from the 90s. and discovered basically a very new and modern society. When you compare it with Taiwan, where you had the elite of China, which came to Taiwan in 1949, obviously the level of education, the level of culture, the level of understanding is also different.

To see bookstores open the whole night. to see people trying to speak different languages. And so that was Taiwan. So in terms of talent, I really found some amazing talents in Taiwan. China, you have people who are so willing to change everything and they could see the potential. So we have teams where ambition was very present in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is very small, real estate is small, expensive, and families have small space. So I really felt in Hong Kong, people were really trying hard to go beyond what they had. But Singapore, I would say Singapore is in a very Good position with a very strong state with a state that cares for the people from the housing to the schooling to the medical to the whole environment.

So in Singapore, you really need to have people motivated. You need to have people’s feeling and courage to have this ownership. Otherwise, it’s difficult to keep people and manage people. Sometimes in Singapore, you have a lot of layers. In Heart Media, we are trying to have as few layers as possible so as to really push creativity and really push talents. This is the major Difficulty is really needed to get people excited.

When we look at the number of years each person has spent in Heart media, I would say we are on the good side. So you’re

Yana: good with talent retention? I believe we are not bad. You’re not bad? I believe we are not bad. Humble and honest. I believe

Oliver: We are not bad. We can always improve. I can always improve. I’m always telling everybody. I’m not perfect, nobody’s perfect, we can always improve. There are a few things that can really make a difference. I think respecting every staff, respecting every background, respecting every gender. We have some people in our company who didn’t feel included in other companies. In Heart media they feel much more included, much more part of the team.

And I think this is important for me as a leader. to make sure that everybody feels that they are really part of a team, or a company. So again, nothing is perfect, but this is ongoing progress to make the company a nice space to work.

Yana: That’s a beautiful leadership example. If you were to give advice to yourself, perhaps, when you just started as the CEO, what would you say? Maybe pay attention to what or avoid what?

Oliver: I think as a leader, you need to try as much as possible to understand your environment. It’s very easy to just stay in your office and never to go out.

It’s very easy to basically live an easy life when you have the PA, when you have this and everything is organised around you. So I think it’s important to really have an attitude where you want to meet other people, you want to understand other people, you want to really understand your environment.

A French guy living in Asia, a French guy living in Singapore, I need to understand the do’s and don’ts, I need to understand what’s happening around, all the new trends, especially in a very fast changing environment like the media. So this is my biggest Advice to myself: be open to change.

Be open to understanding that not everything will be the same the next year, the next five years. So we’re really open to new trends, new ideas and open to a new environment. Don’t stay in your office all the time. Meet people, go up, see the world.

Yana: Speaking about the media as the industry and you being on it for so many years. I’m just curious. Where do you feel it’s heading? Especially luxury media, like what you think in three, five, 10 years for now, like if you were an 18 years old boy at the moment, would you still go into this industry today?

Oliver: We are recruiting and we also have interns. Who are coming from some of the best universities in Singapore, from Nanyang, from Nassau, from SMU, from a very interesting background. So it means we’re still attracting talents, whether it’s for videography, whether it’s for writing, whether it’s for photography, whether it’s for marketing including finance and admin.

So we are very open to new talents. And I still feel that this industry. Is attractive again. People see us as a print media company. Obviously, we’ve been changing over the last few years, and today we have a strong digital social media aspect. And this is something very important for us. A lot of young guys, young ladies are okay to join, and they feel this is exciting.

We’re dealing with fashion. We’re dealing with watches. We’re dealing with art. We also organise events. We are dealing with very interesting people. And the whole idea when hiring these people is to tell them, you try the media, you try to be in the media, it will always open a lot of doors later on.

Because you have been meeting people, because you have been going out, because you have discovered Singapore, Asia, the world. You have been exposed to so many things that It’s always opening a lot of doors around and today from Heart media over the last few years, we are seeing some of our ex colleagues, ex team members who are joining other companies.

And this is something exciting. They go into e-commerce, they go into luxury brands, they go into malls, they go into different activities because they have this background, this media background that gives them a lot of exposure and a lot of connection.

Yana: So since we are in Singapore, and particularly you love Singapore, and this is the place where you are staying, what is your favourite part about Singapore?

Oliver: My favourite part? I would like to tell you about Spulau Bin. Because I feel it’s one of the very pristine sides of Singapore, and it reminds me of the old Singapore with the kampong, with this very simple lifestyle.

So I like Pulau Ubin. If I can go to Pulau Ubin and bring friends from outside of Singapore to Pulau Ubin, I will do it. Because I want them to understand that there is not only CBD, there is not only Sentosa. There is also a much more pristine simple kampong lifestyle in Singapore. I go to Pulau Ubin quite a

Yana: A lot. What is one thing do you feel Singapore

Oliver: Can I improve? Personally, I think Singapore has done a lot already in terms of being an advanced city in terms of energy, in terms of understanding climate change. But I still feel that Singapore can do more in terms of recycling. I’m still amazed to see that in so many other cities, you cannot get a plastic bag today.

In Hong Kong, but obviously in Europe. But Hong Kong banned plastic bags 10 years ago. And in Singapore. It still is something which is part of daily life, where you’re getting one plastic bag, two plastic bags, three plastic bags. And I feel sometimes Singapore could do more in terms of banning plastic, in terms of encouraging recycling, in terms of getting people to really understand that what they see in the sea, what they see in other countries when they travel, all this plastic, all this waste is also our own consequence.

The consequence of our daily life, the consequence of our way of life, the way we consume. So personally, I think Singapore can do more in terms of recycling and really controlling waste.

Yana: The biggest dream in my heart.

Oliver: Enjoy life in Singapore and to also make sure that I’m bringing some interesting Inside some interesting stories to also the people around me. We, as I was saying, nobody’s perfect. And I’m not. So the whole idea is to really try to find a balanced life, harmonious life. Balancing work, balancing friends, balancing travel. And trying to really do good as much as you can. So that’s my

Yana: So much, Olivia, for showing up today. That was Olivia Bourlant on YanaTV. And as you can see, we had a very interesting conversation about many things. From fashion to shows to business to personal advice to life philosophy and mantras.

And I would appreciate ladies and gentlemen, if you comment, what do you feel about everything we discussed today? So what is your view on the fashion industry? Are you part of that? Are you part of the media? Let us know let’s connect and of course remember to comment subscribe And connect with olivier, So thank you for joining us today