Reset the new normal with Christina Lim

Summary

Retail and e-commerce marketing have been forced to reset fundamentally in the wake of major market disruption, a recalibration Christina Lim, CMO-in-Residence at the SMU Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship and an affiliated faculty member at the SMU School of Business, has tracked closely. Her career spans senior marketing roles at NTUC Fairprice, one of Singapore's largest grocery retailers, and Honestbee, an on-demand delivery and lifestyle platform, giving her a vantage point across both traditional retail and fast-moving digital commerce.

Part of a Chief Marketing Officer webinar series exploring how senior leaders are adapting their craft to a changed commercial environment, Lim considers what it means to genuinely "reset" rather than simply resume pre-disruption marketing playbooks. Consumer expectations around convenience, trust and value shifted during a period of sustained disruption, with implications for how retail and e-commerce brands plan campaigns, allocate budget and structure their marketing teams going forward.

Drawing on lessons from both grocery retail and on-demand platforms, Lim offers a grounded perspective for marketing leaders navigating similarly disrupted categories, along with insight into how academic and entrepreneurial thinking can inform pragmatic marketing strategy inside established organisations.

Her view forms part of a broader collection of CMO perspectives on adapting marketing leadership to today's business realities.

What does a genuine reset look like for marketing leaders who can't simply return to their pre-disruption playbook?