Beam Suntory's Lisa Li enjoys the collaborative culture

Meet Lisa Li, Beam Suntory Canada's Senior Brand Manager, Maker's Mark Global Brand House. Passionate about marketing and considered a Brand Rejuvenator, Lisa enjoys the collaborative culture of the company.

As a world leader in premium spirits, Beam Suntory is inspiring human connections and driving growth through entrepreneurial spirit, demonstrated by Lisa in her dynamic leadership role.

Lisa earned an Honours Business Administration (HBA) from the University of Western Ontario and since then continued to lead a range of brands, including Canadian household staples such as Black Diamond cheese and High Liner frozen fish, as well as global brands like Scott’s lawn care and Courvoisier cognac.

Different perspectives elevate brands

Lisa is results-driven, agile and a forward-thinking leader. Lisa brings unique value with her communication and presentations skills in her role with Beam Suntory.

"When I worked on Courvoisier, within two years we turned the brand around to gain share in Canada. It wasn't like I had one idea, wrote it down, and done. It was a journey of collaborating with colleagues and agency partners, trying things out, and if something didn't work - going back and refining it. Working through that was like coming up with a song, then coming up with a full-fledged band where everybody was doing their part to activate and build visibility of Courvoisier," explains Lisa.

In her role, Lisa draws on her rich career experiences to offer different perspectives on how to elevate a brand. She enjoys working within a team, celebrating each individual's skills to achieve the best results. Lisa is fortunate and proud to lead teams to success, having led the teams that won the 2006 Grand Prix Award for innovation in dairy and the 2012 Best New Product Award for frozen fish.

Developing innovative creative solutions

Throughout Lisa's career, she continues to build a solid foundation across all aspects of brand management: consumer insights, P&Ls, communications across traditional media plus digital/social, paid search, public relations/influencers and experiential; and most importantly, training and developing direct reports. She works with a variety of excellent agency partners who develop innovative, break-through creative solutions.

"Working at Beam Suntory allows for a lot of teamwork and collaboration. People sometimes think of it as an army or sports team, but I think of my team as a band. When working on a project, we’re all playing together off the same song sheet and everybody has a different role within the band, working towards creating something amazing,” comments Lisa.

Expression in creativity

Lisa's communicative passion thrives in her role with Beam Suntory and she also explores her creativity in her personal life.

“A lifetime goal of mine is to write a song that I'll hear performed by an artist on the radio. I’ve been writing songs for about 15 years. I haven't been published yet, and there was a point in my life where I got so frustrated that I began to feel like maybe I was wasting my time. But songwriting is something I love because it’s an expression of myself, and simply gives me joy. I love music and enjoy the challenge of trying to distill an idea into something that's compelling," reflects Lisa.

Inspiring teams to achieve ambitious goals

Whether Lisa is presenting to a large audience, around a boardroom table or one-on-one, she clarifies strategy, risks and inspires teams to achieve ambitious goals. Lisa is propelled to explore creativity in all sectors of her life.

"I really like the creative process. Sometimes, my work is like an artistic endeavor where I start something on a piece of paper and then rewrite it until it’s just right, sort of like songwriting. I think there's this assumption that a creative person just plucks an idea out of thin air and then they just plop it onto a piece of paper, and it's done. Whereas I think of it as a process, where you mull an idea in your head, then write it and rewrite it. Like songwriting, work is a journey of ideas, feedback, and revisions, especially when collaborating with a team," says Lisa.