Martin Roll
Building brand value in Asia is not a translation problem. It is a strategy problem that asks Western playbooks to do work they were never designed for, and asks family-controlled businesses to professionalise without losing what made them defensible in the first place. Most boards underestimate how much of that distance is leadership work, not marketing work.
Martin Roll is a Singapore-based business and brand strategist who advises Fortune 500 companies, Asian corporates, and global business families on growth strategy, brand building, and the leadership transitions that decide whether either survives a generation.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Martin Roll
- He wrote the reference text on Asian brand strategy. “Asian Brand Strategy”, named one of Strategy+Business’s Best Business Books on Marketing the year after publication, is still the credential boards reach for when they need someone who has thought seriously about brand building outside the Western frame.
- He sits inside the family enterprise field, not next to it. As INSEAD Distinguished Fellow at the Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise, he advises principals and next-generation leaders on succession, governance, and strategy with a practitioner’s view, not an academic’s distance.
- McKinsey retains him as a senior advisor on family business and family office mandates. That is a hard credential to fake, and a useful signal for boards that want strategy advice with the rigour of a tier-one firm and the candour of an outside operator.
- He moves credibly between two audiences most speakers cannot bridge: C-suites at multinational consumer companies looking at Asian growth, and principals of family-controlled enterprises wrestling with continuity. The same frame, branded value creation under contested ownership conditions, applies to both.
Biography highlights
- Distinguished Fellow at INSEAD’s Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise; Entrepreneur in Residence at INSEAD.
- Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company on family business and family office strategy.
- Author of “Asian Brand Strategy” (Palgrave Macmillan), named a Strategy+Business Best Business Book on Marketing.
- Co-author of “The Future of Branding” with Kevin Lane Keller, Don E. Schultz and Rajendra K. Srivastava.
- Faculty across INSEAD, CEIBS and Nanyang Business School; guest lecturer at Harvard, Wharton, ESSEC, IE.
- Columnist at INSEAD Knowledge and Harvard Business Review; editor and host of the INSEAD Family Business Podcast.
Biography
Asian companies spent two decades being told that brand-building was a discipline they would eventually import. The argument in “Asian Brand Strategy” was the opposite. The book, published by Palgrave Macmillan and named a Best Business Book on Marketing by Strategy+Business, made the case that Asian firms would build global brands on their own terms, with their own founder dynamics, their own ownership structures, and their own customer logic. Two decades of work since then has tracked that thesis as it played out across consumer goods, luxury, and family-controlled conglomerates.
That work runs through Martin Roll Company, the Singapore advisory firm Roll founded after 25 years of board and C-suite counsel to multinationals, Asian corporates, and global business families. He is a Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company on family business and family office strategy, and Distinguished Fellow at INSEAD’s Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise, where he leads research and teaching on the strategy and governance questions that decide whether family enterprises survive succession.
His teaching reach is unusually wide. He sits on the faculty at INSEAD, CEIBS and Nanyang Business School and guest lectures at Harvard, Wharton, ESSEC, and IE. His writing appears regularly in INSEAD Knowledge and Harvard Business Review, and he edits and hosts the INSEAD Family Business Podcast, which has become one of the more substantive channels for next-generation leaders working through governance and continuity in private.
The combined record matters because the questions he answers, how to build a brand outside the Western default, how to professionalise a family enterprise without breaking what made it work, are the kind boards usually meet through three different specialists. Roll holds the brief in one place, and writes about it with the discipline of someone who has had to deliver on it.
Key speaking topics
- Asian brand strategy and global brand building
- Family business strategy and succession
- Family office governance and capital strategy
- Luxury brand management
- Leadership of family-controlled enterprises
- Asia growth strategy for multinational corporates
- Brand-led value creation
Ideal for
- Boards and CEOs of consumer and luxury businesses pursuing Asian growth
- Principals and next-generation leaders of family-controlled enterprises
- Family office leadership and investment committees
- CMOs and brand strategy leadership at multinationals expanding in Asia
Audience outcomes
- A clearer view of how Asian brand-building actually works, including where Western playbooks fail and where they translate.
- A practical frame for the strategy and governance decisions that determine whether a family enterprise survives the next generation.
- A sharper read on brand as a commercial asset on the balance sheet, not a marketing line item.
- A grounded view of what professionalising a family business requires, beyond org-chart changes.