Faculty

Profile

Cindy Hsiao is a global brand strategy, innovation and impact leader with vision & expertise in inclusion, equity and diversity and future leading strategies and problem solving to unlock growth opportunities through human centric insights for brands and businesses.

With a focus on actionable, intelligent growth across sectors and industries, she has work across consumer and lifestyle categories for food, beverage, home, health, beauty, self-care and wellness across strategy, innovation, product, packaging and design. Cindy has hands on experience in inclusive practice building, strategic frameworks and capabilities, brand strategy, innovation and design applications for integrated marketing and brand building.

Her most recent leadership roles at WundermanThompson (now VML) included VP, Brand Strategy 2019-2023 and Strategy & Innovation Leader for Global Inclusive Design Practice 2021-2023. There she worked closely with Global Inclusive Design Practice founder and successor to build and evolve from 1.0 to 2.0 by plotting the growth of the practice, defining inclusive strategy and experiences, and leading inclusive thinking for existing and prospective clients.

Cindy was also a contributor to Health Equity Practice at WundermanThompson Health as Day 1 team with practice strategy and formation to Black Maternal health & safety 2020-2023 and Global DEI council member and strategy framework and formation lead 2020-2023. In 2022, she served as an AAPI leader, panelist and voice for WPP AAPI x Mental Health Panelists May 2022. In 2022, she co-established African Science Academy mentoring series & partnership and served as speaker panelist.

Past brand strategy leadership roles at global brand consultancies includes Interbrand, FutureBrand and Dragon Rouge. On the operational side, Cindy led marketing for Vermont Smoke & Cure’s rebrand and relaunch.

Cindy is the Founder and Strategy Director for March Brand, LLC, a women-owned brand consultancy focused specifically on fast growing impact focused brands and organizations.

She is Part-Time Faculty at Parsons School of Design, MS in Strategic Design and Management program. She has guest lectured at Parsons, NOVA SBE and NYU Stern on topics including Positioning for Growth, Strategy & Design Research, Social Impact & Consumers. She currently serves NYC Public Schools as School Leadership Team Elected Parent Member. This is her 7th year since 2016.