Life rarely progresses the way we intended. Sometimes, we need to adjust to unexpected circumstances and always be ready for change. Once we master the ability to adapt to unforeseen events and to constantly absorb new knowledge, it usually allows our lives to blossom in beautiful ways.
When Jack Leslie was small, he was adamant that he wanted to be a doctor. At least, that was the plan until he had a life-changing experience when he attended a medical fair in Montreal.
"They had an exhibition about heart surgery and showed a surgical video. I watched it for two minutes and then I had to run out," the chairman of the international communications agency Weber Shandwick recalls.
And that was the end of his dream of becoming a doctor, but as the saying goes: as one door closes, another will open. It was the beginning of new aspirations in life for the young native of Milwaukee.
At the age of 15, he received a scholarship from the English-Speaking Union (ESU) of Oxford University -- an international educational charity founded by the journalist Sir Evelyn Wrench in 1918. ESU brings together people of different cultures and empowers them to build confidence in their communication skills.
"This opened my eyes to wanting to work internationally," he tells Asia Focus. "I spent a summer there, learning public speaking. I had never really travelled much before and neither had my family. For me, it opened a whole new world, in which I felt that foreign service seemed to be a good choice."
After he graduated from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Washington DC, he went to work for Senator Ted Kennedy as a legislative assistant, staying on for eight years.
"Getting involved in politics was also total chance," says Mr Leslie, now 64. "One spring day in my senior year in college, I got a job interview and offer. It's difficult to plan everything in life."
It was not easy being a Democrat in the United States in those days, given that the two previous presidents -- Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford -- were both Republicans. But the work gave him the opportunity to get a head-start on his career. And the Democrats returned to the White House in 1977 after Jimmy Carter won the 1976 presidential election.
"At the age of 21, freshly graduated from college, I had to learn very quickly to handle different tasks at once as the office was understaffed," he says.
In 1980, Senator Kennedy decided to run for president and Mr Leslie was assigned to become the campaign's northeast regional director. However, Mr Carter prevailed in the Democratic primaries, only to lose the election to Ronald Reagan. Many people who had worked for Kennedy started looking for other opportunities. One of them was David Sawyer, who hd been a media consultant for the Kennedy campaign.
"David invited me to come work with him so we went to New York in 1983. We had a small campaign consulting and strategic communications firm, Sawyer Miller Group. It was really one of the pioneers in political media consulting during the late 1980s and early '90s," recalls Mr Leslie.
VALUE OF DIVERSITY
His new career required him to travel extensively around the world, helping him to form a comprehensive view of the world that enabled him to embrace the beauty of diversity.
"When going to different countries and regions, being wise enough to know that you don't know everything is important," he says. "In communications, there could be some similarities in strategies and media, but that's where it ends. You really have to understand that each country is different.
"It was fun and intellectually challenging."
Two years later, Mr Leslie became the president of the group and remained in the post until 1992 when the firm was sold to the advertising agency Bozell Jacobs Kenyon & Eckhardt, and later merged with Robinson Lake, a New York-based corporate communications consultancy chaired by Linda Robinson.
The firm later split and became Bozell Sawyer Miller Group, which was ultimately merged with Weber Shandwick in 2001.
Some of the significant challenges he has undertaken included serving as a communications crisis adviser to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the immediate aftermath of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and to American Airlines following the attacks of Sept 11, 2001.
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to a Catholic family, Mr Leslie was the oldest of five children. He was raised in a fairly disciplined but loving family. Both of his parents, he says, placed great emphasis on ethics and morality, as well as the value of hard work and dedication.
"They made sure that we knew right from wrong from the very start and that we took our studies seriously," he recalls.
The power of perseverance is another core belief he has held since an early age. "I think all of us can achieve things in life if we try hard."
BUSY HUMANITARIAN
Having carved out a successful career in communications and public relations, Mr Leslie has reached a point where he can delegate a lot of work to others while he looks at the big picture: "I'm fortunate that now in WS I don't have to run day-to-day events."
He's also in a position to devote more time to other pursuits that reflect his abiding interest in social development in the wider world. "Weber Shandwick is my day job and humanitarian work is my night job," he says, jokingly.
Those pursuits have included serving as the US chairman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) from 2003-06, and participating in UN missions to Afghanistan, Kosovo and Tanzania. President George W Bush appointed him to the board of the US African Development Foundation in 2003, and in 2009 President Barack Obama appointed him chairman.
In 2011, he became a member of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid (ACVFA). The programme's mission is to strengthen global development policy, promote democracy, good governance and economic growth.
A father of three, Mr Leslie sometimes takes them along when he goes on business trips overseas. "I thought it was important to take them along, not just to give them the sense of what I do for work but to expand their horizons," he explains.
NEW MEDIA LANDSCAPE
As someone who has worked in media consulting since his early days, Mr Leslie describes his experience as transformational.
"When I started in the business, we were in the broadcast era when we would develop material, write a press release, and we would hope that reporters will write a story in a certain point of view," he says. "It was more of a one-way communication and was relatively easy to keep track.
"What happened was that digital technology came 15 or some years ago and it totally changed that dynamic. We are now in the engagement era of two-way communication -- it's all about sending messages and listening to responses and engaging in conversation. This requires very different kinds of tools and people," he says.
In the newspaper business, for instance, print readership has gone down quickly and dramatically. Those that have been able to adapt to the new digital environment -- such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal or The Guardian with thriving paid digital subscription models -- will continue to flourish, but media companies that cannot attract audiences online and keep them engaged are in real peril.
"Technologies today allow companies to talk to individuals on an individual level because we have the data, tools for us to find them and countless channels to reach them," says Mr Leslie. "That also requires a huge change in our business. We need to make sure that we understand how to do the analytics and how to take the data and use it effectively."
For a public relations firm such as Weber Shandwick, there are enormous consequences that affect the way business is done. Hiring the right people is the key, and with this change, very different types of people and talents are needed in the industry.
"Media relations are still the mainstay of what we do, but we also have to attract other kinds of talents such as creative people, videographers, people skilled in analytics, programmers, people with expertise in different businesses," he says.
To do work on strategic communications in the healthcare field, for instance, the company's clients require levels of expertise and understanding at a PhD level.
"For Weber Shandwick, we have moved from a company that was from the old broadcast era, just doing media relations, and now to this new engagement era where we have to re-skill in a broad spectrum," says Mr Leslie.
One area that has been growing significantly for the company is employee engagement and change management (EECM). Its clients are also going through major upheavals because of technological disruption, especially in the workforce, and need to craft and manage the messages they send to their staff, customers and the public.
In Mr Leslie's view, companies today should be able to identify growth and innovation opportunities and recognise shifts in culture. The workplace should be inclusive with leaders who are aligned, prepared and engaged internally within the company, as well as with the changes that are happening in the world.
Brand building is another area that has been hit hard by disruption, Mr Leslie observes.
"In the old days it was only about creating awareness. You use mass advertising to build recognition and you keep reinforcing that customer. Today, however, awareness alone is not enough. Brands need to build relationships with the customers and this is a much more challenging task to accomplish," he says.
There are, however, two sides to the coin. Technologies also allow companies to establish relationships with their customers more easily than in the old broadcast era, by tapping into a greater variety of channels.
"Brand loyalty, trust and relationships are now the critical elements in brand building and consumers are telling companies that they are expecting certain things in the relationships," he explains.
For many companies, a strategy that is value-driven and purpose-driven resonates with consumers.
The casual shoe company Toms, for instance, incorporates social contribution into its business model. Under its "one for one" campaign, one purchase of a pair of its shoes equals a pair being given to a child without shoes. Part of the profits from purchases of its fashion eyewear and frames go to programmes that save or restore eyesight of people developing countries.
"Having a purpose-driven brand strategy that is attached to the core value of the company is the key," says Mr Leslie. "It has now become a critical element to build brand loyalty, trust and establish relationships. It's no longer just the awareness game."
Another exciting area that is opening up because of technological advancement is experiential marketing, he says.
Sometimes referred as "live marketing" or "engagement marketing", this strategy focuses on helping customers to experience the benefits of a product or service, rather than merely broadcasting them to a mass audience. These branded experiences are geared toward immersing customers by engaging them in as many ways as possible.
The ultimate goal is to foster customer loyalty and improve customer lifetime value through memorable and emotional connections with the brand.
"With augmented reality, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, there are many more exciting techniques we can use to bring materials and experiences that are immersive to customers," he says.
