Bonnie Wan stands as a pivotal partner and the Head of Brand Strategy at Goodby Silverstein & Partners (GS&P), a renowned advertising agency. Her innovative approach is not only reshaping brand strategy within the agency but also influencing how individuals perceive and utilize strategy in their daily lives.
Since joining Goodby Silverstein & Partners in 1998, Bonnie Wan has been instrumental in broadening the agency’s strategic services. She has pioneered new revenue streams, notably through the creation of Brand Camp. This intensive, six-week strategy sprint is designed to foster radical collaboration, enabling client leadership teams to develop and align around distinctive and actionable brand strategies. Brand Camp provides a crucial environment for clients to engage in candid discussions and make essential decisions that pave the way for impactful and differentiated strategies.
Initially conceived for start-ups in 2016, Brand Camp has become a significant growth engine for Goodby Silverstein & Partners. This model has expanded GS&P’s reach, attracting businesses of varying sizes and stages, facilitating engagements across diverse client portfolios, and offering companies a novel avenue to leverage GS&P’s deep strategic expertise.
Bonnie Wan’s strategic leadership has garnered industry-wide recognition. Ad Age and Campaign acknowledged her as a finalist for Chief Strategist of the Year in both 2019 and 2020, underscoring her profound impact on the field. Her guidance has been central to some of Goodby Silverstein & Partners’ most celebrated campaigns. Recent notable projects include Comcast/Xfinity’s heartwarming holiday campaigns featuring Steve Carell, HP’s inspiring “Windows of Hope” campaign, and the agency’s impactful social justice initiatives. These include the “Not a Gun” campaign and the Respond2Racism Twitter activation, both powerfully addressing police brutality, racial injustice, and violence against Asians.
Beyond her influential role at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Bonnie Wan extends her strategic acumen to empower individuals. As the creator of “The Life Brief,” she equips people with the tools to live with enhanced clarity, creativity, and courage. “The Life Brief” methodology teaches individuals how to apply strategic briefing techniques to their personal lives, rooted in her philosophy that “you cannot have it all, but you can have all that matters.”
“The Life Brief” has evolved from an internal agency presentation into a comprehensive workbook, interactive workshops, and recurring speaking engagements at prestigious platforms such as Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, Jane Goodall’s Activating Hope Summit, the 3% Conference, SXSW, Bain & Company, and Change.org. Further amplifying its reach, Simon & Schuster has signed a deal to publish “The Life Brief” as a book, promising to bring her transformative strategies to a wider audience.
Residing in San Anselmo, California, with her husband and four children, Bonnie Wan exemplifies a leader who seamlessly integrates professional excellence at Goodby Silverstein & Partners with a commitment to broader societal impact, both in the realm of brand strategy and personal empowerment.
