Garena, 2019 to 2023

Three and a half years running growth for FIFA Online 4 (FO4), September 2019 to February 2023. Senior Product Growth. I led a 15-person cross-functional pod through orchestration, direction, and reporting across product, marketing, and BD, covering 5 SEA countries. It was not a formal people-manager title.

This was the clean stint. Mature org, a scoped role, mentorship that compounded. Most of what I know about how a growth function actually holds together, I learned here.

The numbers

• 2M+ social followers across 5 SEA countries, 10–15% MoM engagement growth
• +250K active users in 14 days on the Tet 2023 sprint
• +30% click-through, +18% re-activation across 100+ creative variants a month
• 5 national esports tournaments, including SEA Games 31
• Paid UA at $50–$200/asset, 5–7 assets a day, peaking at $3K–$4K/day on ICON and seasonal launches

The campaigns I owned

The seasonal calendar and the ICON pipeline were both mine. The playbook rarely changed: don’t oversell, hand the community something worth talking about, let them carry it.

Tet La Phai Vui 2021 (Feb 2021)

Tet during the pandemic. The brief was to bring people together while everyone was stuck at home. I pulled in three of Vietnam’s most-loved creators, Gonzo (the rapper “Thay Do”), Do Mixi, and Vodka Quang, under one line, “Tet La Phai Vui” (Tet Must Be Fun).

Three activities ran February 5–18, from 24 Tet to Mung 7.

• Thay Do Lucky Letters. Write wishes, collect letters, redeem for 21TOTY jerseys and ICON cards.
• Li Xi Red Envelopes. Up to 10,000 FC daily from Mung 1–3.
• Firecracker Surprises. Countdown events unlocking special rewards.

The portal at tet.fo4.garena.vn ran on PC and Mobile, so everyone could play from home. The MV carried social before I spent a dollar on paid.

David Beckham ICON (Dec 2020)

The biggest signing I worked on at FO4. Not a seasonal event, not a meta update. A global icon entering the game for the first time. I built the rollout around mystery: teasers, no confirmation, let people connect the dots. By reveal day the hype had already peaked on its own. If you take FO4 seriously, Beckham is the card.

Ruud Gullit ICON (Oct 2021)

Different play. Gullit was never the flashy name for casual fans, but anyone who knew football knew the ultimate all-rounder, complete across every position. So I built on scarcity: limited availability, content pinned to his in-game stats. For collectors, he was the card you either had or you didn’t.

Nostalgia & Unsung Players (Nov 2021)

Torres vs Vidic. Striker vs center-back. Two players who defined an era by being rivals and made each other better for it. I built the campaign on the matchup, not the lone legend, and let players run the rivalry back in-game. If you remember Torres burning past Vidic, or Vidic shutting him down, this one was for you.

Ronaldo Nazario ICON (Dec 2021)

R9 needed no hard sell. Anyone who grew up on football knew what Ronaldo de Lima meant, so I played reverence over hype and stayed out of the record’s way. Exclusive ICON content and in-game items, all built around the legacy. One of the greatest goalscorers who ever lived, now in your squad.

Why it worked

A mature org gives you scaffolding you don’t notice until it’s gone. Every campaign here landed because the ground under it was solid: a 15-person pod that knew how to ship, a PR function I could lean on, BD relationships in 5 countries, an esports calendar that set the marketing’s rhythm. The campaigns are the visible part. None of them would have worked without the system underneath.