Ep 73: From Ai Wei Wei to Building Generation T (Tatler) | Lee Williamson (Regional Editorial Editor, Generation T, Tatler Asia Group‪)‬ So This Is My Why

Lee Williamson is the Regional Editorial Director of Generation T, Tatler Asia Group and currently oversees three of Tatler’s flagship brands: Gen.T, Front & Female and Asia’s Most Influential. He was previously the Editor at Time Out Beijing and Editor-in-Chief at That’s China and was selected as a WAN-IFRA Young Media Leaders Fellow 2020.

If you’ve ever wanted to know what it’s like to work as a foreign journalist in China, dealing with state censorship, producing “controversial” editorials and also producing media products like the Generation T list, then this is the episode for you!



Highlights:

6:48 Moving to China
8:58 Working as a journalist at That’s China
11:33 “You’ll Never Be Chinese”
15:19 Censorship in China
17:26 Relaunching
18:21 Being Editor at Time Out Beijing
21:12 Publishing Ai Wei Wei’s first interview following his detainment in China
23:14 Working at Tatler
25:05 Why Gen.T?
26:21 Defining success, influence and power
27:17 What’s the point of another “list”?
29:42 Building the Gen.T community
34:48 Gaining trust
35:52 Getting people to share what they really want even after they say “I don’t really need anything”
39:05 Seeing Gen.T’s brand value increase
43:11 Deciding who gets on Gen.T
45:08 Tribes
47:21 Safeguards
48:57 Trends among Gen.T honourees
50:22 What’s in it for Gen.T?
51:09 The Crazy Smart Asia podcast
56:21 Planning for the future of Gen.T


📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/73


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