Jin Han Lim (GM of Taiwan), “Taking on new challenges is what fuels me”

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Sep 28, 2020

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Jin Han oversees sales and operations at Dable Taiwan. He assists the team in developing long-lasting partnerships with media, agencies and advertisers. He has a wide range of experience from different fields, which include broadcast media, e-commerce, and ad tech. Prior to joining Dable, Jin Han honed his skills in the digital advertising industry at Google Japan and also managed online sales and marketing strategy at a Japanese trading firm. He has a Diploma in Internet Computing and a BA from the National University of Singapore.

Please tell us about yourself

I see myself as a cheerful and optimistic person. I grew up in a relatively strict family and wasn’t allowed to stay out late when I was younger, nevertheless I was a mischievous student and played pranks often so I had my share of punishments and detention at school. On the other hand, I excelled at math and never scored anything below a distinction. I was also good at sports and played for my school in basketball and won trophies at our school’s cross country and swimming events.

Taking on new challenges is what fuels me but I can be very impatient. I dislike being the proverbial sheep in a herd, which was what brought me out of my comfort zone and ventured into a foreign land the past 10 years away from my hometown Singapore. Freedom and interest place more weight in my decisions than money, hence, if there’s something I really want to do, I don’t mind if I get paid less. But I hope Dable doesn’t cut my salary because of this statement.

In the past, I’ve had a wide range of experience spanning across different fields, which include broadcast media, e-commerce, and ad tech, having worked on projects from major industry players such as Sony Pictures, NBC Universal, IBM, Honda, and Japan Airlines. I experienced the digital advertising industry at Google Japan and later went on to be in charge of online sales and marketing strategy at a Japanese trading firm for over 3 years.

Now I take care of overall sales and operations at Dable Taiwan with the assistance of my team and facilitate the team in developing long-lasting partnerships with media, agencies and advertisers alike.

What brings you to Dable?

A former colleague joined Dable in Korea and asked if I would be interested to be a part of the company’s expansion plans. He told me about Dable’s recommendation solution and coincidentally, around the same period, our team at Google Japan was promoting a similar product to publishers.

Dable appealed to me because of the difference in their commitment to its powerful personalization capabilities, which I found intriguing.

At that time, I had left Google and was working on ongoing projects as a freelancer. So I couldn’t commit full hours but Dable was very flexible in discussing work arrangements. With such a great company, great product, in an industry of great interest to me, I saw no reason to choose otherwise.

I began as a global business manager for media partnerships at Dable Japan. It was a new market and I was there to expand the market position. I cooperated with publishers and advertisers as well as with the product development and engineering team to increase publisher traffic and revenue. Through providing optimization strategies on Dable’s personalized recommendation solution and targeted serving of native ads to our clients, we improved advertiser campaign performance. However, after working on the market for 2 years, the Japanese market proved to be too competitive even within itself. So we pivoted and changed our strategy by partnering with Japan’s biggest players, providing Dable’s solution to the market through a technological partnership instead, to help us scale better. With a strong partner in Japan, I could focus on a different market and joined Dable Taiwan.

What is Dable’s strength in the Taiwan market?

Taiwan’s digital advertising space has been growing in double digits for the past 10 years with a 17.6% growth in 2019 alone. Among all ad types, video ads displayed the strongest growth at +37.2% and further growth can be expected with the advent of the 5G network. Out of all advertising spend in 2019, 60.2% was spent on digital advertising, growing from 54.6% just a year earlier. With the normalization of remote work and the growing trend toward online purchasing, the share of digital advertising spend is expected to increase further as more users grow accustomed to online shopping.

Such a market is where Dable’s personalization and recommendation solution kicks in. It is easy for companies to grow revenue and profit margin by reducing the quality of service, but Dable’s strength is in the company’s refusal to budge on quality and it is willing to invest on computing power to provide users with the best personalized experience.

Compared to when digital advertising first started, netizens today have grown more astute and they now have greater power in making the web a better place, shifting the trend away from ad placements that disrupt their browsing experience. In this light, native advertising has a lot of room to grow as we move toward a better and cleaner web.

Dable is devoted to making the web a better place and that is what matters.

There’s a lot of noise on the web now with quality content being overshadowed by clickbaits, and helping users sieve out quality content of their interests and presenting it to them is where Dable shines. We have a young team enthusiastic and motivated to try new things in order to continue bringing new value to our partners.

Dable is ready to capture this growth and trend in Taiwan with several plans underway to provide partners and clients with even more powerful solutions that help them reach their monetization and marketing goals.

How is it like working at a startup?

Working in a startup has been quite an experience for me and I enjoy it a lot as small achievements can bring huge impacts to the company. Unlike working at massive conglomerates where you’re a mere cog in a machine, everyone in our team plays a crucial role in helping the company grow. The disadvantages of being in a startup would be the relatively smaller resources available but that also pushes us to prioritize what matters most.

Having known what I would experience at Dable, if I were given the chance to relive my life, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

What are your goals for Dable and for yourself?

My goal for Dable is to provide my teammates with the most conducive environment and conditions to help them perform their best. The team and I hold regular meetings to discuss how to overcome the difficulties they face, or new ideas and strategies we can carry out to grow the company in Taiwan and globally.

I also hope that Dable is the first thing that comes to mind when people think of content recommendation and native advertising someday.

I firmly believe that luck happens when you set out to help solve people’s problems, and the harder you work, the luckier you get. Dable is committed to solving one of the web’s greatest challenges in sieving out quality content among the massive amount of those otherwise, and our team will stick through with this commitment until “luck” comes our way.

As of my personal goal, I would like to return to education someday and teach students in need. When I was in college, I came to know of some younger students from middle-low income families who needed home tuition badly as they were failing their English classes. In Singapore, failing English means you’ll have to repeat the entire year for all subjects, so it was important to get a passing grade. But no one was willing to teach them because their families couldn’t afford to pay the high costs to hire home tutors. That was when I realized that there are probably many more families like them who are not well to do but not poor enough to receive government assistance. I volunteered to teach them for a couple of years, and later self published a book to teach writing and ran a social enterprise to help students in need. I find it unfair for children to have fewer opportunities because of a lack of money. I don’t think access to education should be limited by one’s financial well-being.

Lastly, do you have a favorite quote to share?

A decision is neither good nor bad at the time it is made. It’s what you make of it.

I’ve met a number of people who worry about making wrong career decisions or whether moving to another country is a mistake. But I always believe that the decision to change a job or move to another country is neither good nor bad. What determines the outcome is what you do about it after that.