SEA comms lead Belle Baldoza closes chapter with Airbnb

Belle Baldoza, Airbnb's head of communications for Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, has left her role after more than a year and relocated to Toronto, Canada. In a LinkedIn post, Baldoza (pictured) said she is thankful to the team for the opportunity to have worked on exciting campaigns despite the challenging circumstances.

"Who’s crazy enough to quit their job and move halfway across the world amid a global pandemic? Me. I've recently embraced my next 'Why Not' moment as I left Singapore to relocate with my family to Toronto, Canada," she said in the post.

Baldoza also reflected on her journey in Singapore and how much she yearned to have the opportunity to prove herself. According to her LinkedIn, she began working in Singapore in 2011 at Mindshare before heading over to Ogilvy. Thereafter, she began her journey with five popular companies in the tech industry - Spotify, Netflix, Uber, ByteDance and finally Airbnb.

"I still can't believe how someone like me who didn't have a tech PR background had managed to carve out this journey. This would not have been possible without the support of people who bet on me and have extended to me their mentorship, guidance and friendship," she added in the LinkedIn post. Baldoza also recently launched a podcast series named "Why not the podcast?".

During her time at Airbnb, Baldoza led the strategic development and execution of communications and media relations initiatives as well as infrastructure for Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, working with over 20 PR agency partners. She also developed and introduced a strategic framework for influencer and content creator engagement, with an objective of extending amplification efforts across social media channels.

At ByteDance, she was the director of global communications and was responsible for the strategic development and execution of communications and media relations initiatives. The regions she covered were Southeast Asia and India and Baldoza worked with over 50 PR agency partners as well as managed 13 country communications leads and specialists across the region. She was with the company for more than a year.

Prior to that, she was with Uber as head of consumer communications, Asia Pacific for a year before it merged with Grab in 2018. During her time there, she led consumer and brand communications strategy and campaigns across Asia-Pacific, working with communications leads across 15 markets, according to her LinkedIn. Baldoza also collaborated with global and regional teams to build consumer communications strategies and campaigns that enhance the reputation of Uber and Uber Eats.

Meanwhile at Netflix and Spotify, Baldoza helmed the roles of consumer PR lead for Southeast Asia and head of PR and communications, Asia, respectively. She spent close to two years at Netflix and about three years at Spotify.

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