Munas van Boonstra on Driving Female Leadership & AI Innovation in Southeast Asia

Munas van Boonstra, Managing Director of Monks Southeast Asia, discusses her main priorities and key takeaways from Cannes. She emphasizes the urgent need for increased female leadership from Southeast Asia, highlighting the region’s current under representation.

Van Boonstra sees huge opportunities in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia and Vietnam which are fast becoming global markets. She notes brands are shifting focus to APAC, especially Southeast Asia because of the large populations.

A big part of Monks’ strategy is around their proprietary tool, Monk’s Flow, which enables hyper-personalized global assets for fragmented Southeast Asian markets. Van Boonstra states that this “transcreation” tool, which goes beyond simple translation to include local nuances for various demographics and languages, is made more efficient by AI. This allows Monks to increase their output in a shorter time frame.

Her goal for the Monks SEA team this year is to do more AI projects from Southeast Asia and to provide regional use cases that are underrepresented globally.

Van Boonstra is keen on ensuring Monks remains at the forefront of rapid change, particularly concerning AI. She emphasizes the ongoing evolution of AI, noting its continuous improvement and the increasing upskilling of both clients and individuals.