Strategic communications & digital marketing
Development programmes & commercial brands · Southeast Asia
The storyteller
behind the strategy
I'm Thiha Htun — I lead strategic communications and digital marketing across Southeast Asia. Fourteen years of working life, ten of them in marketing and communications — across EU, FCDO and USAID-funded programmes and commercial brands, pairing creative direction with the measurement to prove it worked. Currently Regional Communications Manager at Stop Online Harm.
Based in Chiang Mai, working across Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Bangladesh.
Open to full-time roles — remote or relocation — and to consulting and freelance engagements. Available within one month, sooner if the timing suits.
Organisations I've worked with
In-house, through agencies, and as a freelance consultant across Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.
From Heineken and Coca-Cola to the EU, UNICEF and Save the Children — commercial rigour applied to work that matters.
Development, humanitarian & institutions
Commercial brands
Media & platforms
Four programmes, four problems
Reaching people who need help, reaching five countries with almost no budget, reaching farmers who don’t read — and launching a platform for an agency’s biggest commercial account.
Reaching people under attack online, in six languages
Regional communications across five country markets — strategy, publishing, paid social and the reporting underneath it.
A £4M EU justice programme, communicated nationwide
Nationwide visibility for an EU-funded access-to-justice programme delivered through fifteen partners.
Digital advisory for farmers on low-bandwidth phones
Targeted advertising and a structured chat flow to reach smallholder farmers who mostly don’t read.
Launching a year-long platform for Heineken
Account leadership on the launch of the agency's largest account by revenue, through an Account Director and Senior Account Manager.
All case studies — including the art campaign, the app and the web builds →
Strategy, and the hands to deliver it
Six things I'm hired for, full-time or on a project — and I do all six myself, which is why small teams and tight budgets suit me.
Communications strategy
Positioning, messaging and editorial direction for programmes and brands — plus the visibility plans donors ask for.
Social media & content
Multi-market publishing in six languages, editorial calendars, and community management across Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Paid media
Meta and Google campaigns built for cost-efficiency — 814,000 people reached on $522 of quarterly spend on my current programme.
Measurement & reporting
Looker Studio dashboards, campaign reporting, and the analysis that decides what gets published next.
Copywriting & editorial
A decade of published journalism, campaign copy and long-form storytelling in Burmese and English.
Web, app & production
Website builds, app content and audience growth, TVC and video production with agencies and freelancers.
Ways to work with me on a project
Three engagements I take on outside full-time work — scoped so a small team knows what it is buying, and so the work keeps running after I hand it over.
Communications strategy sprint
Audience definition, message platform, channel plan and a measurement framework — delivered as a document your team can act on, not a deck that sits in a drive.
Paid media setup & measurement
Campaign build and targeting on Meta and Google, tuned to cost per person reached rather than vanity engagement, plus a Looker Studio dashboard your team can read without me.
Content system build
Editorial calendar, templates, approval workflow and multilingual publishing process — set up and handed over so an in-house team can keep it running.
Scope and fee agreed before anything starts. Remote across Southeast Asia; happy to travel for fieldwork.
I started as a writer, and I never stopped being one.
Fourteen years of working life, ten of them in marketing and communications. I've filed six articles a day in a newsroom, held Heineken as an agency account manager, run visibility for a £4M EU justice programme, and now lead communications for a survivor-centred organisation across five countries.
What connects it: I write the thing, I publish the thing, and I measure whether it worked. That combination is unusual, and it's why I'm useful to teams too small to hire three people.
Chiang Mai, Thailand · working across Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Bangladesh
In their words
I work with Leo on several projects where my team and I need his support in communications planning and strategy to increase our page’s followers and to think through how our objectives could inform or shape our communications strategy, and vice versa. Leo never fails to share very insightful ideas on comms and audience behavior analysis, and he has always done his best to promptly support our regional team as a whole. I’m so grateful he is with us. His background, experience, and skills are highly versatile for any team he works with.
I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with Thiha Htun as Regional Business Director at Mekongverse. He has played an important role in expanding our business across Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos by combining strong regional market knowledge with excellent relationship-building skills. Ko Thiha understands how to turn opportunities into meaningful partnerships and sustainable business growth. He communicates effectively with clients, agencies, and internal teams while balancing commercial goals with practical execution. His leadership, reliability, and cross-market perspective make him a valuable asset to any organization seeking to grow across Southeast Asia.
I had the chance to work with Thiha Htun (Leo) on several MyJustice Myanmar projects, and he was great to work with. He’s proactive, supportive, and always willing to go the extra mile to keep things moving. Leo has a good understanding of digital marketing and brings a lot of ownership to whatever he’s working on. He’s reliable, hardworking, and someone you can always count on to get things done.
Leo, the one I’ve always known as Thiha, has consistently taken on multiple roles with dedication and heart, always striving and thriving for the good of the people he cares about. Whether in Mar/Comm or in the non-profit sector, he has impressed me time and again. His work has been outstanding — exceeding expectations, delivering with accuracy, and finishing every task with a level of perfection that speaks to his commitment and talent.
He is good at writing articles, engaging with social media followers, work ethic, professionalism. His efforts and ideas support our company’s value and targets. Thiha not only has excellent writing skills, but he is also strong on general knowledge. I highly recommend him for a suitable position at your company.
Creative on writing. Good in English, all four skills. A cool communicator with a lot of knowledge.
Thiha was a pleasure to work with personally and professionally. He was easy going and built strong relationships with his colleagues, was well liked by all, and a good presence in the office. As a content writer he produced high quality work reliably and required minimal supervision.
Thiha Htun had proved to adapt quickly to work environments and stand out among his colleagues, both in the office and on the field. Thiha Htun can work in a dynamic environment, committed to organizational development and standard operational procedures. I have known him to always meet targets and a fan of protocol in an emerging environment.
Let's build something
worth talking about.
I’m looking for a full-time communications or digital marketing role — remote, in Chiang Mai, or somewhere new — with an organisation doing work worth communicating. I also take on consulting and freelance engagements: campaign strategy, measurement set-up, or a launch that needs someone who can write it and report on it. Either way, let’s talk.