Cultural and corporate kingpins once had famous faces, from Warhol’s white wig, to Jobs’ black turtleneck, to J.P. Morgan’s iron grip on the underbelly of finance. But in an age where some kid’s 15-second TikTok can obliterate a billion-dollar brand strategy by teatime, the old playbook has been set ablaze. Welcome to the era where culture isn’t dictated from boardrooms, it’s shaped by us—the scrolling masses—and it’s time we owned it.
The conversation began as such conversations invariably do, with a deceptively simple question. Assembled in the editorial suite, laptops humming and coffee growing cold, a roster of contemporary titans were spread before us like tarot cards. We were confronting what appeared to be an elementary task: identify the singular figure who best embodies the convergence of commerce and culture for our inaugural Beyond the Boardroom cover.
The names possessed an almost gravitational weight. Bezos, whose algorithmic imperialism had transformed desire into data. Musk, orchestrating spectacle from rocket launches to social media provocations with the aplomb of a ringmaster. Branson, forever the grinning contrarian of entrepreneurial theatre. Each has mastered the contemporary art of translating audacity into enterprise, yet something nagged at us as we contemplated their candidacy. For all their commercial achievements, none seemed to inhabit that liminal realm where business strategy dissolves into cultural icon.
Then, a realisation arrived with uncomfortable clarity. Perhaps we were posing the wrong question entirely. The very premise that such a figure must exist, singular and definitive, belonged to a paradigm that had already expired.
From Gatekeepers to Game Players
For centuries, culture has bent itself around singular figures who’ve operated less like participants and more like architects of the zeitgeist. These heavyweights have always thrived in environments where money is power, and power is cultural influence—a trinity so tightly bound that separating it has become impossible.
Consider the Medici family in Renaissance Florence, not just patrons, but power brokers who shaped what art could exist, and what it was meant to signify. Even Michelangelo’s David, though not commissioned by them, emerged from a culture they had indelibly influenced: one where marble became manifesto and aesthetics were instruments of ideology. Fast forward to Henry Ford, who didn’t manufacture cars, he engineered the very notion of American mobility. His assembly line didn’t just change production, it changed how society conceived of work, leisure, and aspiration.
Then there was Walt Disney, who didn’t create cartoons, he constructed an entire mythology of childhood for dreamers worldwide. Or more broadly, the Hollywood studio system of the 1940s and 50s, which wasn’t just about making films, it was about generating dreams, desires, and social norms.
In essence, the moguls who’ve controlled the purse strings have always controlled the cultural narrative.
Photo by Hulton Archive via Getty Images
Photo: Hulton-Deutsch Collection via Getty Images
We’ve also lived through the age of manufactured scarcity. A time when media was gatekept behind enormous capital barriers, printing presses, radio towers, television studios, and distribution networks. Credibility flowed exclusively from these established sources. To be heard, you needed their blessing. To influence culture, you needed their infrastructure. The gatekeepers weren’t just protecting quality, they were protecting their monopoly on meaning-making.
Then came the internet, the information economy’s gentle overture to what would become a cultural symphony of chaos. By the early 1990s, the World Wide Web had crept into public consciousness, though still a curiosity more than a utility. But the real shift came with Web 2.0—the participatory web—between 2004 and 2006, when platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter began not just distributing content, but inviting the world to create it. Then in 2007, the humble iPhone turned every user into a potential broadcaster, camera, mic, and edit suite in everyone’s pocket.
Today, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, alongside the burgeoning advent of the generative AI, metaverse and Web3 age, don’t just offer new channels, they’ve rewritten the very architecture of cultural participation, shifting influence from curators and corporations to anyone who could tap record and hit upload. Suddenly, a teenager in their bedroom can command more attention than a major television network, a single tweet can topple a CEO, and a 15-second video can generate more cultural conversation than a Hollywood blockbuster.
The gatekeepers who had spent lifetimes accumulating authority today find themselves competing for attention with anyone who could hold a phone steady. The very notion of “prime time” has become obselete when every second is potentially someone’s moment.
When Everyone Becomes Someone
This transformation hasn’t just been technological, it’s existential. In Asia‑Pacific alone, the creator economy surged to $41.6 billion in 2024, with forecasts putting it at $390.7 billion by 2034, a blistering 25% CAGR. In Southeast Asia, 80% of users say they’re likely to purchase products recommended by creators, showing that culture and commerce now flow in the same direction.
“Influence today doesn’t come from hierarchy, it comes from authenticity. The creator economy has changed how people discover, connect, and decide what matters to them,” says Rana Barua, Group CEO, India, SEA and North Asia for global media and creative network, Havas.
“Culture is no longer about what’s pushed to consumers, but about the choices they make and the voices they trust. What once took years to become a trend can now happen in days, sparked by a single post that resonates,” he continues. “This means we can’t just push messages from the top down, we need to listen to the conversations creators are driving and find genuine ways to be part of them. The future of cultural relevance won’t be about ownership, it will be about participation.”
And participating they are. From a teenager in Bandung whose makeup tutorials have built a loyal following and lifted her into a new economic reality, to Ghana’s Free the Youth collective, once an underground fashion crew, now a globally recognised voice in streetwear culture with collaborations, runway nods, and social impact initiatives. These aren’t charming anomalies, they are the new infrastructure. A generation of creators who have rewritten their personal trajectories by harnessing the open web, not just to earn, but to be seen. Through video, merch, live drops, community forums, and cultural commentary, they’ve moved from the margins to the mainstream, often in markets where access was previously a privilege, not a right.
The democratisation of media hasn’t just shifted who gets to speak, it’s also transformed who gets to succeed, and increasingly, it’s those who know how to connect that are cashing in.
“We’ve seen first-hand how consumers aren’t passive agents anymore, they’re more like active co-editors,” observes Natasha Damodaran, Publisher of Vogue Singapore. “The way they engage, share, or ignore content directly shapes what resonates.
“In Asia especially, it’s not the masthead dictating taste; it’s the audience signalling in real time what belongs in the cultural conversation. It’s fundamentally changed how we approach content. We try not to just publish and push; we now have to really listen, adapt, and co-create with our readers. The power dynamic has flipped, engagement isn’t just a metric, it’s the loudest voice in the room,” she adds.
A huge factor of this change is calibration of physical borders, which have been rendered near-irrelevant. With digitisation, cultural participation is no longer constrained by language, nation, or access to institutional platforms. Influence now circulates laterally, driven by affinity and shared meaning, not proximity. The K‑pop phenomenon is the ultimate manifestation of this shift. What superficially appeared to be a manufactured export, has revealed itself as the product of unprecedented collaboration between corporate strategy and fan creativity, each feeding the other in recursive loops that defy traditional models of production.
As Paul Youngbin Kim, Ph.D., reflected in a July 2025 Psychology Today essay on his experience at a Blackpink concert, what’s most striking is not the sound or scale, but the collapse of distance. Fans from around the world, many of whom don’t speak Korean, sang every lyric in unison. He framed the experience as one of “fully belonging, without the need to hide.” This sense of distributed cultural being is precisely what traditional brands are now scrambling to emulate. From McDonald’s BTS Meals to Starbucks’ K-pop inspired drink collabs, from Saint Laurent courting Blackpink’s Rosé to LVMH backing idol-endorsed campaigns, corporate giants across categories are vying for a seat at the table. But they’re not just after eyeballs, they’re chasing credibility within ecosystems that no longer reward top-down messaging but demand authenticity. It’s not just entertainment, it’s cultural architecture. And everyone wants in.
The Great Corporate Personality Crisis
The hard truth is that proximity to culture is no longer enough. To participate meaningfully, brands have to rewire themselves, not simply to market, but to perform personhood. They need to speak in the first person, align with causes, deploy humour, vulnerability, and speed not as tactics, but as survival strategies.
John Marsden, APAC Business Development Director at Maker Lab, frames it bluntly.
“For years, brands focused on generating relevance through campaigns, spending big, shouting loud, and owning the conversation. That formula doesn’t hold anymore because consumers decide in real time what’s credible and what’s not. The result is a kind of corporate personality crisis.”
“To show up in culture now, brands can’t just market. They have to behave and align, and do it genuinely. It’s almost like becoming an entity of your own, principle-led, value-driven, and willing to be judged on authenticity, not just creativity,” he emphasises.
Some organisations are beginning to respond to this shift, not just through messaging, but through structural and strategic change. SK-II launched its #ChangeDestiny platform in 2016, evolving it beyond traditional beauty advertising into a long-term storytelling vehicle that addresses deep-rooted societal pressures around gender and ageing across Asia. Gucci, in 2021, introduced its experimental ‘Vault’ project—a digital-physical hybrid concept that mirrors Gen Z’s remix culture through curated vintage drops, emerging-designer collaborations, and gamified interactions, signalling a more decentralised and responsive luxury model.
But perhaps the most enduring examples of value-led transformation come from brands that have made cultural alignment core to their business, not just their marketing. Dove, since 2004, has consistently embedded its ‘Real Beauty’ platform into product development, educational partnerships, and internal KPIs, making inclusivity a business imperative rather than a creative angle. Ben & Jerry’s, for its part, has hardwired activism into its corporate DNA, from fair trade sourcing to bold public stances on racial justice and climate policy. In doing so, it’s turned brand equity into cultural currency by taking principled positions early, and backing them with action.
“Now, more than ever, society is being led by a deep desire for value-alignment,” says David Cash, Web3 pioneer, Founder and CEO of Catalyst Content Haus and Acting CMO of Delorean Labs. “It’s partially due to an increase in individual self-sovereignty and partially due to an inherent distrust of mainstream media developed over decades.
“In this community driven ecosystem, we have as much power over the content we consume as the creator themself. This two way conversation opposed to the audience model, is a more egalitarian media system, but comes with its own challenges. It will be fascinating to see how this evolves over the coming years and decades and technology closes the gap.”
Two-way dialogue is the crux, and most brands know it. They’re hiring cultural strategists, spinning up creator councils, and racing to co-sign the next subcultural wave before it crests. But despite slick decks and bloated budgets, many still arrive too late, speak too loudly, or miss the moment entirely. Culture doesn’t wait. It can’t be owned, only invited. And business? It’s not leading anymore, it’s chasing, usually three scrolls behind.
Who’s in Charge Here?
Back in that editorial room, staring at our list of titans, the shift is profound. We acknowledge that from individual architects to collective ecosystems, influence isn’t about who anymore, but how.
So, where does that leave us?
The truth is, what’s changing isn’t the resonance of power but the texture of it, the way it performs, circulates, and demands accountability. What’s needed today is both a celebration and interrogation of the existing model, recognising its capacity to shape culture while understanding that its monopoly on meaning is no longer absolute. We will always speak to and feature the voices who shift our thinking. But the search for a singular north star—the definitive name who bridges business and culture—is a pursuit that now feels outmoded.
There is no longer one conductor of culture. Just the orchestra. And we’re all playing, through the choices we make, the content we share, the brands we elevate, the creators we amplify, and the communities we build. Influence now lives not only in the boardroom or on the cover, but well beyond it—be it in the comment section, the group chat, or the trending tab.
We went looking for the face of business and culture—what we found was a mirror. It’s not nobody’s business anymore. It’s everybody’s, and we’re here to mind it.