Xicheng Gao

My interest in marketing started with Undertale. I was in middle school, playing it for the first time, and I couldn't understand why I'd never heard of it before. A game this fantastic, but why hadn't it reached me sooner? That question has shaped a lot of what came after.

It kept showing up in different forms. Why did every LEGO product line ship with a fully built-out story driving the next release? Why did Nestea, which I genuinely preferred, get crushed in China? I didn't have the vocabulary for it yet, but I was already thinking about marketing.

Management at Manchester naturally led to marketing courses, then marketing internships, then to an MSc in Strategic Marketing at Imperial College London. At Zulong Entertainment I worked on Dragon Raja's overseas community and crossed the line from observing marketing to making it. When my full-time predecessor left a week into my role and the whole community workstream became mine, I learned faster than I thought possible.

I'm now broadening from games into wider markets. DTC, lifestyle, any context where the same questions apply. By temperament I'm a craftsman: I learn by making things and treat every new tool, most recently AI — as a way to extend what I can build.