Meet the 2024 Fellows – Belinda Hu
Meet the 2024 Fellows – Belinda Hu
Belinda Hu‘s love of advertising began at age 11 with some adjectives and Matthew McConaughey in the timeless classic, How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days. Despite feeling a spark from seeing such poignant lines like “Frost Yourself”, she brushed this calling aside for several years, until a branding internship in Shanghai reignited that spark. But it took a couple more years and a few ‘agency-like’ classes in grad school before finally diving into a career in advertising. “I need to test things three times to know they’re true,” she jokes. Today, as a seasoned Associate Connections Strategy Director at Pereira O’Dell – whose work has spanned the gamut of GoPro, Levi’s, IHOP, Adobe, and more – she knows she made the right choice.
Belinda’s values of growth, collaboration, and transparency have shaped her career. Known as a “connector,” she thrives on building bridges across disciplines and backgrounds. Her proudest works reflect her love of collaboration, notably with the recent campaign launch for IHOP’s new value menu, House Faves, which featured a rerecorded track from Loverboy. “This was a huge, multi-agency effort,” she shares, one that showcased her talent for uniting diverse teams around a common vision and reaffirmed her collaborative strengths and leadership.
Belinda’s ambition is to shift perceptions of what effective leadership looks like – particularly for women of color who, like herself, are more likely to be faced with stereotypes and biases. She aims to challenge the ‘typical’ leadership status quo, drawing from her experiences of being a third-culture kid of eastern descent and San Francisco upbringing to sharpen her style. Her long-term goals are simple yet powerful: to “empower, enlighten, and enrich” her life and those around her, “with the hope that I’m making the path easier and more open for future generations.” This has already manifested itself in the form of creating her agency’s first mentorship program.
Outside of work, gaming has remained Belinda’s longstanding pastime, combining her love of puzzles and art into an immersive, storytelling medium. She’s also in her “saying yes” era, having recently moved to New York. As she navigates life on the east coast now, she abides by her guiding principles: “Get uncomfortable; ask for and offer grace; and make room.”
The 2024-2025 Fellowship bios were written by University of Florida’s Lorena Bacallao ’26, Paulina Navarro ’26, Zoe Punjwani ’26, and Sydney G. Pomeranz ’25.