In this episode of The Bad Podcast, An Advertising Podcast, we get inside the mind of Tom Suharto, Global Strategy Lead at Forsman & Bodenfors. From cutting his teeth in research to leading strategy on a global scale, Tom's career path is anything but linear—unless you count the 400-page data reports he once sifted through. We talk cultural codes, creative instincts, and why trusting your gut is the real killer app.

Our Favorite Stories

• Tom's journey from working in research to leading global strategy at Forsman & Bodenfors.
• Immersing himself in Mongolian drinking culture for a vodka brand campaign.
• The "Find Your Greatness" campaign for Nike during the Olympics and how it resonated differently in China.

Big Moments from Doing the Work

• Navigating cultural dynamics while working across Shanghai, Portland, and New York.
• Transitioning from data-driven research to trusting creative instincts in strategy.
• Leading Forsman's strategy community and curating global project teams.

Career Advice We'll Live With

• The value of getting out of your comfort zone and working abroad to gain cultural insight.
• Trusting your gut and learning to write creatively, not just accurately.
• Using AI as a tool for idea generation, but layering human instincts and creativity on top.

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Our Favorite Stories

• Erin’s unconventional path to advertising—starting with an English and film degree, moving to Chicago, and launching a scrappy startup before breaking into UX.
• The “hot cake” corporate training at McDonald’s, where new hires spend a full day working in a restaurant, and how it shaped her design perspective.
• How McDonald’s global headquarters offers a rotating international menu, giving employees and customers a taste of different cultures.

Big Moments from Doing the Work

• Moving from startups and agencies to massive brands like Walmart and McDonald’s, learning to design for “everyone.”
• The balance between clarity and cleverness in UX—how focusing on human behavior and needs leads to better design.
• The reality of global UX at McDonald’s—creating a digital standard that works across diverse cultures while allowing for local customization.
• The importance of field research and real-world observation in UX, from drive-thru experiences to kiosk interactions.

Career Advice We'll Live With

• Selling your ideas is just as important as having great ones—whether it’s convincing a team or educating leadership on UX value.
• Designing for inclusivity starts at the beginning, not as a late-stage checklist.
• Patience is key in big organizations—meaningful change happens over years, not weeks.
• A great UX designer is also a great communicator—storytelling and persuasion matter just as much as technical skills.
• The best design teams take risks on unconventional hires, keeping the door open for fresh perspectives.

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Our Favorite Stories:

• Hotboxing the next blockbuster idea: starting a career at the tail end of the "Mad Men" era in digital healthcare advertising. Working with Rich Norman, Todd learned how Allegra got its name. "An articulation, not of the problem statement, but of the relief".
• "Many times in my career, humans were reduced to numbers or broad statistics... not individualized and not humanized, and while that was the political ethos and mandate, that did not feel right to me."
• If you are an 'Intrapraneur', you will be met with resistance. If you aren't... it may mean you were there at the right place / right time, or you aren't doing something right... and the latter is more pervasive.
• Half the job description was written: "When you join, you'll write the other half" - I learned the hard way that they didn't know what success meant. Funding innovation efforts upfront because it gives you that "seed" money, to create an internal venture. You don't want to have to go back and beg for each dollar. You want to phase it out in tranches and show something in return for that."
• Positive spike in American outlook of Pharmaceuticals since the outbreak of COVID-19 according to The Harris Poll, 2020.

Big Moments from Doing the Work:

• Learning from trial and error: "I am a student of failure... in innovation you have to embrace it. It's only failure if you don't learn from it."
• Organizational shift from being Top-down to Bottom-up: borrowing good ideas from regional teams and scaling them at the enterprise level – the idea of an internal organ transfer vs an external transplant: the latter is prone to rejection.
• On having a Global leadership role: "when someone came from corporate... people would usually show me something that was a source of cultural pride."
  • Whisked from airport to see protected artifacts in Prague
  • A night at the Museum of the Resistance in Warsaw
  • Ethnographic research: following the day in a life of key doctors in office and at home (US, Germany, France, & Italy)
  • Meeting a doctor at his home in Madrid. No furniture, only artwork. "I'm a doctor. I'm supposed to have artwork." Who we are supposed to be vs who he is.
  • The power of wearing the White Coat: "it's like a cape and he projects this appearance because he believes it." - he lost a battle to the wind, by way of a plane crash, and since then he committed to his career where his patients can harness the wind itself.

Career Advice We'll Live With:

• Identify functional, emotional, and social needs (of the customer) as the first step in every process.
• Ishikawa (fishbone) diagram - documenting the multiple causes (i.e., stakeholders, methodologies, or technologies) for a singular event (i.e., bugs, consumer experiences, product defects)
• Jobs to be Done model by Clayton Christensen - Todd held his tongue for our sake, but we know he really (REALLY) wanted to share the "Hire a Milkshake" anecdote :)

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