Mano Spotlights - Emma
This last week, we sat down with Emma, our Strategy Manager, who joined Mano nearly two years ago. As a strategist, Emma helps translate insights into brand and campaign strategies, helping Mano clients deeply connect with their audiences.
With an international background from China and the US, and previous experience in Journalism and Marketing Communication, Emma is driven by her curiosity for the world. In her work, she always combines strategic and creative thinking.
Her love for writing also brought Emma to start The Orchestrator, Mano’s internal satirical newspaper chronicling life in the office. On the side, Emma creates content on TikTok.
What attracted you to Mano in the first place?
What attracted me to Mano is definitely its international aspect. I really wanted to leverage my background from the US and China by doing great work for our Global clients. The international nature of Mano also helps me feel more at home in Copenhagen.
What do you like most about working for Mano?
What I’m most grateful for are the opportunities I have been given to work on really strategic projects. I appreciate the trust that my colleagues have put in me to take initiative and to lead some of the work we do for our clients.
In a crowded marketing and advertising landscape, what differentiates Mano in your opinion?
In my opinion, it’s that we’re truly a consultancy-agency hybrid. We can combine the high-level strategic thinking that many consultancies bring with the more hands-on support agencies provide. We co-create solutions that work in real life, not just on a slide.
I think this co-creation aspect is particularly important. There’s no one-size-fits-all in this industry, and though there are guiding principles, there are also a lot of differences and nuances that need to be taken into account for each brand. So our work is much more effective when we work closely with clients and get our hands dirty.
So, what does Orchestration mean to you?
In its essence, Orchestration means bringing the different parts of a big complex project or organization in sync with each other.
To me, it’s very much about the people. There’s a tendency in a lot of businesses to think only of the systems and structures, but it actually comes down to the individuals. It’s all about understanding clients, understanding stakeholders, understanding consumers - really having a human-centric lens on everything. And this is particularly important to me when we consider change work.
“In its essence, Orchestration means bringing the different part of a big complex project or organization in sync with each other.”
Can you share one of your best memories from working for Mano?
I have many fond memories of working at Mano. We’ve had a lot of good parties. But my personal fondest memory is actually from launching the first issue of The Orchestrator - our internal satire magazine. That day, our Monday Morning Meeting just erupted with joy and laughter. I was happily surprised to see that my colleagues and management team absolutely loved the silly stories I wrote making fun of them. And that’s only possible because we have a very open culture where there’s friendship across all levels of the organization. And while we always take our work seriously, we don’t take ourselves too seriously.