Emma is a serial entrepreneur and connector. She is the founder and CEO of design business MYWW™, and the UK’s only awards for in-house creative teams, the Inside Out Awards. Also a presenter on talkRADIO, winner of the Kantar Inspiration Award and the Future 100 Award, Emma was shortlisted for The Drum’s Creative Woman of the Year 2016 and voted a Creative Pool Top 100 Influencer 2017. With such a CV we really appreciated the time Emma gave to present her approach to redesigning business as usual.
Emma opened up about her journey to becoming an Agency Founder and Business owner of MYWW. What resonated with us and the audience though was her transparency about how she operates a remote first Agency.
MYWW is a remote first Agency with NO office. At first Emma described the fear of what reaction this would receive with potential new clients. Breaking down this idea that there is a direct link with an office and the quality of your work. Of course this is absurd, and Emma has consistently stayed true to her belief that remote working can in fact deliver on agility, gain productivity and promotes trust.
Her core team meet once a week, this is not to be moved from the calendar or trumped by other meetings. Zoom, Whatsapp and scheduled weekly catch ups are also timetabled to ensure the team have opportunities to communicate.
Emma also presented her ideas on providing flexible working. Focusing on output not hours has ensured her team can work when they are at their best, when it suits their family commitments and allows time for creativity. The idea is built on trust and has proved hugely successful.
The culture of the Agency is built on the principle of happy team equals happy client. Her promotion of personal wellbeing is paramount in her approach, ensuring her core team and freelance staff are at the heart of everything they do.
It was so valuable to hear Emma’s insight into how she is challenging and inspiring business to think differently about how they operate. Over the past few years Emma will admit she has started a few ‘fires’ and now she has plenty of stories and learnings to share… but something tells us she’s not quite done yet!