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Emma - The Sleep Company

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4.3
  • #1 in Retail and consumer goods
  • 500 - 1,000 employees

Tommy Chen

The fact that we are growing constantly and on our way to achieving our target for the quarter is really encouraging for me since I never expected myself to lead the performance of an entire market.

What's your role at Emma like?

Emma is a German award-winning company that specializes in its bed in a box mattress and other products that combine technology with sleep. My role as a Business Development Manager is to grow the business in the SEA region, specifically as the owner of our Malaysia and Thailand markets. Since these are new markets that just launched this year, I am in charge of our managing the growth of our website and marketplace channels. My week would involve editing the website to reflect my planned promotion for that particular week. I would also conceptualize different ideas to strengthen the brand’s credibility by scaling our social ads and exploring other channels such as offline marketing. I also coordinate with our marketplace to ensure that our store is actively participating in various campaigns. Other than that, I also help our entire SEA team in the areas of data analysis, forecasting, newsletter management & out of home marketing activation. What is interesting is that these are the topics that I mentioned I was interested in learning about during my interview process!

What's your background?

I was born in Taiwan and moved to the Philippines as a baby since our family decided to expand our business here. I went to Xavier School for the entirety of my primary and secondary education wherein I had the opportunity to study abroad in China for a quarter. This opportunity really opened my eyes to the beauty of interacting with different cultures and traditions. It really made me want to live abroad for a certain period of time just to experience a whole different environment and meet new people. I went to Ateneo for college and truly had the best 4 years of my life. However, my college journey wasn’t all smooth sailing as I struggled during my freshman year in my original course which led me to shift to BS Management during my Sophomore year. The experience taught me that we have different paths and timings in life planned for us. I came to really love and understand the business being exposed to a lot of entrepreneurial opportunities in the course. Hence, after becoming a pandemic graduate I decided to start a small baking business with my friends since we really saw a trend in the e-commerce industry. The experience although short, allowed me to learn about managing different aspects of a business. All of this led to me joining Emma last April which was my second job. I heard about Emma through a friend who worked here and the idea of having ownership and being given so much responsibility from the start really intrigued me and I decided to give it a go and 5 months later here I am!

What's the coolest thing about your role?

The thing I love the most about my job is being given responsibilities that other companies would normally only provide for experienced workers who have been there for years. In just 5 months, I am currently handling the growth of 2 markets and seeing its progression on a week on week basis is really exciting and it inspires me to continue to experiment with different strategies to further improve on both the business and myself. I really enjoy the freedom of testing all the crazy ideas I have in my head without the need to seek constant approval. If there is a certain ad I would like to create and activate then I could just go ahead and do it.

What can you say you are proud of accomplishing at Emma?

What I am proud of accomplishing so far in Emma would be establishing a newsletter subscription journey across all our SEA markets. I really wanted to take advantage of customer loyalty and the pool we had to gain an extra channel wherein we could relay information and run exclusive promotions to earn revenue. I also recently helped launch our first out of home campaign in SEA when we activated digital ads in condominium screens in 40 locations across Singapore. Although it was early days, I really learned a lot about which attribution models we should be looking into to run a successful campaign. Lastly, I am really proud of the continuous growth we are having in our Malaysian market since I took over as revenue owner this August. Previously, this market was one of our headaches as it constantly lacked behind our other markets. Hence, the fact that we are growing constantly and on our way to achieving our target for the quarter is really encouraging for me since I never expected myself to lead the performance of an entire market.

What’s the toughest part of your role?

The toughest part about my job is our capacity. Since Emma is a relatively young company, we only have 6 members in our SEA team that is in charge of 6 different markets. From day 1, you really need to be prepared to take ownership and responsibility for your tasks since there is no room for finger-pointing or relying on others. Expect to do a lot of things that you would not have intended to do so, but this serves as a great opportunity to really absorb and learn different skills which makes you a more complete person. So far, I haven’t had to work overtime or work during the weekends, I naturally have a very fast-paced workstyle which really helps me multitask and prioritize the areas which are most urgent.

3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...

The 3 advice I would give to my student self would be:

  1. Don’t be afraid of exposing yourself to different organizations, activities, people since college only lasts for 4 years.
  2. Find any internship opportunity you could since you really get to learn a lot of useful things that won’t be taught within the classroom.
  3. Believe in yourself more to be able to lead by example since we are capable of so many things if given the opportunity.