From the Manager’s Desk: Why I Was Promoted in 2021

When I joined STANLEY Security in 2019, I didn’t quite realize how lucky I was. Yes, I was joining a large company full of great career opportunities, but I was also (unknowingly at the time) gaining an incredible manager and a lifelong mentor.

Laura Rose, who led the North America marketing team, taught me what it meant to be a leader by modeling it every day. One of the most powerful lessons I learned from Laura was how to “tell my story” – in other words, how to advocate for myself.

It was bittersweet, then, when Laura recommended me in 2021 for a promotion that meant I would be leaving her team to take on a global role within the organization. With her endorsement, the company created a new position for me: global PR & content manager. (You can read more about my first year in this position here.)

What follows is the recommendation that Laura wrote:

“Emily is an absolute marketing Rockstar! Emily is our Content Marketing Manager, but her value far exceeds the role she holds. She is the architect behind our Influencer Program, the strategist behind our Public Relations efforts, the secret weapon for high-profile RFPs and golden star of our lead generation efforts in 2020.

The Influencer Program was formed in 2019 but gained real traction in 2020 as she pulled subject matter experts from all departments across our organization together to figure out how we could best serve our customers during their time of need. This program help generate timely, relevant content that in turn drove our organic traffic up over 50% and our lead generation up nearly 63% during the height of the pandemic.

Just as importantly, the program served as a platform to give employees of all backgrounds a voice. It was an opportunity for nearly 30 internal “influencers” to make a name for themselves and showcase the unique knowledge he or she possesses and the value he or she brings to the organization. This program was so successful that Emily was then asked to help launch it globally across STANLEY Security’s footprint.

In addition to the Influencer Program, Emily cranked out nearly 100 pieces of thought-provoking, timely and relevant content over the course of 2020. When our sales organization found themselves working behind their desks and not out in the field, Emily adjusted her strategy to drive great content and develop a full social selling program to power our entire sales organization and help them navigate their new reality. As a result, we saw our social traffic skyrocket and our lead generation increase year over year – even though we had no paid advertising at the time and no tradeshows.

Last but not least, Emily has been the architect behind our Public Relations strategy, gaining STANLEY Security visibility across countless trade publications and in top media publications like Forbes, TechTarget, Global Trade Magazine and Industry Today. These public relations efforts earned us roughly 24M in media impressions and increased our share of voice by +24% y/y. As of Q4, 2020 STANLEY Security owned 42% of the Share of Voice for the enterprise security industry, outranking top competitors like Johnson Controls, Convergint and Securitas.

Emily is a story-teller at heart and an incredible content guru, but more importantly, she is a visionary. She saw an opportunity to use engaging, thought-leadership content to establish STANLEY Security as the thought leader in our industry, empower an entire team of subject matter experts, support a fully-remote sales organization and transform our website into a lead generation machine.

She’s an invaluable member of the marketing team and a tremendous asset to our organization as a whole. While I will miss her expertise and leadership on the [North America] marketing team, I am so excited to watch her grow in her career at STANLEY and look forward to seeing all she will accomplish in her new role on the global brand team.”