FRONTSTEPS is delighted to introduce Emily Wigdale as the new Director of Marketing. With her extensive background in both agency and tech industries, Emily brings a wealth of experience and a fresh perspective to our team. Her journey is a testament to her adaptability, creativity, and passion for marketing.
In this interview, Emily shares insights into her professional journey, her vision for FRONTSTEPS, and what excites her about this new role.
Sam Grabel: Thanks for taking some time to chat with us, Emily. We are really excited to have you here at FRONTSTEPS! Tell us a little bit about your background, both personal and professional.
Emily Wigdale: Thanks, Sam! I am super excited to be here. I started off with the agency lifestyle, which was fun and chaotic. I was in beer brats and shocks and struts.
It was awesome to work with the Green Bay Packers on a couple of commercials, but quickly found that in the Midwest, if you don’t leave, you never leave. So came out to Colorado to work for the Colorado Avalanche.
After some time, I floated my way back into the agency world, but always found the emerging tech space to be a fascinating market.
During the pandemic, I ended up going back to school to help boost my chances of being able to transfer from the agency lifestyle to the tech industry. I found myself within product management, which quickly evolved into product marketing.
At a startup you wear many, many hats which is so much fun. You gain so many skills. You get to work with so many different departments and people and truly get exposed to so much more than what you were originally hired to do. My role there evolved, and I started wanting to look for other areas of opportunity to take ownership and lead in my own kind of ways.
And that’s how I stumbled across FRONTSTEPS. It excited me to be able to start from the ground up again. It was fun chatting with the team and hearing their goals, their dreams and ambitions. It aligned with something that I had always wanted to do in my career, which is to be able to start from the ground and work your way towards something bigger, better and greater. And everybody having that winning attitude was attractive to me.
SG: That’s so awesome to hear. What are you most excited about accomplishing here at FRONTSTEPS?
EW: The blank canvas, I think it is so fascinating. So interesting. As cliche as it sounds, the world is our oyster and there’s so much untapped potential and opportunity that it makes it fun to be able to experiment.
That’s something that really drew me to FRONTSTEPS was knowing that there was a group of people willing to say, “Go try it. You can’t break it. See what you can do. How can we adapt? How can we be better?”
There’s no glass ceiling, which is wonderful.
SG: What should the industry and our customers be on the lookout for over the next few months?
EW: The cool thing about FRONTSTEPS is that we listen to our customers. We aren’t afraid to hear the good, the bad, the ugly. We want to build products and services that work for those who championed us and drive home the ability that we are so much more than just a SaaS company.
We are an all-encompassing service and I’m super excited to see the direction the company is taking because it takes a lot of guts to do what we’re about to do. FRONTSTEPS is starting to pave the way to make things bigger and better, where competitors are going to have to start catching up to us.
SG: When you’re not at work, what do you do for fun?
EW: In my off time I am a big hockey player. My husband and I play in glorified beer leagues. I’m a goaltender and he’s a forward, so it’s a lot of fun when we get to play on the same team. If we’re not at the ice rink, we’re typically in our backyard crafting cocktails on our back porch, enjoying great appetizers and good company.
SG: What are your top three bucket list items?
EW: I’ve seen the Northern Lights, but never in full force. I would love to see the Northern Lights in Norway or Finland. I went to Norway this past fall and it was gorgeous, and I would love to go back. But I heard the Northern Lights are incredible up there.
I would love to see an Olympic gold medal ice hockey game, particularly between Canada and the US. My husband is from Canada, and I’m born and raised in the US, so being able to see those two teams come together under a golden a gold medal match would be amazing.
FinalIy, I would love to go to Patagonia one day. I’ve heard it is breathtaking. The mountain ranges are incredible.
SG: All of those sound amazing! Emily, thank you for your time! We look forward to seeing what the marketing team will turn out at FRONTSTEPS.
EW: We’re going to do big things. People better watch out.