Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Nelson.
After working in corporate finance for a Fortune 100 company and climbing the ladder to a Vice President title, Emily had what she calls her quarter-life crisis. She had envisioned a different career growing up, but life got in the way and she found herself chasing a paycheck instead of a passion. After seven years in her cushy finance job, Emily decided to pursue a life-long dream of becoming a broadcast journalist. She attended a master’s program at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and afterward worked as an anchor and a reporter for various news outlets in Michigan, Ohio, Florida and Washington D.C. However, after five years in the news business working erratic hours, her dream job took a toll on her personal life and she decided it was time to pivot again.
Realizing she had extensive business development and corporate marketing experience and now had fine-tuned her media story-telling skills, she set out to use this knowledge to help companies with their media strategies. She partnered with a local PR firm in Detroit and at first, was doing media training and coaching for C-level executives to prepare for television interviews and expanded into creating full-blown media campaigns. Ace Media Strategies was born and she came up with “Ace” because the name literally means to be the best or excel, and she wanted her clients to know they were in good hands.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It’s definitely been an interesting ride! Becoming an entrepreneur is never an easy process and the obstacles you stumble across make you better and prepare you for the next challenge. I have extensive business experience, but storytelling is my forte and I knew I could leverage my skills as a journalist to help companies connect with their target audience by telling the right story for their brand. I started doing this through the media coaching but knew that wasn’t scalable, so I expanded to offering PR and social media campaigns. I had to find a good team of videographers and editors and was able to do that through my network in the news business. I won’t put my name on something I’m not incredibly proud of, so sometimes it can take time to get it right and develop a good working cadence with the contractors that work on my client’s projects. It’s a balancing act making sure the product is right while also meeting expectations and timelines.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Ace Media Strategies – what should we know?
We help companies connect with customers and stakeholders in a meaningful way by crafting a message that reflects brand values. Our services include preparing C-level executives for tv, print and web interviews to boost public image and creating digital storytelling campaigns to improve brand positioning. We get to know the companies we serve, understand their goals and develop a strategy to connect them with their target audience through media. There’s really no one-size fits all approach or even target customer. We’ve worked with filmmakers developing a brand for a documentary film to an outdoor game company. While these are vastly different businesses, they have a common goal to create a powerful media campaign that connects with their end consumer. We help them do that.
I’m most proud about the results we generate for our customers. So far, we’ve operated mostly from word of mouth and it speaks volumes that our customers are referring us to others.
What has been the proudest moment of your career so far?
My proudest moment is having the courage to leave a cushy job that had security and a healthy six-figure salary to chase a passion and a dream. It has worked out differently than I thought (in both good and challenging ways), but I took the leap and started on this path. It makes me sleep well at night knowing I didn’t let fear stand in the way of making a big change and don’t live with any regrets.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.acemediastrategies.com
- Email: emily@acemediastrategies.com
Image Credit:
Red carpet photo is from an Infolist photographer
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