ACHIEVING AND LEADING / NORTHWOOD LEGACIES
Northwood Siblings: The Simmons BY STEPHEN REED
The Simmons family from Williamsville, New York — Ian ’05 and Andrew ’05 and Emily ’08 — contributed in countless ways to Northwood during their years at Northwood. Smart, athletic, and witty, they led on the fields and ski slopes, in the classrooms, through a host of positions in student government and the judiciary board. They raised the level of everything from living room conversations (often arguments about politics or sports or the worth of a class) to the level of respectfulness on their dorm corridors and the tightness of the teams they played for. I had all of them in my AP Lit class, and their curiosity and insightful, forcefully expressed opinions made me a better teacher for sure. After Northwood they gravitated to some of the best New England colleges (Ian — Williams; Andrew — Boston College; Emily — Brown). Their success at those schools led them to careers in law and business. Their answers to our questions reveal their impressive energy and positive perspectives.
Emily Simmons ’08 What exactly is the nature of your work in your current career? Currently, I am based in San Francisco, working as Chief Marketing Officer for a startup air conditioner brand called July. Like many roles in startups, my role is full of variety and “wearing many hats.” I work with our supply chain partners to develop our packaging design and new product features, manage sales partnerships, run creative direction for our brand imagery, run our performance marketing and advertising channels, and manage our inhouse customer support team. What led you to choose the field you have entered? I’ve always found myself drawn to activities where I could be creative and hands-on. At Northwood, this meant planning school events, creating Halloween costumes, or decorating my dorm room walls. In college and graduate school, I again found myself gravitating towards jobs where I could work on tangible products
38
Northwood
| SPRING 2022
— art galleries, magazine publishing, hotel management, interior design. Building a consumer brand combines this love of creative work with the innovation and fast pace of the startup world. What is the most interesting aspect of your work/study? I think the most interesting part of my work is living at the intersection of business and aesthetics. In the earlier years of my career, I worked in management consulting and analytics. Now, I’ve transitioned to running the creative and qualitative sides of the business. This background has given me a unique perspective in connecting the creative work to business results. Thinking about the ROI of design, what creative concepts drive performance, or questioning what qualitative factors impact a brand’s success — this is the fun stuff! How well did your college serve you in preparation for your career? My college coursework — first focused on Mechanical Engineering, then English Lit — gave me a solid groundwork in approaching both analytical and creative
projects. More broadly though, college was a chance to build confidence in having particular interests. Coming in as an athlete, where so much of my life had oriented around one sport, I found college to be revealing of just how broad and diverse others’ interests could be. Some classmates obsessed over woodworking and silk-screen printing; other classmates were deep into computer programming or international politics. By seeing so much diversity of thought, I came away more aware and embracing of my own unique interests. What advice do you have for Northwood students relative to choosing a college and career? 1. When choosing a college, follow your gut in picking a school where you believe you’ll be able to be your full self, and explore widely. There is no other time where you will have unbridled options to let your curiosity run risk-free. 2. Don’t assume that your first job will define your career outright. Choosing a career is a multi-year journey. It is smart to start your career by getting hard skills to give you a foundation, but constantly
