“If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.” –David Ogilvy
Erik Hehrmann has been an outstanding member of Celtra for the best part of 3 years. A fun fact about Erik is that he runs the longest-standing daily photoblog in history with his best friend. They’ve been posting pictures every day for over 17 years! When he’s not taking pictures, he’s working out of Chicago, leading the Creative Services team–a highly motivated group of 25 designers and producers across the US and Europe that bring digital advertising excellence to all four corners of the globe. We met with him to pick his brains about both the quotidian and extraordinary aspects of his job at Celtra…
What aspect of your position as VP of Creative Services do you value the most?
Of the many different things I do as part of my role, what I love most is that I get to mentor a highly motivated and eager team of talented designers and producers. Helping each individual grow to reach their full potential is by far the most rewarding part of my work! Having come from a project management background myself, I also always strive to maximize my team’s ease of getting work done. Bureaucracy is where creativity and motivation go to die – so I attempt daily to remove as much friction as possible.
What advice could you share on managing a large international team?
Respecting everyone’s timezone and chosen working hours is absolutely crucial. This might be challenging at first—on my transatlantic team, we only have a short window of business hours overlapping for calls—but it can also be a major advantage. When you coordinate it well, your Europe-to-America end-of-day handoff can result in getting twice as much done in a day.
What has been the most rewarding achievement during your time with Celtra?
I was incredibly fortunate to begin my time at Celtra under the guidance of an amazing mentor and manager. She taught me everything about how to run a team and a business, with endless patience and mountains of advice. When the leadership role for our Creative Services team became available, I felt very proud to be given the trust and opportunity to step in to fill that role. It’s a dream come true for me, which I cherish every day.
What sets Celtra apart from the rest of the competition?
Celtra is a unique place to chase your career dreams. Well established and successful in the AdTech space, highly specialized and well organized, yet incredibly nimble and start-up-like. I’ve worked for tiny (10 employees – too chaotic) and massive (75,000 employees – too slow and meaningless) companies, and to me, Celtra provides the perfect mix of limitless opportunity for the individual, ease and speed of being able to communicate with everyone to get things done, and a high degree of specialization with world-class talent in all corners of the company.
Where do you see Celtra Creative Services heading in the future?
The very best digital design and production tools greatly simplify and accelerate the creation process. But a tool by itself is just a dormant opportunity waiting to come to life. Celtra’s Creative Services team adds digital advertising design expertise and creativity to the mix to make magic happen. I believe the demand for ever-growing volumes of highly personalized ads, efficiently and consistently created in record time, will continue to grow. Advertisers using Celtra have a key technological advantage in the market, and partnering with our Creative Services team can help maximize that advantage to the fullest.
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