New Manager, New Business

By Kes Speelman

“If there is someone who thinks they might have a project that would be a good fit for the EMC team, then I’ll vet that project to see if we would be able to partner, to see if we’re aligned as far as budgets, timelines and deliverables go.  And [I] also make sure there’s some type of mission to create some sort of positive social changes and impact with our work,” said the Emergent Media Center’s new Business Development Manager Kerri Tracy.

Kerri is our newest staff member here at the EMC. Although new to the EMC, she has years of experience working with clients for many different non-profit organizations to gain and keep their business and further many causes. However, her passion of using technology to inspire positive social change wasn’t always her plan for how her life would be.

When Kerri was in college, she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life. As Kerri attended University of Vermont, she couldn’t figure out what she wanted, she only knew what she didn’t want to do. Kerri wanted to feel challenged and inspired at her job. She was majoring in Studio Art and Political Science and mainly concerned herself with snowboarding and painting. It wasn’t until Kerri realized that she was missing her purpose in life, that things changed.

She and her friends began independently organizing fundraisers around whatever they had felt like supporting at the time. The first of these fundraisers, was a Junk-to-Funk fashion show. “I was out in Montana visiting my sister and I went to one of these events. I thought it was so cool and such an interesting expression of art and it also had the underlying concept of reiterating the importance of reusing. Every design had to be created by something that would have gone to a landfill. And I just wanted to plan one. I thought it would be fun. So I did and that one just turned into another one and that turned to me working for a non-profit,”said Kerri.

Through her years working with non-profit organizations, Kerri gained valuable insight on creating and maintaining relationships with clients before, during and after the transaction was completed. Although a majority of this work was selling commercial products for each cause, she was able to learn and understand how business relationships affected the process. Kerri would work with various community organizations to establish partnerships for similar or symbiotic causes so that both groups would be able to work and support each other for whatever project they were partnering for.

A few years ago, Kerri came to realize that technology was quickly changing and she needed to embrace these advancements and learn as much as she could about them. And as she researched and learned more about each new advancement, Kerri became interested and then passionate about technology. This newly found passion led Kerri to the decision that her next position would be in an innovative technological space which led her to the Emergent Media Center.

During her first couple weeks, Kerri has been observing and learning about the supportive and innovative environment that the EMC creates. Kerri believes that once she is more accustomed to the EMC, she will be able to bring in more clients for projects whose mission statement mixes well with the teams’. “I’m hoping [that] once I have a better grasp on what [the EMC] already has ongoing and lined up, that I’ll be able to identify some partners that I personally think would be a good fit,”said Kerri.

If you or your organization are interested in working with the EMC, contact Kerri at ktracy@champlain.edu or at 802.865.8438.