Founder of Casa Davka
Do some or all of your clients misbehave? Do you do great work but feel under-appreciated, undervalued, and/or underpaid? Well, perhaps it’s your own fault! Yes, clients can be challenging and difficult. Duh! But, if we truly look deeply at ourselves and our industry, the bigger and more important question is: What can we do about it? Instead of hitting our heads against a brick wall by blaming our clients or accepting the situation as status quo, perhaps we as an industry and as individuals need to step up to the plate and rethink how we engage with, and even train and educate our clients. This talk is meant to inspire designers, whether they are
working in-house or within a creative agency, to take back control of how they manage and communicate with their clients as well as how they position themselves and the industry as a whole. What can we all do better to improve the situation? The first step is to own up to our missteps. This talk will shine a light on those missteps and provide solutions for how we can all improve so that we can move beyond the blame game.
Bio:
Emily Cohen, Founder & Partner at Casa Davka, is a no-nonsense business consultant who has
partnered with 500+ leading creative firms worldwide. At Casa Davka, Emily offers customized
business solutions to creative businesses so they are able to: envision and plan for their future,
position themselves to stay competitive, attract and qualify new business prospects and talent,
refine, evolve, and elevate their organizational structure and reimagine existing processes to
increase efficiency and effectiveness.
Emily is a frequently requested main stage speaker within the creative industry and has spoken at hundreds of international, national, and local conferences and events for organizations such as:
Creative Mornings, AIGA, Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD), Creative South.
In 2018, she self-published her business book for creatives, Brutally Honest: No-bullshit business strategies to evolve your creative business. Brutally Honest has become a go-to business book for creative industry professionals worldwide, and several universities use it as a teaching tool.
Emily is a designer by degree, an avid reader, a dog-lover, a trend-spotter, a connection-builder,
and an industry advocate.