Can you tell us about your background in music? How did it all start?

I had been around music from a very young age due to my family being very musical, however, because of that exposure, I kind of rebelled against it for a long time, meaning not even singing happy birthday at parties! Instead of music, I threw myself into theater and then slowly made my way to music and regretted all the years I lost and it very much became my life. I went on to study music in college and graduate school and had dreams to move to New York City and be an artist, however, the pandemic had other plans which changed my career trajectory to Customer Success, which surprisingly had a lot of similarities to my musical career. 

What role does storytelling play in your approach to music?

I came from musical theater and choir, which is all about storytelling; for me, the beauty comes from the question of where do we come from and where we are going? From musical theater I stepped into music theory, and finally to composition, where I always felt most comfortable composing very intentionally around a narrative. During my studies, as a way to challenge myself if I wasn’t working with lyrics or text, I sometimes still base an instrumental work on a poem or a story and try to soundtrack it, how would it sound like, where would it start and where would it end. 

How does your role as Customer Success Manager work with storytelling?

The role of customer success is a great position for those who care about storytelling because that is what this role is at its core. One of the greatest parts about engaging with our customers is hearing about their day to day and understanding what their needs are, where they need support, and then being able to represent Epidemic in finding solutions for them. Whether we think about product or workflow improvements, celebrating wins, or thinking critically about what we can do better for the customer, it’s still a matter of representing each party, thinking of where we’ve come from, and targeting where we’re going.

When I first got into this industry, what made me want to go down the customer success route is the long term relationship building, to be by the client’s side. Our relationships have different levels, where it can be anything from training them on our platform to having high level conversations about their overall business strategy; no matter the scale, it’s about being a partner and an advocate.

At the end of the day, we are helping our customers tell their stories and engage with their audiences. 

What made me want to go down the Customer Success route is the long term relationship building, to be by the client’s side.

What skills from your music career have you applied to being a Senior Customer Success Manager?

During my music career, I was a teacher’s assistant and so much of teaching is actively listening to my students to find out what gets them excited, where there’s a  disconnect, and then critically framing the information as a response. 

This skill of being able to actively listen and frame information is something I’ve had to apply regularly during my time as a customer success manager. 

Also during my time as a teacher, I would work with my students on their compositions. One of the key philosophies I would go back to with new students is to think critically about  what in their piece is staying the same and what are the variables that are changing over time. Settling on the proper balance is foundational to a lot of a compositional process! As a customer success manager, there are baseline parts of your relationship with and the support you give your customers that stay the same, while you’re always on the lookout for additional creative value to provide that make  the dynamic ever-changing. This balance of stasis and progression is also the core of storytelling, what are the factors or characters that stay stable and familiar while  the larger picture changes over time. 

Do you feel closer to music now that you work with Epidemic Sound?

Absolutely. Given my career change, I could feel myself slowly moving away from the art which means so much to me, which was not intentional. So when this opportunity came up, it felt like the perfect match. 

What I realized after my onboarding at Epidemic is that not only am I working closer with music but I’m surrounded by creatives, musicians from all sorts of backgrounds working with our product which is such high quality.We have diverse and deep array of incredibly high-quality music which something that, coming from music, was really important to me. 

Describe the culture of Epidemic Sound’s New York office?

It’s awesome to be surrounded by people, whether it’s on the Enterprise team or beyond, who have full confidence in what we are doing right now and also actively look for ways to  solve problems. I think a lot of companies can do one or the other but here we do both really well. It’s a special environment which makes our jobs a lot easier and more fun. We are excited,eager, and ready to think and work on improvements so we can better serve our creators. 

Describe your relationship with your ES customers?

It comes down to the product we work with — something that is at its core very human and truly a lot of fun to engage with. Given this, it’s a different kind of relationship that I’ve had with customers in other workplaces. This is not just a tool for them but a crucial part in telling their story and connecting with others. With this great, creative, and human tool as the  baseline of our relationship, it becomes a joy to connect and partner with our customers.