Reader Profile: Emmy Mills
Each week, we bring you a brief profile on one of our fantastic readers. Know someone we should be writing about? Let us know.
Name: Emmy Mills
Title: Marketing Director
Property: Bonnie Doon Shopping Centre
Location: Edmonton, Canada
How long have you been at this property?
An unusual 12 years. Where has the time gone?!
How many years of experience do you have in the shopping center industry?
After a number of years in radio as an award-winning copywriter, .I freelanced for four years with shopping centers off and on. Needing to regulate my family life a bit more, I took a job with a smaller center for four years to learn the ropes. I thoroughly enjoyed this arena as it gave me the personal satisfaction of still writing and creating on behalf of the tenants and the center. I then landed a position with a larger regional center and have now been here 12 years. Time does indeed fly when you’re having fun!
How many industry awards, if any, has your shopping centre won during your tenure?
I have won an ICSC Canadian Maple Leaf Merit Award (Marketing Leasing Support category). I also won a local Silver Leaf award for community minded programs for sponsoring “Generations Growing & Gardening Together”, an outreach initiative in which the City of Edmonton subsidizes low-income housing, as well as teaches and mentors low-income and new Canadian families in the growing of gardens.
What is your primary goal this year?
To stretch an ever-shrinking marketing budget to maintain successful programs now in place. I also want to work even more closely with tenants in their own marketing efforts.
What is your biggest challenge this year?
Working beyond the public perception of “bad times”.
Can you offer one tip to other mall marketing professionals?
Get involved and network in your community.
Thanks Emmy!
