Emma Kirst

Senior Associate

2022 - Current

Associate

2020 - 2022

A venture firm for builders.

Venture Partner

2017 - 2020

Contrary is a talent and research-driven investment firm. We back a small number of exceptional people and the companies they build, from seed to scale.

President

2018 - 2020

- Organized treks to New York, Chicago, and Detroit meeting with founders of 20+ startups - Led marketing outreach reaching 500+ students and doubling the application numbers to increase membership from 15 to 80 - Created brand strategy and promotional materials including logo, website, and other marketing assets

Fellow

2017 - 2020

The Entrepreneurs Leadership Program provides deep training and mentorship for a select cohort of students to develop the functional, managerial, and leadership skills that differentiate the good from the great entrepreneurs. It equips some of the University of Michigan’s most driven minds with a rigorous experiential curriculum to lead them onto an entrepreneurial path during and after their college career.

Partner Marketing

2019 - 2019

- Built data analytics dashboards in Looker to provide insights into how marketing channels were performing for specific events and shared key takeaways, such as marketing channel attribution statistics with channel leads - Conducted testing of email, push, and paid social campaigns focused on the referral program to determine the best performing channel and provided recommendations that resulted in a 38% increase in referrals - Organized on-site brand activations for the AdvoCare Classic, FC Cincinnati Fan Fest, and Minnesota United Match Day - Participated in weekly update calls with partner teams directed towards leveraging partnerships through sponsorship efforts

Marketing and Community Growth

2018 - 2018

- Operated social media accounts on a daily basis, increasing daily engagements by over 400% - Organized and managed logistics, designed and wrote investor handouts for their second annual investor summit for 70+ of Human Ventures' advisors, investors, and supporters - Built the Human Ventures Founder DNA program, a program that will be used by every founder at Human Ventures, which leverages Big 5 Personality tests, individual founder coaching, and written guided self-reflections - Conducted market research and participated in design sprints to provide early feedback to several entrepreneurs-in-residence

Corporate Engagement

2017 - 2017

- Presented detailed company profiles and used HubSpot for inbound marketing and sales to acquire 9 new corporate partners - Created new holiday-oriented marketing campaign focused on re-engaging former corporate partners that have resulted in several follow-up meetings with company engagement lead

Investment Analyst

2017 - 2017

- One of four interns shadowing Dan Gilbert and providing insights following key meetings with leadership of Fortune 100 companies - Responsible for establishing collaboration between Detroit Startups and top Michigan student organizations - Consulted with CEOs of 10 startup companies​ - Reaching over 3000 students in organizations with the majority of the organizations holding acceptance rates below 5% - Conducted due diligence on several prospective investments through creating investment memos which detailed the competitive landscape and analysis of the market potential - Worked with company engagement for one of DVP's portfolio companies, Grand Circus - Collected and analyzed data for Grand Circus Outcomes Report​ - Identified potential hiring partners for Grand Circus graduates and formulated strategies for new partner acquisition

Young Ambassador

2011 - 2016

- Helping lead an awareness campaign in cooperation with the European Commission of the European Union - Responsible for the only student-led workshops at Greenlight events, presenting at events in London and Brussels. Taught almost 500 girls between the ages of 11-15 about entrepreneurship. - Developed and presented a business plan for Greenlight to facilitate additional funding streams. - Worked directly with Octagon, one of the world's largest sport agencies, to create an event with AIG and the New Zealand National Rugby Team

Co- Founder, CMO

2014 - 2016

- A company that assists underprivileged craftswomen in India and Venezuela through providing an ecommerce platform to access the larger inaccessible global market - Founded in August 2014 in collaboration through the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) Launch Program - Raised the largest level of contributions of any startup founded through the program of $8000 through Indiegogo - Delivered 250+ products from Venezuelan Craftswomen in pilot program - Spoke about company at the MIT Stata Center, International School of Brussels Career Panel, Brussels Entrepreneurship and Innovation Group, RadioX(only English-speaking radio station in Belgium) reaching thousands of people - Company was dissolved in 2016 and the profits were donated to create a scholarship to MIT Launch