Meet The Team - EmpraxisHQ

Meet the team · EmpraxisHQ

Kallie

Director of Antisocial Media, Newsfeeds & Information Technology

Kallie is the reason EmpraxisHQ sounds like a person online instead of a brand deck. She moderates every client Newsfeed, keeps the technology upright, and reads the analytics the rest of us have spent years nodding at without understanding. Her gifts are wit, introversion, and a principled dislike of pretense, which is exactly what you want in the person deciding what gets said in public. The driest voice in the room is usually the one paying closest attention. Hers is.

HQ&A

Best sandwich: Grilled PBJ.
Cookies, cake, or pie: Cookies.
Podcast title: “Snarky Chaos.”
Best bad movie: Best in Show.
Kid-dream job: Doctor.
Favorite Patrick (besides Ryan): Charlie, and Patrick Mahomes.

The questions we added for each other

KallieYou’re shopping and you watch someone shoplift. What do you do?

Make them put it back. And yell at them.

KaylaWhat scares you the most, personally or professionally?

Being unprepared. I don’t like surprises.

RyanWhat was your favorite TV show as a child?

Happy Days.

TimFavorite concert?

Dolly Parton at the Grundy County Fair, circa mid-1970s. Sans Porter Wagoner.

Kayla

Chief Cultivator Cultivator

Kayla is the person who makes EmpraxisHQ actually work. She cultivates the Cultivators, the people inside each client company who run the tools week to week, and she built the training that lets the whole thing run without waiting on the founder. If a client starts to drift, she has usually caught it and fixed it before anyone thinks to worry. She believes being the most organized person in the room is a form of love, and she is almost always the most organized person in the room. Tim founded HQ. Kayla is the reason it still exists.

HQ&A

Best sandwich: A cheeseburger, never a hamburger. Cheese goes on everything.
Cookies, cake, or pie: Pie. Pumpkin, with more whipped cream than pie.
Podcast title: “Something’s Gotta Give: Marketing, Mixed Drinks, and Managing Life.”
Best bad movie: Real Genius. Or Revenge of the Nerds.
Kid-dream job: A teacher.
Favorite Patrick (besides Ryan): Patrick Swayze.

The questions we added for each other

KallieYou’re shopping and you watch someone shoplift. What do you do?

Quietly let the clerk know. Unless they’re shoplifting necessities, in which case I’d probably ask if I could just buy it for them.

KaylaWhat scares you the most, personally or professionally?

Losing the people I love, and running out of time to do everything I want to. Also, questionnaires.

RyanWhat was your favorite TV show as a child?

The Magic School Bus. Or Scooby-Doo.

TimFavorite concert?

The Steel Woods. A small, quaint venue, and not so people-y.

Ryan

Chief Skeptical Officer

Ryan is the person we pay to doubt us. He reads everything before it reaches you and finds the sentence that isn’t true yet. If a claim sounds like it was written at a retreat in Sedona, Ryan catches it before you have to. He voices the objection you are already thinking, out loud and on camera, so nobody has to pretend the objection isn’t there. He concedes a point roughly once a quarter, and never enthusiastically. It is the most reassuring job title on this page.

HQ&A

Best sandwich: The Mushroom & Swiss Butterburger at Culver’s.
Cookies, cake, or pie: Cake. No contest.
Podcast title: “MASH Matters.”
Best bad movie: Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol.
Kid-dream job: A garbage man. Yes, really.
Favorite Patrick (besides Ryan): Patrick Henry and Patrick Duffy. A tie.

The questions we added for each other

KallieYou’re shopping and you watch someone shoplift. What do you do?

I politely ask my mom to put the item back.

KaylaWhat scares you the most, personally or professionally?

Small talk.

RyanWhat was your favorite TV show as a child?

Hee-Haw.

TimFavorite concert?

Billy Joel and Elton John. Busch Stadium, 1993.

Tim

Head Custodian

Tim invented the method, builds Tools, chases squirrels, writes words, and thinks the most accurate ones for his job are the two stenciled on the supply closet. He cleans up stuff, polishes the things, and tries not to promise clients anything before checking with Kayla, who actually keeps the place standing. Do not call him a visionary, a guru, or anything with the word “thought” or “leader” in it. He guards the idea the whole company is built on. Measure. Model. Merit. In that order. He is the one who locks up.

HQ&A

Best sandwich: The Bacon Chicken Sandwich at D. Rowe’s in Columbia, MO.
Cookies, cake, or pie: Lemon icebox pie.
Podcast title: “Squirrel Chasing for Fun & Profit.”
Best bad movie: Road House. Since so many of you heathens consider it a bad movie, I’ll sit here bathed in your wrongness and choose it to spite you.
Kid-dream job: A tie between two mans: Fire & Spider.
Favorite Patrick (besides Ryan): Saint.

The questions we added for each other

KallieYou’re shopping and you watch someone shoplift. What do you do?

I’m too overstimulated in stores to notice.

KaylaWhat scares you the most, personally or professionally?

Personally? Revolving doors. Professionally? Kayla.

RyanWhat was your favorite TV show as a child?

The White Shadow.

TimFavorite concert?

Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, with Chris Stapleton opening. Ryman Auditorium, 2015.

standing on the shoulders of ~~giants~~ wizards

We didn’t build this alone.

Before there was an EmpraxisHQ, there was a wizard. Tim and Ryan are partners with Wizard of Ads, the strategy fellowship founded by Roy H. Williams, who has spent decades teaching business owners to win what he calls the world outside the door. Roy is our mentor and our friend, and his fingerprints are on everything we make. We simply turned the doorknob the other way: EmpraxisHQ works on the world inside the door, where your people are. The star in our logo is a thank-you. Some debts you don’t pay back. You point at them.

There are 105 Wizard of Ads partners around the world, each recruited personally by Roy over 24 years. They work differently than agencies: a flat monthly fee, and a raise only when your business grows. If your revenue shrinks, their pay shrinks with it. If your challenge lives outside the door, find a partner. We’ll be here when you’re ready to work on the inside.