Emmanuel

Nationality: French
Originally from: Rennes (born in Paris)

Hi, I’m Emmanuel. I’m French and turning 38 soon.
I came to Japan 12 years ago on a working holiday visa and eventually decided to stay. I’ve lived in Osaka ever since.
I’m currently in my seventh year at ZenGroup, and I’m the Team Leader of the Project Management Team in the Marketing Department.

Schedule

8:30–09:00am Arrive at the Office / Check Messages and Tasks

After arriving at the office, I check Slack and Asana to review my schedule for the day and organize my tasks based on priority.

09:00–12:30pm Meetings & Desk Work

I attend meetings with my team and other departments, as well as review and coordinate ongoing projects.

12:30–01:30pm Lunch
1:30–6:00pm Meetings & Desk Work
6:00pm Wrap Up

My schedule varies depending on the projects and meetings I have each day.

Daily Tasks

What are your main responsibilities?

As the Team Leader of the Project Management Team, I’m in charge of marketing-related projects and tasks that help streamline or accelerate work within the Marketing Department. I also create and improve workflows and coordinate tasks and OKRs between our department and other teams.

Which tools and platforms do you use daily?

I use Asana and Slack for work management and Figma for design work. For SEO metrics, I use GA4, GSC, and SE Ranking, as well as Brand24 for share-of-voice tracking and Zapier for automations. Obviously, I also use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and other AI tools in my daily work, along with a few other tools for various marketing-related tasks.

How do you prioritize your tasks?

I usually try to attend first to tasks where I could be a blocker to others’ work, as well as tasks that have a higher priority or a hard deadline. These would typically be team tasks or requests from upper management. Then I attend to the rest.

Team Collaboration

What’s your team like?

It’s a small team for now, but we have a good dynamic. Workload is evenly shared and we all work on the projects and tasks.

What are the unique points about your team?

It’s maybe one of the rare teams that can help and be useful to all other departments, not only marketing. So far, we have worked with and helped pretty much every other department through a variety of projects, including SEO and data analysis.

Do you collaborate with other departments at ZenGroup?

We are mostly focused on helping the marketing department, but through other projects or OKRs we have already helped and collaborated with pretty much all other departments.

Learning and Development

How do you stay updated on the latest trends in your position?

I do competitive intelligence and check competitors and PR releases for updates in the industry. We also have a solid internal information sharing network, so discussing with other marketers is also a great way to share and obtain new information.

What are you doing for self-improvement?

I try to study daily something that could be useful for my work. A daily 10-15 minutes study session on a learning platform can do a lot in the long term if done consistently.

Work-Life Balance

How do you manage your work-life at ZenGroup?

The flextime system helps a lot. I can start early if I want. I take a few days off here and there to release the pressure.

Do you have any tips for maintaining productivity and avoiding burnout?

I try to keep an eye on my overtime. If I see I’m doing too many hours, I know my productivity is affected so I try to balance it out this way. During working hours, trying to focus on 1 thing or task at a time can also help with getting things done faster.

Memorable Experiences

Are there any memorable experiences or successes in your role that you can share?

The creation of the Project Management Team can in itself be considered a success.

Having a team that can help with a variety of challenges across different departments, rather than focusing on just one specific area, can also be considered a significant achievement.

Personal Insights

What do you enjoy most about your job?

It’s a fast paced working environment where I can learn a lot and progress in many different digital fields.

What would you say to someone considering joining ZenGroup?

Learn at least the basics in every relevant field, then try to specialize in the fields you prefer or where you see a need within the team. For example, PPC, SNS, SEO, UX, etc.

From there, try to become an expert in the fields you choose so that you can use your knowledge and skills to help the rest of the team.

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