Focused. Attentive. Strategic.
Founded by Emily K. Howard, Cheetah Strategy provides companies with “on-call” strategic thinking. In her 25+ year career, Emily has helped private, non-profit, government, and Tribal organizations develop and implement business, brand, and marketing initiatives. She’s managed the launch of high-priority programs by building collaborative relationships between executive teams, boards, employees, customers, and other stakeholders.
Emily previously served as Vice President of Corporate Strategy at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center; Vice President Marketing, Communications & Tourism at Visit Albuquerque; Vice President/Principal with Esparza Advertising; and in strategic planning and implementation roles with McKee Wallwork + Co and DDB Worldwide|Dallas. Emily has worked strategically with top brands including Oppenheimer Funds, American Airlines, Pepsi, Mr. Rooter Plumbing, International Paper, Bloomberg Tradebook, JC Penney, PNM, Dion’s, City of Albuquerque, State of New Mexico, and others.
Throughout her career, Emily enjoyed many successes that stem from her ability to:
- FIND ORDER IN CHAOS
- CONNECT THE DOTS
- BUILD COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIPS
- MAINTAIN FOCUS & GET THINGS DONE
On a more personal note, Emily is a proud mom and wife, sports fan, pizza-lover, occasional vodka gimlet drinker, and weekend warrior. She admires Michael Jordan and Georgia O’Keeffe for their tenacity. She’s a bit competitive and very grateful.
Emily lovingly refers to her family as “Team Cheetah” – named after a small, carved cheetah given to them by a family friend. Since this nickname came about several years ago, Emily has enjoyed reading about cheetahs. She learned that the way they hunt is similar to how her business brain works. The cheetah hunting analogy seemed perfect for the approach to her consulting practice.
Emily is also a co-founder of the “Start Bragging” movement, which was started to shine a positive light on all things Albuquerque. Listen to her podcast interview with Notah Begay, NBC/Golf Channel Analyst and Former PGA Tour Player.
Read her full bio on LinkedIn and or find her @ekhoward on Twitter.
I had the opportunity to work with Emily during her tenure at Esparza. She was a balancing force in our agency while being extremely strategic with our clients. She was well respected by every member of my team and by all clients.” – Agency Owner
The completion of several brand audits was very important in Emily’s work and helped to guide multiple strategies across multiple business units and helped to guide deeper conversations for the overall organization. This was probably a missed step and much needed guidance to solidify the brands, show us where we needed to grow, and create a wholistic campus and environment.” – Chief Operating Officer
