Creative Voices: Krista Casey, Creative Director Wayfair Europe
Our new series of conversations with inspiring co-workers and leaders dives into Wayfair’s creative ecosystem. Come with us to explore the little details that go beyond writing and add to the daily work and culture of our copywriting team.
In 2018, after six years of working at Wayfair’s HQ in Boston, Krista moved to Berlin to lead our international team of copywriters, designers and project managers as a Creative Director. “I was so impressed by the many green spaces and creative culture in Berlin,” she says. “Not only is the city so big, but there are also so many museums, galeries, and a rich history that makes Berlin such a diverse and layered city.”
Her creative path to Wayfair
Krista’s early career years are full of stories of her entrepreneurial mindset, her openness to new challenges and her decisiveness in finding a way to make a professional career on her own terms. Her passion for photography led to a wider interest in creativity and design.
“When I graduated college I realized that I viewed photography as a fine art form and I didn’t want to pursue it for my career,” she explains. “I didn’t want to do commercial photography or portraiture, which drove me further into graphic design.
“When I finished college the world was in the middle of an economic recession, so I really struggled to find work. I worked at an ice cream shop, I designed websites for financial companies, as well as labels for a luxury soap startup. I took on any opportunity because I was trying to build and put something together, I made stuff happen on my own and started to connect many dots for myself. I would say this has been an important part of my narrative because it made me interested in startups and entrepreneurial ventures very early on in my career.”
Krista has always been very passionate about fashion. When asked about a role model in the creative world, she cites New Yorker Iris Apfel as the eclectic fashion icon she will always look up to. And it was indeed fashion — and more specifically street fashion — that contributed hugely to her development as a professional. Fashion balanced the corporate world reality with Krista’s own entrepreneurial interests and creative needs.
“There is an interesting story behind the first blog I ever did,” Krista says. “I’ve always loved secondhand shops, so for one whole year I committed to not buy anything new and all I would wear secondhand clothes. Every day during that year, I took a photo of my outfit for the day and put it on the blog. It was something I did for myself, as a creative expression, but when I interviewed at New Balance, despite presenting my design portfolio, the creative director at the time was so interested in that blog that I honestly think that’s what got me the job.
“While I was working at New Balance I started a second blog, a street style blog. I’d go around Boston and walk up to people if I liked their outfit or their look, hand them a business card, tell them about my blog and ask them if I could take their picture. It was really cool! It was another creative outlet that I did for myself and it was a nice balance to my day job.
“Again, similar to my New Balance experience, when I interviewed at Wayfair they were very interested in the street style blog and the work that I had been doing on the side. I feel like that’s a consistent thread for my early career. This kind of entrepreneurial side hustle was always playing a part when I was looking into new career opportunities.”
Wayfair’s creative world
Krista defines Wayfair as a fun, fast-paced and ever-changing company. “For some that might sound stressful, but I really enjoy the variety, all the different things that are always happening at any given moment, and all the different directions that things can take if you are willing to go on the journey.”
“What stood out to me was the level of trust and ownership that Wayfair was willing to give me, right from the start,” Krista tells us. “At New Balance it was very hierarchical. Since I was so early in my career, I would get small projects, while the senior art directors got the cool projects. I remember that as soon as I got to Wayfair they were in the process of parting ways with an external agency and needed a designer to do the brand book from scratch, I was shocked when they gave it to me.
“This happened to me over and over again. Even when I became a team lead it was the same story, one day I had no direct reports and the next day I had three. I’d never managed before and I was really interested to explore that skillset in myself. To speak candidly, I had no formal management training, so I guess that kinda threw me into the deep end! I am really grateful for this specific experience because I learn by doing.”
Fast forward to today, and Krista has been a creative director for four years. Inspiring the team is what she defines as the most important task in her role. In her experience, by the time you get to be a creative director it’s no longer about creative execution, at least in the Wayfair structure, which she admits she misses sometimes. But it’s a tradeoff she’s happy to make for what she describes as her most meaningful responsibility: building the right team of talent and making sure they are inspired and have the time they need to be creative. “Being a creative director at Wayfair also implies making sure your team understands the business and consistently giving them the right tools to set them up for success,” she adds.
Asked about advice for leaders, Krista affirms that not everyone is meant to be a leader, wants to be a leader or should be a leader. Having said that, she tells me that half the work is empathy and emotional intelligence.
“Understanding where your team is coming from, where they want to go — it really becomes your job facilitating getting them there,” Krista says. “Where I watch leaders fall down is when they want the spotlight. You see their team being recognised and notice they are jealous, or they jump in and try to talk for and over the team. This doesn’t work and it shows that maybe this isn’t the right fit. For me, the mark of a good leader is someone who is comfortable to sit back, allow their team to have the spotlight and celebrate when they nail it and get the praise they deserve.”
Leading across working cultures
After moving from Boston to Berlin, Krista has become an ‘ambassador’ and the go-to adviser for leaders and senior Wayfairians planning to move to Berlin. Beyond the usual advice around dealing with German bureaucracy, the first thing Krista mentions is the fact that in Berlin the team is very international. Even if you already understand that each team is different, it’s necessary to realise that the situation will not line up exactly with what you’ve known before.
“Coming in as an American from the Boston office I felt a concern that I was here to ‘bring the US perspective’ or change how we work without considering the EU business. I wish that someone had said ‘get ready for a steady learning curve as you will be managing an international team’,” Krista says, reflecting on her own move. “I don’t mean that in a bad way, there are countless amazing things about an international team. It is an endless world of ideas and there are so many perspectives.
“I didn’t have any of that in my mind! I wish that I had some of that perspective already, where I could have made my intentions clear from the beginning and understood that when managing an international creative team you have to practice a lot of transparency and work on how to communicate intelligibly with your team.”
Shortly after moving to Berlin, Krista realised that the first thing she needed to do as a creative director was to build trust. She needed to connect with everyone. She focused on understanding where her colleagues were coming from and why. “You end up spending weeks just talking to people and trying to understand what their perspective is and what is hard for them,” she says. “It’s all about building that trust.”
Our copy team writes in German and British English, and including design and project management we speak more than 12 languages. When I ask Krista how to lead a team in languages you don’t speak, she immediately circles back to trust.
“In any leadership role, my number one piece of advice is about hiring the right team. Hire people who are smarter than you and know more than you do! That just doubles down when it comes to roles like the ones in our copy team. Because our copy team is filled with such strong people, I literally can give 100% trust to the team and without being able to read the copy itself, I am able to know that we are on brand, I know the tone is right and I know it’s hitting the brief.
This circles back to what makes a good creative director. When you can set your team up for success, it really reflects well on you. For me to know the German copy is spot-on even when I don’t speak the language really speaks of the trust I have in the team.”
Last but not least, Krista’s advice for young creatives is to always say yes. “Whenever something was presented to me, even as I was saying in my mind I can’t believe they think I can do that, I said yes. Even if I felt it was a huge stretch for me, it would put me out of my comfort zone or if I really didn’t know how I was going to do it! I just figured it out and I think that’s what helped me grow at an accelerated rate… because I just went for it.”
