Emily Findlay is a Marketer of the Year finalist in the YouTube NZ Marketing Awards 2026.
The winner will be announced on September 2.
Name: Emily Findlay
Job title: Global marketing manager, Honeysticks
In a couple of sentences, sum up your career so far.
I’ve been fortunate to build a broad marketing career across agency and in-house roles, in New Zealand and overseas, learning everything from PR and brand building to strategy and leadership.
This breadth has ultimately led me to working with purpose-led brands I genuinely believe in. Simply, marketing feels more natural when you genuinely champion what you’re putting into the world.
How have you used out of home in recent campaigns?
For now, OOH isn’t part of Honeysticks’ channel strategy, as we’re focused on digital marketing across the full funnel.
As we move into the activation phase of our new brand rollout in Q1 CY27 though, this is where we hope to have a lot of fun with OOH! We’re thinking about how to activate Honeysticks in our target markets in a much bigger way – and we may or may not have dreams of an ultimate creative-play pop-up in NYC.
How do you incorporate sustainability into your marketing initiatives?
Honeysticks is a sustainable brand at its core, so sustainability isn’t something we add into marketing afterwards. Rather, it’s a given and part of our thinking from the start.
We’re selective about the influencers and opinion leaders we work with. We’ve developed a B2B customer playbook to help retailers hero our sustainable practices and sustainability is heavily scrutinised through NPD, from materials and packaging through to the claims we make.
For us it’s imperative sustainability is genuine, evidenced and consistent – rather than simply something we say in marketing.
A highlight from the past year?
Leading the Honeysticks brand evolution has been the biggest highlight of my career to date, as well as the biggest positive challenge.
Back in 2024, the business had never undergone any significant brand work. Yet, there was a simmering feeling that to flourish and retain competitive longevity, we needed to evolve. But how do you justify huge change when, on paper, the status quo is working?
We set about a two-year project, driven by multi-faceted consumer data to transform Honeysticks for the future while listening to our customers and staying true to our eco heritage.
This project gave me fantastic personal growth as a leader – working with incredible people and suppliers across multiple countries – and bringing everyone together around a mutually passionate goal.
What are you looking forward to?
Activating the new Honeysticks brand!
To date, we’ve been in full rollout mode: researching, building, testing and getting the new brand consistently into market.
Now the fun begins. I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens when we start singing and dancing the new brand in-market, bringing our new positioning to life in bolder and more creative ways!
This story comes from NZ Marketing magazine issue 88, Sept-Nov 2026. Why not subscribe? Get four issues a year for just $50 (including delivery) if you autorenew.
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