Manifesto
STRATEGY FIRST. ALWAYS.
Stop confusing motion with progress. Choose your path wisely and execute what matters. If you don’t know where you are going,
why would people choose to follow you?
CREATIVITY IS PROBLEM-SOLVING
I see creativity as the ability to find fresh solutions to problems, issues or frictions by looking at them with expertise,
an open multicultural mind and an understanding of the human spirit, mixed with cross-disciplinary insights.
ARTISTS FEEL IT FIRST
Artists have the unique ability to touch upon deep drivers and changes that haven’t bubbled up to the
surface of society yet. I use them as checkpoints to confirm my own intuition and suspicions or
understand them more deeply.
I SPEAK MY MIND. I’M NO HONEY, HONEY
Sorry, not sorry. You’re not paying me (and my team) to just tell you want you want to hear, right?
HUMANS, NOT CONSUMERS
Consumers or clients are humans with dreams, passions, anxieties and mood swings. They are emotional,
irrational and often erratic creatures. So are you.
ALWAYS KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN. KEEP WATCHING. BECAUSE WHATEVER YOU SEE CAN INSPIRE YOU.*
OK, full disclosure: I didn’t make this one up*. But it’s definitely my mantra.
*It’s a quote from former Vogue stylist Grace Coddington in The September Issue movie.
NO SHARKS, PLEASE
I’m lucky enough to be in a position where I can choose my clients and team quite carefully.
I only work with people I like. Trust is key.
ME IS WE
Kate Stockman is a team. A team that can grow and shrink to accommodate the project at hand.
IT’S ALWAYS PERSONAL
I always keep it confidential and never go for the cookie-cutter approach. Skip the middlemen and work directly with
the people who think about your business, your brand, your product.
YOUR INNER CHILD IS ASKING: WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?
“That’s just the way it is!” is not a satisfying answer for me. Never has been. No matter how many times you repeat it.
NEVER IGNORE INTERNAL CULTURE
The NY Times once said it like this: “Don’t just consider how well a product works but look at who is making it and
how it is sold.” I agree 100%. If you don’t get the entire company culture right, nothing else matters.
Sir DAVID IS RIGHT.
To quote Sir David Attenborough on the ongoing climate crisis: “There’s not much time left.
We’re facing nothing less than the collapse of the living world.” I take his warning with me
in all brand strategies and innovation projects.
IT’S TIME TO GIVE BACK
Aside from working for big, international corporations, I also make time to help out the starters, the smaller businesses
who need strategy as much as the big players. That’s why I am a KMO-certified consultant, enabling me to work for smaller fees.
And that’s not all. Being a guest professor for 7 years and co-founder of the Bachelor Idea & Innovation Management at
Erasmus in Brussels is also part of this engagement and mentorship.