People of Seer: Meet James Corr

Welcome back to People of Seer: San Diego Edition! In this series, you’ll get to meet our team and learn about what makes them the best around (in our humble opinion).

💡 James Corr, Senior Team Lead – Analytics, budding Real-Estate Investor, Chef, and NBA Commentator 

What are some of your passions outside of your work at Seer?

I am very interested in real estate and it has become a real passion of mine.

In the long term, I want to build out my own real estate investing company where we could own lots of properties and provide equitable and ethical housing for all walks of life. Right now, we’re working on making our first home purchase.

I also love cooking. I really like understanding the why behind cooking, The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt is amazing for that. I enjoy making different recipes from a lot of different cuisines from Japanese, Thai and Indian to French and American. My wife, friends and some Seer folks all pitched in and got me a Smoker which I’ve had a lot of fun learning to use. 

Music and basketball are also big interests of mine that I could talk a lot more about!

How did you end up in digital marketing? 

Well, I went to Drexel in Philly because I wanted to go to a school in the city but also because of their five year business program. It is a co-op so you do normal school for two of the years but then you have a full-time job for a significant portion of your time there as well. 

During that time, I worked at Estee Lauder in their supply chain and manufacturing facility, at the Mercantile Exchange floor in Manhattan, and then also working in the private wealth management industry in philly. 

That experience was interesting because I like numbers and I’m analytical, but I realized how much I didn’t like finance. The whole experience didn’t feel like it aligned with me as a person.

So I did some reflecting and had conversations with my mentors and started thinking marketing could be a good way to go for me. I then did a fourth internship separate from the co-op program at a small marketing agency in Philly. That really solidified my interest in marketing and from there went on to Seer and haven’t looked back. 

What’s it been like seeing Seer mature over your tenure at Seer? 

I’ve been at Seer for about 7 and half years now. 

It’s been really interesting. When I started at Seer, there were only about eight of us on the Analytics team. And Larry, who was the Director of SEO and now is the VP of Digital, was the head of the Analytics department. We then went on to build the division in a lot of different ways and it’s been really exciting to be a part of that. 

I’ve seen multiple iterations of our department and Seer as a whole, and I’ve been able to grow up in a lot of ways. 

For example, I was working on this one account as an Associate when I first joined Seer and now I’m overseeing the Analytics team on that account as a Senior Team Lead Today. So there’s some cool start story arcs. I’ve been fortunate to work with some great clients and great team members along the way.

What keeps you at Seer and keeps you excited about your work?

Number one for me is the trust and autonomy that I’m offered at Seer, and the fact that it has never wavered. 

The leadership team at Seer wants to let people approach their work the way they want to and to are open to us getting it done in lots of different ways. That’s something that is also really challenging at times! But it is a style of working that fits well with me and that I appreciate. 

Secondly, I appreciate the transparent communication at Seer. Everything from sharing financial data with the team to discussing different tests they are running to try to make things better for the team, I’ve always felt like I’ve been well-informed as far as decisions at the company. 

I also have to say, if the people weren’t the people that they are, I wouldn’t still be here. We don’t work with assholes and we don’t hire assholes.  We work with really smart, intelligent people that I’ve been able to learn from and work with. 

As a Senior Team Lead, you have to make a lot of decisions that impact our clients and team. What is that like at Seer?

Seer makes it easy to do the right thing versus doing what I think a lot of businesses in the advertising industry would do because “that’s the way things are done.”

Whether it’s having the hard conversation with clients, working with team members to help facilitate their mental health, helping team members transition to another job if that’s what they are aiming for, I’ve never had to feel bad about a business decision that we’re making. 

On a client project it might be, “Okay, well, we didn’t use all of these dollars for this contract, how can we leverage that to create value or give a refund to the client? ” I always know those are my options. 

I feel confident making those decisions and having those conversations with our clients because I know what Seer stands for and I know leadership will have my back in those conversations. 

What’s something new you’ve been getting interested in or practicing more lately?

Well recently I’ve been getting back into drawing.

My wife recently gave me a sketchbook and this great pencil kit and it’s been fun learning to use all the different tools.

I’ve been trying to do one “no screen night” a week and drawing has been part of what I do on those nights. I actually use to do a good amount of illustration before college, so it’s been fun to get back into it!

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