Employee Spotlight: Meet Greg J. Hakanson

Greg J. Hakanson  |  Digital Marketing Manager  |  Alameda, CA

Q. What are your responsibilities at Penumbra?

As Digital Marketing Manager, I’m responsible for all things digital marketing related from managing our website content strategy to overseeing ad buys and everything in between. Of course, analytics and performance metrics, which I use to measure the ongoing success of marketing efforts, are central to my work.

Q. What drew you to Penumbra?

Penumbra has a great mission, which is to help as many people as possible with its devices. It’s nice to use my digital marketing superpowers to make a real impact with real people. Also, I’m very passionate about virtual reality and its healthcare applications. So, the combination of supporting a laudable mission and innovative technology was an ultimate win.

Q. What aspects of your job do you enjoy the most?

I like working with all the different teams. The Corporate Communications team, of which I’m a member, supports our central business functions (vascular, neuro, immersive), but also human resources, medical education, clinical, our international teams, and more. It’s cool to be involved with so many moving pieces. One day, I’m helping launch products in Europe and, the next, I’m tracking down analytics for various ad programs. Every day is different.

Q. Describe a travel adventure that you’ll never forget.

My favorite travel adventure is definitely when I met my wife at the Ultra Music Festival in Split, Croatia. Neither of us – her from Slovenia and me from California – knew then that our lives would change forever when we went to enjoy three days of electronic music. By lucky happenstance, we managed to meet in an arena full of 30,000 people. Turns out that falling in love in Europe is a real thing. For a long time, we stayed in contact and visited one another when we could. Several years later, the adventure is still going strong!

Q. What is your personal philosophy?

My personal philosophy is to never stop moving forward. If you don’t move forward, then you stand still and everything moves past you. I’m constantly in a state of self-improvement to try to be better than I was yesterday.

Q. What professional development work have you pursued recently?

This spring, I earned a master’s degree from the University of San Francisco. The program – Master of Science in Marketing Intelligence – was research and analytics heavy, and, every day, I get to apply what I learned to my work, including analyzing web traffic or monitoring campaign performance. It’s a great feeling to help analyze a ton of marketing data, pull actionable insights from it, and affect change as a result.