Earnest Agency’s work spans business development, partnerships, marketing, community development, and program and project management for clients in arts and culture, hospitality, philanthropy, retail, and technology.

With Earnest Agency, Emily Lakin guides clients to discover innovative and entrepreneurial practices resulting in employee satisfaction, brand loyalty, net profit, and industry recognition for insightful work and social responsibility.

As a result of co-creating with Earnest Agency, clients:

• forge authentic relationships across teams and with customers;

• experience inspiring moments that create vibrancy and personal agency in the workplace, and;

• discover inventive ways of delivering products and programs relevant to the customers they serve. 

With a human-centered approach and through her skills of building and managing projects, programs, and environments, Emily weaves together the worlds of art and community. The experiences Emily creates allow individuals to explore creativity, self-expression and connection and, ultimately, cultivate a greater understanding of themselves and the world around them.

Emily spent over a decade at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) building relationships at the nexus of contemporary art, culture, and social impact. She is privileged to work with a established network of clients and collaborators, and serves as the Head of Creator Community at Patreon, on the founding team of The Space Program, San Francisco, on the Advisory Board for Root Division, and the Visiting Committee for the Smith College Museum of Art.