Purpose Gets Personal with Anne Keenan

Our staff represents a broad range of backgrounds and experiences. We are activists and entrepreneurs, political organizers and master storytellers, geeks and creatives—but mostly we’re just super cool people. Want to know more? We sat down with Anne, our new Senior Strategy Director and a leader of our Corporate practice, for a quick Q&A…

1. If you could have coffee with anyone dead or alive who would it be?
Hannah Wilke

2. What did you want to be when you grew up?
I guess I was kind of a snarky child, because I would always answer “an adult” in response to that question. Other than that, I guess I saw myself running a candy / sticker store, or being a bond trader.

3. What’s your go-to lunch spot in the Flatiron district?
In this neighborhood, my favorite lunch spot is ​Chop’t. I could eat every meal there. Favorite food truck is Mister Softee.

4. What was the last artist you listened to?
JayZ, the MTV Unplugged album.

5. Favorite quiet hideout in the NYC?
Temple Bar

6. Where did you grow up?
New Jersey, the queen of states.

7. One thing about you that people probably wouldn’t guess?
I have a food packaging design collection. But… maybe you would guess that.

8. What is the next book we should read? Documentary we should see?
That depends on what you’ve already read! I’d highly recommend these:
 The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs
​Euphoria by Lily King 
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel 
To the End of June by Cris Beam 
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Also, I just watched Hot Girls Wanted, a Netflix documentary, and I keep finding myself thinking about it.

9. If you weren’t at Purpose, what would you be doing? 
While sometimes I daydream about opening a gluten-free bakery, or growing flowers for a living, I’m pretty sure that I will always be a strategist at heart. Even as a baker or a farmer, I’m sure I’d end up obsessing over the target audience and drawing two by twos.

10. What’s your mantra when you’re overwhelmed or discouraged? 
Attitude is everything.

11. What are you favorite hobbies? 
Is reading a hobby? Because since I got a kindle a few years ago, I can’t stop. Currently, I’m reading Redeployment by Phil Klay and it is pretty amazing. Next up, Missoula by Jon Krakauer.

12. What’s your favorite word? 
I don’t have just one. But I do like ‘orange’ because I say it like I’m from New Jersey, which I am. 

13. What was the last campaign that really impressed you? 
I really loved the ‘it’s not your fault’ campaign that Coke Zero did during March Madness a few years back. They took contextual digital placement and digital-first content to the next level.
I also think that Prudential’s retirement work is super-smart. They use every psychology experiment around saving (the marshmallow test, the optimism bias) and interactive stunts to reframe the conversation around retirement.