Emma Zumsen’s Human-Centered Growth Strategy at TheKey
Today’s “Beyond the Brief” featured guest is Emma Zumsen, newly minted Chief Marketing Officer at TheKey, who brings a distinctly human, deeply analytical lens to one of the most complex categories in modern life: aging and home care. She shares how a non-linear career arc has now led to fueling a national brand mission to make high-quality, dignified in-home care feel both profoundly personal and intelligently scaled.
Q: Welcome, Emma, and congratulations on your recent promotion to CMO. Your career path spans political science, studio art, culinary school, agency leadership, Bain, and now leading consumer growth and marketing at TheKey. When you look back, what is the throughline that actually connects all of these extraordinary chapters?
Emma: Thanks, Chris. The headline is that nothing about my path looks linear on paper, but the throughline has always been helping people make sense of complexity in a very human way. Whether it was translating the early internet for print sales reps, bringing craft spirits brands to life for consumers, or now helping families navigate aging and care, the work has always been at the intersection of storytelling, data, and real people’s lives.
From “math and magic” to mission
Q: You have described marketing as “math and magic” and, more recently, as a form of education. How does that philosophy show up in how you lead growth at TheKey today?
Emma: Marketing is education, full stop. The “math” is making sure we deeply understand who we’re serving, what they need, and what actually changes behavior; the “magic” is telling the truth in a way that resonates and feels empathetic, not transactional, for example, to a daughter who is terrified about what’s happening with her dad and needs a resource who can help her navigate her concerns. At TheKey, that means everything from robust client research to series like “Let’s Talk About Aging” and our new books on cognitive decline, which are designed to demystify options, not just drive leads.
Q: You also coach neurodiverse professionals and are pursuing a doctorate in organizational learning and development. How does that shape your approach to teams and brands?
Emma: As a neurodivergent leader, a lot of traditional professional development wasn’t built with someone like me in mind, so I’m very aware of how systems either unlock people or shut them down. In both marketing and education, you need multimodal, repeated, accessible messages if you actually want learning and change, and that’s precisely how I think about building both internal teams and external campaigns.
Scaling a national brand that still feels local
Q: TheKey has grown aggressively through acquisitions and the rethink of a partially franchised model to become a national brand. What did you learn about scaling without losing the local soul of the business?
Emma: One of the biggest lessons is that you cannot “national sales rep” your way into trust in this category. Our best work happens when it still feels really, really local, so we’ve moved toward integrated, cross-functional teams that are rooted in their communities but supported by a cross-functional center of excellence and shared playbooks.
Q: Structurally, what changed after your promotion and the recent corporate restructuring?
Emma: We deliberately condensed the corporate structure and pulled B2B communications strategy and sales enablement under one umbrella with marketing, so we’re creating a really unified experience for partners and clients. The mandate now is integrated, cross-functional work units that share knowledge rapidly and can experiment in market while still aligning with very ambitious growth and brand goals.
Redefining “home care” for families
Q: For someone who only vaguely understands “home care,” how do you explain what TheKey actually does for clients and families?
Emma: At its simplest, we help older adults live well in the place they love, which is usually their own home, with the level of support that matches what’s really happening in their lives. That can mean anything from a few hours of help with daily activities and companionship to specialized memory care, skilled nursing in some markets, or advanced life advisory services that coordinate physicians, legal and financial resources, and complex transitions.
Q: You talk often about two “customers”: the lead client and the end client. Why is that distinction so important?
Emma: The lead client, the adult child, advisor, or partner, is usually driving the upper-funnel work: research, options, budgets. But the end client, the person receiving care, is almost always the one who decides whether the service feels dignified, trustworthy, and worth the investment, so our marketing, product design, and field teams are built around serving both of those realities simultaneously.
Technology, dignity, and the limits of automation
Q: Every corner of healthcare is buzzing about technology and AI. Where do you draw the line between innovation and intrusion when care is literally happening in someone’s living room?
Emma: The uncomfortable truth is that a lot of the people we serve do not want cameras or microphones in their homes, even if the data says it could help them. Because dignity, independence, and consent are non-negotiable for us, we’ll pilot tech, partner with innovators, and train caregivers on tools clients choose, but we will not force technology into a home where it erodes trust.
Q: So how do you keep families and partners informed without leaning entirely on devices and dashboards?
Emma: We prioritize person-centric reporting and conversation over gadget-centric monitoring. That can look like thoughtful business reviews with partners that center the people we’re jointly serving, or caregiver-led insights for families about early changes in vision, hearing, or mood that signal it’s time to adjust the care plan.
Caregiver burnout, boundaries, and better roles
Q: You’ve been candid about juggling work, kids, and parents experiencing cognitive decline. How does that personal experience inform your stance on family members as caregivers?
Emma: Caregiver burnout is very real, and our research shows it falls principally on daughters who are also raising children and working full-time. Bringing in professional caregivers gives family members permission to be wives, daughters and sons again, rather than on-call clinicians, which is incredibly rewarding. I’ve lived this work personally. Watching my father navigate a serious illness while my mother, sisters, and I took on the role of caregiver — managing medications, appointments, financial decisions, and her own exhaustion — I’ve seen firsthand how quickly families can feel overwhelmed and alone. There was no roadmap, no one to call who truly understood the full picture. That experience didn’t just shape my empathy — it has become my why. Every client we work with deserves the guidance, dignity, and support I wished my own family had.
Q: What does that mean for how TheKey trains and positions its caregivers?
Emma: Our caregivers are not just executing tasks; they are trained to recognize family dynamics, facilitate difficult conversations, and serve as a stabilizing presence during chaotic transitions, such as hospital-to-home. We see it as part of our brand promise that a daughter can see “Dad” on her phone when receiving a call or text, and feel joy or curiosity instead of dread.
Aging, agency, and the power of earlier conversations
Q: You’ve said that many families only discover home care at the tail end of a hospital stay or crisis. What would you change about how and when those conversations happen?
Emma: So much pain comes from trying to make giant, emotionally loaded decisions in the middle of a crisis. If families can normalize talking earlier about where someone wants to live, what brings them joy, and what “a good last ten years” looks like, then home care can come in sooner as a support, which often delays larger, more disruptive moves made during the chaos of crisis.
Q: For marketers and leaders outside healthcare, what’s a deeper lesson you’ve taken from building TheKey’s brand in such a fraught, emotional category?
Emma: The work is always about honoring the human on the other side of the decision, especially because the stakes are high. If you can hold space for both the spreadsheet and the grief, for the brand platform and the messy reality of a family kitchen table at 11 p.m., then you earn the right to grow, and that’s the bar we set for ourselves every day at TheKey.