00:04
Kristian Thomassen
I chose the sculpture Crouching Boy by Michelangelo, part of the exhibition, Michelangelo Imperfecto.

00:12
Kristian Thomassen
There's a lot of conversation about what the boy's doing, if he's fixing something on his feet, or if he's taking out a nail. A lot of people say that Michelangelo created this sculpture to mourn his youth.

00:26
Kristian Thomassen
The way that he's crouching over himself, you really see so many emotions come through, even though that marble is such a hard concrete medium.

00:37
Kristian Thomassen
Michelangelo always strived for perfection, which is why I think he left most of his works unfinished. He always used the body to express feelings and emotions. I think he wanted to remind himself that as human beings, we're always in progress.

00:56
Kristian Thomassen
And I think there's something beautiful about a metaphor for that in life too, that we are constantly moving, we're constantly in progress, and we are never really finished, even though we all want to be perfect.

01:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My name is Tina Jøhnk Christensen, and I'm the host of Danish Originals, a podcast series created in partnership with the American Friends of the National Gallery of Denmark and the National Gallery of Denmark. Our goal is to celebrate Danish creatives who have made a significant mark in the US.

01:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today, our guest is Kristian Thomassen, a Danish creative marketer. Welcome Kristian.

01:40
Kristian Thomassen
Thank you so much, Tina. It's a pleasure to be here.

01:43
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You are a creative marketer. What does it mean, Kristian? What is it that you do? What kind of projects do you do? What is your job?

01:51
Kristian Thomassen
It's a really good question because I think in the creative field you're sort of doing a little bit of everything. So technically I'm a creative marketer, which means that I am helping oversee creative projects and seeing how we can position them on a creative marketing level.

02:10
Kristian Thomassen
But the reality of it is also that it's a lot about handling people and doing a lot of the project management that involves all the pieces in the puzzle that needs to play out in order for you to release a campaign or do a photo shoot or anything like that.

02:29
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It sounds like you're an octopus.

02:31
Kristian Thomassen
A little bit.

02:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Kristian, you are in New York, I'm in LA. Where are you at the moment when you talk to us? Would you mind describing the location for the listeners?

02:44
Kristian Thomassen
Sure. I'm joining in from my apartment in Greenwich Village, which is sort of in the middle of Manhattan. I just love this area so much. I'm sitting at my kitchen table looking out, and the tree that I have just outside my window is starting to get green, and you can start to feel the spring vibes. And it's amazing.

03:05
Kristian Thomassen
It's an area where I have a sports bar just down in front of me and a Leon's Bagels, which is the hippest place to get a bagel right now. And there's just such a vibrant life here. It's really incredible. But then I can also walk ten minutes away from here and I'm in the Lower East Side, which is a little similar to Nørrebro back home in Denmark.

03:26
Kristian Thomassen
But then I can also go over to the West Village, which is also just ten minutes away, and that's a little more European, laid back vibe. So I feel like I have the best of both worlds here in the middle of Manhattan.

03:39
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Nice. Did you always dream of becoming the octopus? What were your dreams back then in the fairly small town of Odense? What were they like?

03:51
Kristian Thomassen
I always had a passion for expressing myself creatively. At the time, I had no idea what that meant. I've always been one of those people that I've said to myself, oh, now I want to be this, then it was, I want to be that — a photographer, a fashion designer, a strategist.

04:09
Kristian Thomassen
I think I've come to the realization now where I'm just a creative person that loves to express myself creatively in whatever form it is. I love photography. I love creative direction. And that's actually why the field that I'm in right now, which is a lot about brand storytelling on social media, and in campaigns, and stuff like that, is actually quite suiting.

04:34
Kristian Thomassen
I get to develop campaigns for brands. Often they come to our agency that I'm a part of to reach a younger demographic. And I'm obviously working together with a lot of people that have been in the industry for a long time. And while their experience is super valuable, sometimes coming in with a fresh mindset, a Gen Z mindset, it's very helpful to a project because you sort of see it from an eye level perspective instead of always putting it up on a really high level.

05:07
Kristian Thomassen
So, I don't know if my dream was always to end where I am now. I'm also very young, so everything is very much in progress, but I'm very happy where I'm at right now.

05:19
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What were your favorite subjects in school? Or were you daydreaming all day long about all the creative stuff you were gonna do?

05:27
Kristian Thomassen
You know what? I was always one of those people that my teachers, through the entire educational system, hated, because I was always someone who asked too many questions. I'm a very logical thinker. I think my favorite subject because of that was, I don't know if it's directly translated to cultural studies, because it's about how culture has developed and why we are here and history and political science. So very much about asking questions about where we are right now and what have cost us to develop as a society.

06:07
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Did you have a teacher who inspired you and who was a role model for you or maybe a guide?

06:11
Kristian Thomassen
I never had that on an educational level. I never really belonged in high school, maybe because of that, but also because I was sort of an odd soul. But then I started working in a cinema, Nordisk Film in Odense, where I grew up. And my boss there very quickly saw potential in me in terms of skills for event production.

06:37
Kristian Thomassen
One of my first shifts was for Bridget Jones Diaries, and we had a bunch of cupcakes delivered. Some were pink and some were purple, and some had candles and some didn't. And I certainly had an opinion about how we were supposed to set that up. It was my first shift. I maybe should have shut my mouth, but I just couldn't.

06:55
Kristian Thomassen
I think he realized that very quickly. And then he offered me a position in the event team, which was a big deal at the time, because you had to have education to join the team and blah, blah, blah. But I didn't. And then actually fast forward two years after that, I ended up running that event team.

07:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Wow, a very young manager, huh?

07:17
Kristian Thomassen
Exactly. But going back to your question, he saw something in me and he saw potential. I was not happy in high school, so I had to find my passion, my inspiration somewhere else. And he became that guide, my boss, to make me realize that I had potential in other areas.

07:37
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You went to Sct. Knuds Gymnasium in Odense, like I did, but —

07:41
Kristian Thomassen
Really?

07:42
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes. But you did much later. You got your diploma in 2019 —

07:48
Kristian Thomassen
Correct!

07:49
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
— and I got mine in 1990.

07:51
Kristian Thomassen
Oh, la la la la.

07:52
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Are we about 30 years apart?

07:54
Kristian Thomassen
Just a little gap.

07:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
There you go. Thinking of Sct. Knuds Gymnasium makes me personally sentimental. What does it make you feel like when you think about your high school? Yes, you said they were not great, but —

08:08
Kristian Thomassen
I have mixed feelings about my time in high school. I certainly developed as a human there. I was not happy, not because anyone was particularly mean towards me or anything, I just never really fit in. I was always the chameleon that could hang out a little bit here and a little bit there, but the downside of that is you can very quickly be forgotten.

08:32
Kristian Thomassen
Because in the social groups, there will always be someone that says, oh, we should invite these and these people. And I was always the outsider that was sort of a part of the group, but not really. There were so many instances where I wasn't invited to a lot of these things — pre-parties, pre-games, all that stuff.

08:51
Kristian Thomassen
What I did was, I started asking if I could help the school with their social media. I started doing the branding for the school. And then I became a sustainability initiatives guy, saying why is our canteen giving out things that are not recyclable? And that led me to becoming the student council president in my last year.

09:16
Kristian Thomassen
And I used every free moment I had between classes to have meetings with the principal about how we could do the school better and all that stuff.

09:27
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It doesn't sound like an outsider, Kristian. Didn't you have to be elected to become the president?

09:32
Kristian Thomassen
Yes, I guess so. It's a really good point. I don't know, I guess it's also my own insecurities that I found my people somewhere else. I didn't have that many close friends in my class. I found that community actually in the student council, where a lot of other like-minded people were also elected by their class, and stuff like that. I guess you're right. Thank you. I never saw it from that perspective, actually.

09:59
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I'm glad I could help. From there you went on to Parsons School of Design. What made you decide to jump all the way from Odense, which is a small town to those who don't know, 200,000 people or something. What made you make the jump to New York?

10:18
Kristian Thomassen
I get goosebumps because I'm also sort of at a crossroads right now. So thinking back to that time makes me a little bit emotional. When I turned 18, my parents said to me, do you wanna host a big party for all of your friends? What do you wanna do? And I said to them, going back to our conversation before, I don't really have that many friends to throw a big party for.

10:39
Kristian Thomassen
So my mom suggested, why don't we travel somewhere? Because I think that they knew that I love to get inspired and all that stuff. My mom said, where would you want to go? And then it just flew out of me. I want to go to New York. My dad actually was like, oh, you know what? I think that's gonna be a little too expensive to go to New York. And I was like, that's completely fair.

11:03
Kristian Thomassen
And I was also at a time where I was slowly starting to think about what I wanted to do after high school. And I knew — I had a little idea that I wanted to study abroad and I thought that I wanted to do that in London. So I said, why don't we use this opportunity to go to London? And they were like, yep, that's what we're gonna do.

11:22
Kristian Thomassen
And then we board a plane to London. We land in London, Tina, and my parents, they say to me, oh, we wanna give you your present now. And I said, but my birthday is not until Wednesday. Isn't that a little weird? And this was Friday. And then I opened the present and then it was one of those tourist books that says the trip goes to New York. And we were just connecting on a flight to New York.

11:51
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Oh my goodness.

11:52
Kristian Thomassen
I get goosebumps just thinking about it. Because in so many ways, my life changed so much right there on that bench in Heathrow London. So we landed in New York, and this is going to sound so cliché, but the second I put my foot down on Manhattan ground, something insane happened.

12:13
Kristian Thomassen
I had never felt a sense of belonging before. I did always feel like an odd one out, struggled to find my community. But without even having interacted with the city, it was like, bam, here is a feeling that I've never experienced before of belonging.

12:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What do you think it was? What was it about the place?

12:37
Kristian Thomassen
I think there is a feeling, a community, an environment here in New York where you're allowed to dream big and to be yourself, and it just feels like the ceiling is higher. We went straight from the hotel down to Times Square, which is the most touristy thing we could have done. But it was just magical standing there looking at all these billboards and seeing something that I had seen so many times in movies.

13:09
Kristian Thomassen
And then the following day we were walking down the streets and it just continued to amplify that. I saw so many people expressing themselves creatively, like I'd never seen before in Denmark. People were wearing funny outfits and they were singing and they were giving compliments to you on the street if they wanted to say that you had a nice outfit on.

13:34
Kristian Thomassen
I felt that feeling the first second I was there, the constant buzz that everyone keeps talking about with New York, I certainly felt that right away.

13:45
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And every outsider can find a community in New York, right?

13:48
Kristian Thomassen
I think that's the beauty of the city.

13:53
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Did you travel much before you made this big move? I know that today you are all over the place, you travel a lot.

14:01
Kristian Thomassen
I try, I love to travel. I am from a more traditional type of family that would go to Italy, for 13 years in a row, stay at the same — well, later on we upgraded to hotels, but we were staying in a camping shelter. And I loved it. We had the best vacations there.

14:19
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Where in Italy?

14:21
Kristian Thomassen
Caorle, Florence sometimes. I have so many happy memories from there, and I'm so close to my family today because of that. I also think that ignited something in me later on that I want to explore multiple cultures and stuff like that. My first big travel was that trip to New York.

14:41
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And after that, you became a student there. Talk about landing there and knowing this is going to be my new home. You're going to go in a yellow cab from JFK. What's the feeling in your stomach when that happens? I assumed you went in a cab. Some people do the bus, but I don't know, I envision you going in a yellow cab.

15:02
Kristian Thomassen
I was in a yellow cab! That's right. It's all about romanticizing your life, okay? So yes, I went in a yellow cab. No, actually it was a bit of a weird feeling. Before I left for New York, I hosted a party for my close family, saying goodbye to everyone. And I held a little speech and I started crying so hard.

15:26
Kristian Thomassen
I realized at that moment that I was saying goodbye to a life that I was reminiscing about already — I was still in it, but it was so weird. But I knew that as soon as I went on that plane, going back to Denmark was not an option in the same way. All of my family and some of my friends had given me the most beautiful speeches about how they loved me.

15:51
Kristian Thomassen
So I think I was reminded just before I left of how big of a support system I actually have in Denmark that I didn't realize when I was there. And then when I came here, it actually felt a little abrupt, a little weird. It's almost like a theater production, where the structure falls down and you're standing in the middle, through the glass, and oh wait, you have to buy toilet paper in New York too, and you have to buy salt and pepper, and where do I do my laundry?

16:19
Kristian Thomassen
All of a sudden New York was not this magical place anymore that you'd only seen in movies, now it was also my home. It was actually a bit tough in the beginning, I have to admit.

16:31
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Where did you settle in New York and what was your first home like?

16:35
Kristian Thomassen
I was so lucky that the Danish Bikubenfonden, the Bikuben Foundation, they have a townhouse on the Upper West Side, where they host 22 students from Denmark that are either studying one semester abroad or an entire year. And you can apply to live there, almost as a scholarship, but instead of them giving you a grant or money, they give you housing.

17:01
Kristian Thomassen
And I was so, so lucky to be selected to live there for my first year that I was in the city. So I lived on the Upper West Side, 74th Street, right out to Central Park. And it was incredible because I lived with so many other Danes that also decided to move abroad to study. And we were all in the same situation.

17:22
Kristian Thomassen
Like, where do we set up a bank account and what is social security — wait, I have social security from Denmark, so do I need one here too? And the management of the house were just so, so sweet in helping us with this. So it was a very safe bridge and transition for me actually to stay there my first year.

17:42
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And the toilet paper?

17:44
Kristian Thomassen
And the toilet paper I ended up buying in Trader Joe's, which is just the most magical place on earth.

17:52
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's a little supermarket.

17:53
Kristian Thomassen
It's a little supermarket where everything is branded and they make a big deal out of it. But it's also fairly affordable to do your groceries there. So it's a great place.

18:06
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How did you manage to afford studying at Parsons and later at Berkeley College? Was a young Fynbo ready for that?

18:14
Kristian Thomassen
Yeah, no, he certainly wasn't. And after we came back from that trip with my parents, I actually took a trip to New York by myself, because I needed to see if everything was correct, if I had experienced everything, if it was just a one-time thing. And that was when I went to see Parsons for the first time.

18:36
Kristian Thomassen
And I took a guided tour and I got a brochure, a flyer. And in that flyer it mentioned what it cost to study there for a semester. And I thought at the time that a semester was the whole period. So I looked at that number and I said —

18:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What was that number?

18:57
Kristian Thomassen
It was $50,000. I looked at that number and I said to myself, Ooh, that's a lot of money, but maybe I can find a way to find that money back home. And then I went home, and then I realized when I took a closer look at that flyer, that that was per semester. So you had to pay $50,000 twice a year to get your education for four years.

19:22
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah.

19:22
Kristian Thomassen
That was the biggest red flag in terms of pursuing that dream that I could have gotten. Yet, I still went for it. And I obviously spoke with my parents and they said from the beginning, we are here to support you, but we can't support you financially. We just can't. I also have a brother. Are we supposed to support him in the same way? They were very fair in that way, and I didn't expect it from him either.

19:46
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's a lot of money.

19:47
Kristian Thomassen
It's a lot of money. But I was like, okay, I'll earn enough money through my job in the cinema. I'll work here tirelessly. I worked full-time while I was still in high school, and then after high school I took two gap years where I maybe worked 90 hours a week, 100-hour plus a week. It was insane. I was opening that cinema and I was closing that cinema.

20:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Determination, huh?

20:16
Kristian Thomassen
It was very much determination because I had a goal that was New York and that was Parsons, and I thought to myself, okay, I'll go and I'll have enough money to pay for a year at the school. And after a year, maybe I've made some contacts and I'd heard that you could apply for a scholarship at the school.

20:36
Kristian Thomassen
I just thought to myself, you know what? Take that year and see where that'll take you. So I earned enough money to pay for actually one and a half years by working in the Danish cinema.

20:50
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Wow. Good for you.

20:52
Kristian Thomassen
Thank you. Yeah. I have had my fair share of popcorn.

20:56
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I am very impressed. How does one build a social and professional network from scratch when one arrives from Denmark as a young man? How did you go about it? You had that Danish Bikubenfonden place to start with, but you need more than that, right?

21:14
Kristian Thomassen
Certainly. New York is incredible, but it's also a city where you need a network in order to survive. And I was very lucky to be connected with Danish designer Camilla Stærk.

21:27
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How did you meet her?

21:28
Kristian Thomassen
I was at a student celebration graduation party in Denmark, and the person who hosted the party, I fell in conversation with her neighbor, and she was like, oh, so what do you want to do when you're done with school? And I, at the time, I said, oh, I've just been on this amazing trip to New York. I don't know what I want to do there, but I just want to go there.

21:49
Kristian Thomassen
And then she said, wait, my brother is a real estate agent in New York, so you should meet him. And she said, do you have a trip planned to New York? And I said, no, but I could have very soon. And she said, I really think you should go and meet my brother. And so I bought a trip to New York, and then I met that real estate agent. He was so kind. And him and Camilla are very good friends. So they connected me.

22:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Oh, nice.

22:18
Kristian Thomassen
Yeah. With Camilla, I met her for a coffee and it was just an instant connection. There were so many things in her story that I could relate to. She didn't move to New York first. She started in London. But the whole thing about moving away, not feeling like you belonged, pursuing your dreams abroad, we connected on such a deep level.

22:40
Kristian Thomassen
And then she sort of became my rock here in the city and that she then later on introduced me to her best friend, our supermodel, Helena Christensen. And since then, the two of them have just become my chosen family in the city.

22:58
Kristian Thomassen
And we go upstate and they bring me to events and we just have the best time and it's such a beautiful friendship and I love them so much and in so many ways. They are the core reason why I am succeeding here in the city.

23:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Oh, that's nice. I'm sure they can open doors, those two. They're both fabulous women.

23:19
Kristian Thomassen
They are incredible, both of them.

23:22
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What is it about New York City? What do you like about this bustling city that is exciting, but it's also very rough. People are a bit tough in New York.

23:35
Kristian Thomassen
I think I'm really drawn to the contrasts of the city. I had a quite unfortunate episode happen to me after my first trip that I had taken to New York. I came home and I was so inspired and I started sharing my experience with all of the people that I had in my life at the time back home. And I said, oh, I found this place and it's amazing.

24:01
Kristian Thomassen
Rocketman, the movie with Elton John, had just been released in the cinema. So I was obviously there.

24:07
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
With Taron Egerton as the lead?

24:08
Kristian Thomassen
Exactly. And that movie just inspired me to wear big glasses and colorful clothes. And I was really pushing the norms a little bit in terms of what was expected of a man in Odense, where I grew up. One night I was walking home from a movie premiere, and two guys pulled me to the ground and kicked me on the side.

24:32
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For no reason whatsoever?

24:34
Kristian Thomassen
They shouted at me and a lot of words that I don't want to repeat, but it was an experience that really gave me that contrast. I remember putting those pants back in my closet thinking I'm maybe never going to wear these again. I thought to myself, I've just found myself, I'm colorful, I wear big glasses, and then to have that experience was just so discouraging.

25:00
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah.

25:01
Kristian Thomassen
And then what I did was that I went to New York by myself and I brought those pants on my trip. And the first day that I arrived, I, for some reason thought to myself, okay, I want to test the waters. So I wore those pants out in the city.

25:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So this happened in Denmark, not in New York?

25:21
Kristian Thomassen
This happened in Denmark. Yeah.

25:23
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Oh my goodness. I thought — wow, I was talking about New York being rough. Denmark is rough.

25:28
Kristian Thomassen
Yeah. I unfortunately had that experience where Denmark was rough on me. And that's why I said that the contrasts are so beautiful in New York. I wore these pants on a walk from the Upper West Side down Fifth Avenue. And on that walk, I got five high fives.

25:46
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Great.

25:48
Kristian Thomassen
And people yelling at me, love your outfit, blah, blah, blah. So the contrast was so, so big. So yes, New York is filled with contrast and it's very rough at times, and I hate that there are so many homeless people here, but it can also be so magical.

26:04
Kristian Thomassen
It's created a place where I'm not afraid of wearing those pants anymore. I'm not afraid of wearing my big glasses because frankly, no one cares here. And if they do, they celebrate it, they celebrate you for standing out. So for me, at least right now, there's way too many pluses compared to the minuses that are here.

26:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That is good. And I'm sorry that you had that experience.

26:30
Kristian Thomassen
Yeah, thanks.

26:31
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Pretty awful. Talk about the various jobs that you've had — studio manager, production assistant, creative consulting, project coordinator — what do all these jobs entail?

26:45
Kristian Thomassen
Camilla actually connected me right when I arrived in the city with two fashion photographers. And they are very, very big names in the industry. And at the time, they had decided to take a step back from advertisement to do their coffee table book, which, for a lot of photographers, that's their body of work.

27:07
Kristian Thomassen
They had invited a lot of their A-listers to make this book and to shoot them. The book was supported by Vogue, so there was not a lot of funding but a lot of incredible people coming through. And it was a very intimate environment where I was their studio manager and they were the photographers. And then we were only hair and makeup and the lighting team, and then the talent.

27:34
Kristian Thomassen
So it was a very intimate environment where I got to have conversations with all of these insane people. And this was only a month after having arrived in the city. So it was an incredible opportunity. But when I tell that story, I also always say that after about three months, I realized, oof, the fashion industry is very toxic, because my life was very similar to The Devil Wears Prada, if you've ever seen it, Andy —

28:04
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah, I have.

28:06
Kristian Thomassen
Running around, grabbing coffee, but then also dealing with these incredible people and managing their schedules. It was incredible, but it was also awful at the time. And actually after having been there for half a year, I was completely burned out. And I was so scared because I thought to myself, I have this incredible opportunity and I'm working with the leaders of the fashion industry.

28:31
Kristian Thomassen
When we were shooting for Burberry, the CEO of Burberry came in and he was like, oh, if you ever want to do events, reach out to me. It was that level of networking after having been in the city for a month. I thought to myself, you have to pick yourself up. You can't be sad about you having too much work now. But after half a year, I just looked at myself and I said that you can't continue to do this, because I was doing my school at the time too. So I actually had to quit that job.

29:01
Kristian Thomassen
And then after that I decided to go my own ways a little bit and do creative consulting, where I took on and helped build some restaurant Instagrams, and sort of became a brand manager for a bunch of different places. And that eventually led me to the company that I'm at now, which is MA+ Group, a creative agency, where I'm doing the creative marketing like we talked about earlier.

29:32
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You also did a podcast. Tell us about that.

29:37
Kristian Thomassen
That was actually at a period where — maybe I have to mention that I actually never finished school at Parsons. Because after that one and a half year, I realized that I didn't have more money and I hadn't found opportunities to stay. So I decided, okay, you know what? I'm gonna find another school that's way cheaper that still allows me to be in the US because I had realized that it was not so much about the school and the education, it was about being in New York.

30:09
Kristian Thomassen
So I finished school there and I had a sort of weird gap between Parsons and my other school, where I was just like, it's so tough to be in New York. It really requires you to be so sharp. And we have some of the most successful Danes living here and we have so many Danes that have incredible stories that have decided to move abroad. Exactly like your podcast.

30:35
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah.

30:36
Kristian Thomassen
And I was like, wait, how have all of these people made it possible? What are their stories? What are their drivers? I decided to launch my podcast. It was quite successful, but I simply just didn't have the time to continue it. I'm sure you know that it requires a lot of work to do a podcast —

30:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It does, yes.

30:59
Kristian Thomassen
And I couldn't do it as a side geschäft.

31:03
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Kristian, what are you good at? You can leave the Danish Janteloven, the one that tells us not to be better than anybody else, behind, when you answer and do it the American way. What are your strengths?

31:18
Kristian Thomassen
Yeah. Now I really have to tap into the American elevator pitch.

31:21
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes, you do. Leave Funen behind.

31:24
Kristian Thomassen
Oh my God. Funen is also sort of part of it. I think networking is a huge part of succeeding in New York. Meeting the right people creates opportunities, and someone once told me all new business in New York happens after 6:00 pm.

31:41
Kristian Thomassen
It's an idea that it happens when you're having cocktails and you're meeting people and you're talking about nothing, but you always talk about work. So it's like, oh, I work for this creative agency and we do campaigns and we do this and that. And then they say, oh, you know, I actually have a brand and I want to do a campaign. And oh, okay, maybe we can connect. And then you reach out Monday morning.

32:03
Kristian Thomassen
But I genuinely love meeting new people and speaking with them. I'm very interested in other people's stories. It's also not a bad thing for me that I have my curls and my big glasses. Because people, they remember me from that. Some would call it a talent, but it is driven by a genuine passion to meet new people. I'm just very lucky that that's the arena that I'm in here in New York.

32:29
Kristian Thomassen
And it goes back to the whole idea about wanting to express yourself creatively. I almost use myself as the medium to say, okay, here I am and yes, I have big curly hair and I have big glasses and take it or leave it. And luckily that's celebrated in New York.

32:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah. You also have blonde hair and blue eyes.

32:51
Kristian Thomassen
It's my Danish resume that's walking with me.

32:56
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes. You mentioned Helena Christensen and Camilla Stærk as part of your community. Do you have a big network in terms of fellow Danes? And do you stay connected to the Danish community in New York?

33:09
Kristian Thomassen
Thank you for that question. It's weird because when I moved, I remember thinking to myself, I don't want to interact that much with Danes in the city. I want to meet some international people, I want to grow my horizon. And now it's very interesting that most of my friends in the city are Danes.

33:33
Kristian Thomassen
And I think it's just because something happens when you're moving away from Denmark. You almost become more Danish. I don't know if you can relate to that, Tina. I kind of liked black licorice when I moved here. I love black licorice now. I didn't realize that I liked rye bread at the time. I am craving rye bread every day.

33:55
Kristian Thomassen
I'm not that big into watching football, but I always watch the Danish team play handball, and all the national sports. I'm connected with my inner Dane more after I moved abroad. And I think there's just something beautiful about sharing your upbringing, that when I say to someone that I'm from Funen and I'm from a little town outside of Odense, they know what I'm talking about.

34:19
Kristian Thomassen
When I explain that I'm from Funen to someone that grew up in California, they're like, is that a street in Amsterdam? It creates a level of deeper connection that is very beautiful to have so far away from home.

34:35
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I have the thing with leverpostej now, it's a liver pate, and I have like a thick layer on rye bread when I go home. So I know what you're talking about.

34:44
Kristian Thomassen
Yeah. It's dangerous.

34:47
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you also feel a little Americanized now, or are you a Dane in New York?

34:55
Kristian Thomassen
I'll say that I'm Americanized, of course, to a certain extent, but the thing with New York is that it's so multicultural. There's so much life here and so many stories, and it's very rare, actually, that you meet someone who's from New York. We're almost all expats in New York.

35:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you also feel that you bring something particularly Danish to what you do?

35:21
Kristian Thomassen
Absolutely. And it's actually in a little weird way. Before I got there, no one took the torch of throwing team lunches and getting together for drinks and stuff like that. And I don't know what it is, but I just can't not have that. So I'm really always trying to get the team together for lunch or drinks after work or stuff like that.

35:47
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
At this early stage in life, you are in your 20s. Do you have a philosophy that you live by?

35:54
Kristian Thomassen
Yes, I do. I always loved Pippi Longstocking. Her mentality of I've never done that, so I probably know how to do it. I love that saying. It's like, no, I haven't done that before, but sure, I'll figure it out. And I think that's the mentality you need to have to succeed here in the city. Not the fake it till you make it, but at least manifest it and execute it until it's your reality.

36:27
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That character was fantastic. Astrid Lindgren's.

36:30
Kristian Thomassen
I love it.

36:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I loved those when I was a kid. You've mentioned it a few times, how important is social media — Instagram, for instance, for your career, thinking about how you present yourself professionally?

36:45
Kristian Thomassen
So the thing is that social media has sort of become your online resume. And whether you like it or not, if you have a public account, you are a brand, you are your own brand. And you have to put yourself out there in a way that when my employer goes in and looks me up, they'll see this account.

37:12
Kristian Thomassen
So you have to present yourself in a way that looks creative, or at least for me, because that's the field that I'm in. You never give out a business card anymore. You give out your Instagram, you connect on Instagram. So if I'm at an event and I am connecting with a big shot for a company and I give them an account that looks awful, they're not gonna follow back.

37:35
Kristian Thomassen
So you have to make it look like someone you'd want to interact with. So I'm genuinely trying to just portray my life, but obviously I am also at fault for portraying most of the good things and not so much the bad things. But unfortunately, that's social media.

37:53
Kristian Thomassen
But then there's this other element of social media now, which is my field of work, which is about how a brand then actually puts themselves forward. And it's very interesting to be a part of creating campaigns for some of the world's biggest brands. Right now we are working with Apple, Loro Piana, Gucci, all of these brands that are incredible and that are fighting every day to remain relevant. And that's the conversation that I'm a part of.

38:27
Kristian Thomassen
The beauty about working here in New York is that we are not working with an office of Loro Piana in Italy or something. We're working with the headquarters, we're working with the marketing manager, and that makes the decision big and the budgets big, but that also makes it really fun.

38:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And a lot of talks, a lot of thought, behind just one post, right?

38:52
Kristian Thomassen
I mean, that's insane. That's incredible how we launch a campaign and it lives there on social media, or if we're lucky enough, it's printed on a billboard or something and you have no idea. We've spent half a year talking about that billboard right there, and it's being taken down tomorrow.

39:14
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah. Yeah.

39:15
Kristian Thomassen
It's so fast paced.

39:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Does it come natural to you to be on social media and to post? I'm in my 50s. For me, it takes effort and it's not always great fun. You have to remember to post something. But it seems more ingrained in younger generations.

39:33
Kristian Thomassen
It's actually something that I would love to live without, but I feel I can't. I feel like I need to use it as a tool in the field that I'm in. Also, not just for my own brand, but to stay on top of what's happening in the field that I'm working in. Marketing is so fast paced, and something happens every day that needs to inform the campaign you're working on right now.

40:01
Kristian Thomassen
I grew up with social media, but it's not that I'm thoroughly enjoying posting. And that reminds me that I should post something today, so maybe I'll put a note here!

40:14
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Thank you for telling me that. Thank you. Now I feel better.

40:18
Kristian Thomassen
It is a bit of a chore, but it's part of the game that needs to be done and executed to be here.

40:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I'm sure you have so much going on, but what are the most important future plans to fulfill on the top of your list?

40:34
Kristian Thomassen
It's a tough question. Before I moved to New York, I was very results-driven. I wanted to get into a really good position. I wanted to work for these and these people and blah, blah, blah. And I think I've realized now that it's such a process and that it's so dynamic being here, and I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.

40:59
Kristian Thomassen
I don't know what opportunity will happen tomorrow. I have to learn myself to be in the moment to enjoy where I'm at right now, and then let myself towards the direction that I'm being pulled in. Because like I said to you, every brand needs creative marketing and storytelling.

41:19
Kristian Thomassen
So whether that's in hospitality or in luxury or any sort of other field. If it's for a toothpaste company, I don't know. But I want to remain open-minded and just explore what that means. If we would've had this conversation right before I moved to New York listing all the things that I've achieved now in the past four years, I would've said, that's impossible.

41:44
Kristian Thomassen
So I feel like I want to allow myself to be able to say in ten years, oh, you know what? That was insane what I did the past ten years too.

41:54
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Fantastic. I like that. My final question to you, it's 12:00 pm in LA, 3:00 pm in New York. What are you going to do after we finish our chat?

42:06
Kristian Thomassen
I'm going to work. I'm finishing the day, my boss was kind enough to let me take this interview from home. So I'm in my apartment and I'm going to finish the work after this call. We have a very big pitch for a client on Monday, a potential client. So we are getting ready to position ourselves to become relevant for this brand. So I am going to use most of my day today and the entire weekend doing that.

42:37
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Oh, you're going to work during the weekend?

42:40
Kristian Thomassen
Yes. We don't really have weekends here.

42:42
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah. Yeah. That's like my life.

42:44
Kristian Thomassen
Yeah.

42:46
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Alright, Kristian, thank you so much for being part of Danish Originals. We really appreciate you being with us.

42:53
Kristian Thomassen
Thank you so much for having me. I'm such a fan of the show, and I think it's so wonderful to feel connected with other Danes that have taken their life abroad.

43:03
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Oh, thank you so much for saying that. We appreciate that too.

43:10
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Kristian Thomassen chose Michelangelo Buonarroti's Siddende dreng or Crouching Boy from 1915 from the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark.