Emily Downey

Emily has spent 20 years in Japan beginning in publishing now in Sports Marketing, recently signing a global partnership with Spartan and Rakuten. With Spartan she has created a whole new participation sports category in Japan that of Obstacle Course Racing, OCR. Spartan is the largest branded participation sport in the world, with 1+ million racers in 41 countries. Japan is the most recent market with sellout events of thousand of Japanese men and women of all ages, signing up to get muddy and wet, testing themselves across dozens of obstacles to complete the 5K, 13K and 21K courses. Spartan is a wholly digitally run and marketed brand, leading to onsite experiential touch-points between brands and consumers.