Interview with Tanya Wigmore, Founder of CRO:NYX Digital

After selling her agency in Canada and relocating to the Cayman Islands five years ago with her family, Tanya Wigmore, Founder and Strategist at CRO:NYX Digital, has established herself in Cayman and grown her own Cayman-born business over the last few years.

Not only was Tanya responsible for the latest CEC website relaunch, but as someone who has seen how CEC has changed and evolved over the years, we wanted to catch up with her and get her perspective on business and life in Cayman.

CEC: What prompted you to establish a new business in Cayman?
TW: When I first arrived in Cayman, I wasn’t working and I got really bored really fast, so I went looking for work to see what’s out there but was really discouraged by the lack of digital marketing careers in Cayman. Had I known about CEC before I moved here, I would have relocated my agency from Canada to Cayman because I had a good team, good clients, and it would be a perfect way to maintain what I had already built. But I didn’t know about CEC at that time, as CEC was still quite new.

When I started looking around for work, a friend of mine put me in touch with another CEC company who was looking for someone. It was a great fit and that’s how I learned about CEC. I then opened CRO:NYX two years ago when I was ready to give entrepreneurship another go. I focused on consulting, and then over the last year, with COVID-19 especially, we’ve picked up a lot more clients and our agency is growing!

CEC: And how have you found CEC to have evolved over the last five years?
TW: It’s matured so much ! When CEC first started, it was very much an idea, playing around with how to make it work, how to bring it to life, who is the ideal fit for the Zone, and what does this business incubator mean to the community.

Over the last five years, I think it’s really identified and defined not just what CEC means to international businesses that want to relocate and live life here in Cayman, but also how integral they are in the community by offering skills training, providing internships, and the community events that they put on, and now with Launch Labs, too.

You can see how CEC are leveraging the talent that is coming into the island to really give back to the community and provide more opportunities. I think this is something they thought about from the start as a potential benefit, but didn’t really see how impactful it would be.

It’s really cool to watch Cayman Enterprise City mature, grow up and now be more of the business leader and mentor in the community that they can be.

CEC: What has the CEC community meant to you in terms of developing and growing your own business?
TW: My team and clients are all overseas and that can be really lonely at times. Being able to network with other like-minded individuals and entrepreneurs has been really nice. It’s great to have people to chat with and collaborate with in person, and to watch their businesses and ideas grow too. I have had the opportunity to collaborate with other CEC companies on their own marketing initiatives as well. I’ve met some really cool business owners and team members, and there are a lot of great opportunities there. And it’s nice to have that sense of community.

CEC: You’ve just helped relaunched the CEC website, can you share more about that project?
TW: Yes! That’s another good example of a lot of people working together to make magic happen. So we are just one of a few different agencies that worked on that project and I am so proud of how the site turned out. Being able to work with other people on it was really cool. It came together so well. We knew that their last design was dated and we wanted to make sure that the new site would have the flexibility to grow with them for the coming years. We planned and built the website a modular way using pattern-driven design so that each of the patterns or sections on a page can be reused on different pages and give them the ability to build infinite page templates out of the few we worked on with them.

Now CEC has that flexibility to continue to build and re-expand the website as new initiatives come up, new parks are launched, and other priorities and campaigns change. This is really important for CEC because they need to be able to adapt quickly to changes to the market, the international community, and also to regulations and international policy. I hope that CEC now has ability to change as needed.

CEC: What’s your favourite thing about working with CEC?
TW: I have worked with CEC for many years, and they are a great partner. It’s nice to support them and it’s rewarding to help them grow. But what I love most is how they are really invested in helping the local Cayman community grow as well. It’s an added bonus that they genuinely want to see their clients succeed and have shared opportunities with me that will help me grow my business.

CEC: And as for Cayman itself, what do you like about being based here?
TW: No winter. I’m so anti-winter. And in Calgary this week, it’s been -35°C, with wind chill -42°C. My family gets mad at me when take calls on my patio in front of the ocean and they’re sitting in a Polar vortex. And that’s a big part of it. It’s just being able to be outside. Winter is so confining. Being in your car for traffic, and having to commute and you get home and you can’t do anything because it’s cold and dark.

In Cayman, being able to just go outside year round or to just hop over to the beach is so nice. And everything is so close! You can actually run to the grocery store for ten minutes whereas, in the city, it’s a half-hour drive anywhere you go. So every outing is an ordeal. And for me, for my children, they run around free in the yard and I don’t have to worry about them like I would in the big city. When you think about Camana Bay, how many unsupervised children are there running around? You wouldn’t do that in the city. They’re free to be kids here.

CEC: Do you have any favourite weekend outdoor activities?
TW: We like to go paddle boarding and snorkelling. Our weekends include a lot of birthday parties and sports due to our kids’ active social calender but when I get some downtime I like to sit out in the hammock and read a book.

Right now, my daughter is in a really cool art program with the National Art Gallery, and my son’s in sports. There is no shortage of things for them to do and that in turn keeps my weekends full.

CEC: Any last words on what CEC has provided your business over the years?
TW: I would say that CEC has been great in providing opportunities to help us grow. For example, the internship program, and especially the pre-screening of the interns, is really great. As a start-up and entrepreneur, this saves me a lot of time and frustration, I know that I’m getting the cream of the crop. That’s been a really great opportunity from CEC!

A big thank you to Tanya Wigmore of CRO:NYX for sitting down with us. Are you an innovative business in the quest for growth? CEC is here to help! We make growing an international business from the Cayman Islands easy, affordable and functional. If you would like to learn more about our services visit our business set-up page.