Head of Marketing at 10Duke.
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Welcome to our series of blog interviews, where we get behind the scenes and find out what makes the people at 10Duke tick. For this edition, we spoke with Emily Delva, who manages operations at 10Duke.
Hi Emily, could you share a little about what your role entails here at 10Duke?
Sure! So in a nutshell it’s my job to make it possible for everyone at 10Duke to produce excellent work. There are a lot of moving parts, and we like to move fast (where appropriate). I make sure our teams actually have the tools, software, and resources they need to do their jobs. I also spend time looking into how we all work together and find ways to smooth out any friction. If a process is slow or frustrating, it’s my job to fix it. Ultimately, my goal is to handle the operational heavy lifting behind the scenes so everyone else can focus on what they do best.
After completing an MSc in Tropical Marine Biology you also returned to university to do a PhD in Bioinformatics/Metagenomics - what did this involve?
I did indeed. It involved a lot of time management, I was actually working full time whilst working on my research. Bioinformatics is essentially the combination of biology and computational work, where computational workflows are used to answer big biological questions. The majority of my research was into how temperature affects bacterial populations in various marine environments, as well as investigating whether certain tool choices/data management techniques would affect the inferences made by the researchers.
We took small samples of water (you could use soil, air, snow) and spent time in the lab extracting all the scraps of DNA available. Then we used computer programs (or built them) to identify what species those scraps of DNA belonged to.
What brought you to 10Duke and what are you working on at the moment?
I held the role of Project Manager at 10Duke previously, and everything about the team here is excellent. We work hard to ensure our coworkers and customers get the best from us, and it’s a real sense of achievement.
I have a couple of plates spinning currently, including how we use AI tools internally to improve workflows, as well as focusing on internal documentation so everything someone could ever need is available to them.
Documentation has always been a core part of how 10Duke gets customers to a successful implementation, especially given how technical our audience tends to be. Developers and technical teams at ISVs want to self-serve, so the quality and depth of our docs directly affects time to value.
What we're doing now is adding an AI layer on top of that documentation, so customers can ask questions in natural language and get pointed straight to the relevant answer, rather than having to search or browse through pages themselves. It's about making the existing knowledge base more interactive: instead of a one-way resource, it becomes something customers can have a conversation with.
What are the typical kind of challenges you encounter when helping 10Duke customers with their software licensing?
A lot of the time, it can be a struggle for customers to come to a new licensing solution where naming conventions are different to what they were previously using. I think we all have an excellent ‘back-to-basics’ approach where we ensure that nothing goes unanswered for our customers.
Licensing is also only a small part of our customers day, whereas it’s the entirety of ours. It means we’re the best placed to help our customers with use case questions, implementation requirements or bug fixes.
Where do you get inspiration from to help you in your role?
I absolutely thrive in knowing that what I’m doing supports the team and therefore our customers. Every small improvement I can be a part of reflects just how much care we as a company take in our work.
I also have to shout out the wonderful human that is my mum, every single positive personality trait I have is because of her. She worked so hard to raise me and my sisters, giving us everything we needed - and she continues to work hard now. She taught me that good things come to those who put in the effort, who care about other people and who strive every day to be better for themselves as well as everyone around them.
What are 3 things you love outside of work?
My cats, I have 5 (a new one joined the pack in July).
Coffee, I have an espresso machine and loooove trying out new coffee beans! Every time I visit our Finland office I take 1kg of coffee beans for the caffeine-loving squad over there.
Reading, in 2025 I read 249 books. Currently at 86 for 2026 and going strong.
