Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Human Powered: High-performing agency & consultancy teams

How do you lead through mergers, restructures and AI disruption without losing the trust of your team?

Nick Towers is CEO of the digital experience consultancy Remarkable. Since taking over the business, he went on to acquire three more businesses before bringing them together under a single brand. Along the way, he's led restructures, international expansion and difficult redundancies while keeping people and culture at the centre of every decision.


In this episode, Nick shares how he:

• Brings multiple businesses together by involving people early and building trust through constant communication
• Creates certainty during change by explaining the process and timelines, even when the outcome isn't yet known
• Uses the ADKAR change framework to structure communication, training and adoption during major change
• Builds a culture around being a genuine joy to work with - for clients, colleagues and the wider community
• Treats AI as a growth opportunity rather than a headcount reduction exercise, positioning it as an enabler instead of a threat
• Balances global consistency with local culture so teams feel part of one business wherever they work

Nick offers a thoughtful perspective on leading through uncertainty, showing that successful change depends as much on trust and communication as it does on strategy.

How do you build an agency where people don't just work – they genuinely want to belong?

Julie Oxberry is Co-Founder of Household, the brand experience design agency in London and New York. 22 years after launching the business, she shares how culture is built through trust, communications and giving creative people the freedom to do their best work.


In this episode, Julie shares how she:

• Builds belonging through deliberate rituals, from weekly agency-wide meetings to fast-paced Pecha Kucha sessions that help people get to know each other
• Uses transparency, shared ownership and B Corp principles to create a culture built on trust rather than hierarchy
• Links everyone’s objectives directly back to the agency's growth plan, ensuring performance is measured through both results and values
• Believes creativity thrives when people have clear commercial boundaries, fast decision-making and the freedom to move without micromanagement
• Applies the idea of creating "fans, not customers" internally, building a team that stays committed because it understands and believes in the business
• Learnt that leadership means communicating before every answer is known and stepping back so others can step forward

Julie offers a thoughtful perspective on building an enduring creative business - showing that trust, transparency and a genuine sense of belonging create a stronger business than control ever can.

How do you evolve a founder-led agency into a truly global business - without losing the entrepreneurial spirit that made it successful?

Toby Southgate is Global CEO of We Are Social, the socially-led creative agency. Having taken over from the founders, he now leads 1200 people across 16 offices worldwide, helping the business mature into its next stage of growth while protecting the culture that fuelled its success.


In this episode, Toby shares how he:

• Turned 16 independently operating offices into one connected global agency through structure, communication and shared leadership
• Introduced the idea of a global constituency, so everyone sees themselves as part of something much bigger than just their local team
• Believes leaders should communicate change relentlessly, explaining not just what's happening but why it matters
• Protects teams by absorbing commercial pressure rather than passing it down through the organisation
• Preserves an entrepreneurial mindset by giving teams space to adapt inside clear behavioural frameworks
• Embeds culture throughout the employee journey instead of relying on values written on office walls

Toby offers a thoughtful perspective on leading after founders, building trust through transparency and creating an organisation where people feel connected, supported and able to do their best work.

How do you scale a consultancy without becoming the bottleneck yourself?

Ben Tye is CEO of Gate One, the growth transformation consultancy within Havas. Alongside leading a 300-person business across three continents, he also works as a psychotherapist - giving him a unique perspective on leadership, organisational change and human behaviour.


In this episode, Ben shares how he:

• Explains why giving someone your complete attention is often more valuable than offering a quick solution
• Uses psychotherapy principles to uncover what sits beneath resistance, conflict and indecision inside leadership teams
• Trains managers to coach rather than rescue, reducing dependency and encouraging genuine accountability
• Organises a growing consultancy around “bases” that give people both a sense of belonging and a platform to grow from
• Transitioned Gate One from founder-led decision-making to distributed leadership with clearer ownership across the business
• Learnt that the hardest leadership shift is letting teams solve problems without stepping in to fix them

Ben offers a thoughtful perspective on what leaders need to unlearn as their organisations grow - and why curiosity often beats certainty.

How do you transform an established agency without losing the people who made it successful in the first place?

Chris Jones is CEO of Space & Time, the growth marketing agency he acquired through a management buyout in 2018. Since then, he’s led the business through a major repositioning to focus on commercial growth, innovation and long-term client impact.

In this episode, Chris shares how he:

• Protected the agency’s strongest qualities while redesigning how the business delivers value to clients
• Reframed client conversations around revenue, business outcomes and commercial impact rather than marketing metrics
• Developed a 10-year AI vision centred on amplifying human talent rather than replacing it, helping drive adoption across the business
• Built an innovation culture by giving employees the confidence to experiment with AI and lead new initiatives
• Created an internal ‘Netflix-style’ learning platform where teams share innovations, experiments and lessons across the agency
• Helped sceptical employees embrace major change through direct conversations, transparency and relentless communication

Chris offers a practical perspective on agency transformation, showing that change is rarely about processes alone. It comes from creating clarity, communicating consistently and helping people build confidence in the journey ahead.

How do you step into your first CEO role, make difficult restructuring decisions whilst merging two businesses and still build trust quickly?

Rebecca Crook is CEO of MSQ DX, the digital impact company. She leads a 150-person business across the UK and Spain as part of the wider 550-person global MSQ DX group.

In this episode, Rebecca shares how she:

• Learned that first-time CEOs should throw away their perfect 100-day plan and spend far longer listening than acting
• Redefined high performance around client commercial outcomes - and not utilisation, delivery milestones or agency output
• Built trust during a major merger through radical transparency, open access and a genuine “Ask Me Anything” culture
• Created unusually high engagement with internal comms with optional all-hands deep dives, team-led sessions and practical forums
• Hired an AI Collaboration Director to align the business around an AI strategy for its people
• Uses office culture deliberately to accelerate learning - especially for younger talent who benefit from informal day-to-day exposure

Rebecca offers a candid look at leading through uncertainty, making difficult calls early and why trust is the operating system behind meaningful change.

How do you transform a 1600-person global agency without leaving your people behind?

Annabelle Walters is Global Chief People Officer at Jellyfish, leading the people and talent strategy across 30 offices in 22 countries. She’s helping reshape performance, culture and leadership while preparing the business for an AI-driven future.

In this episode, Annabelle shares how she:

• Defines high performance around impact - and not visibility, busyness or activity
• Pushes leaders to talk openly about change, rather than letting uncertainty fill the gaps
• Treats AI adoption as a shared responsibility between the business and individual employees
• Rebuilt performance management to connect individual goals to wider business outcomes
• Explains why removing line managers created distance between leaders and their people
• Uses radical transparency, frequent town halls and open dialogue to keep a global business aligned

Annabelle offers a candid perspective on how to lead people through large-scale transformation and prepare teams for an AI-shaped future.

How do you build a culture that people believe in - and behave differently because of?

Alex Willcocks is Founder and Managing Director of Engage, a 60-person digital agency. He’s grown the business over the past 18 years with a relentless focus on people, culture and performance. More recently, he transitioned the business to employee ownership.

In this episode, Alex shares how he:

• Created three values that are deliberately impossible to copy into any other business
• Uses those values as an anchor for performance and to shape how people think and act
• Built a detailed competency framework where behaviours map directly back to each value at every level
• Reframes performance improvement plans as a way to support people back to their best, not manage them out
• Introduced employee representatives on the board to improve decisions and remove a “them and us” dynamic
• Runs the “Elympics” to drive energy, wellbeing and connection - while raising money for local charities

Alex shows what it looks like when culture is consistent over time, and how clarity, ownership and shared standards compound into real performance.

How do you keep culture sharp, standards high and people engaged as an agency grows?

Jessica Hargreaves Paczek is CEO of Pretty Green, the creative comms agency behind global fame-making campaigns. She leads a 70-person team and has helped build an agency that’s been named a Best Place to Work for four years in a row.


In this episode, Jess shares how she:

• Uses EOS to give everyone clear accountabilities, quarterly priorities and a strong sense of where they fit
• Treats people, purpose and performance as inseparable (rather than seeing culture as a side project)
• Has turned their values into behaviours, giving teams practical permission to take smart risks and give clearer feedback
• Invests heavily in team feedback, from CEO one-to-ones to internal focus groups that surface issues leadership might otherwise miss
• Brings talent, onboarding, retention and social impact close together through a heavily resourced people function
• Runs the ‘CanCanLion’ Awards, to recognise and reward outstanding ‘less ordinary’ and creative work

Jess offers a thoughtful look at what it takes to build a high-performing agency culture - more clarity, more listening, more repetition and a willingness to keep tightening the system as the business evolves.

How do you grow 37% in a tough market without letting culture, trust or performance slip?

Chris Pearce is Managing Director of Greenpark, the global digital content agency. He’s been running the business for the past 18 months, leading a team of 250 people across six countries during a period of rapid growth.

In this episode, Chris shares how he:

• Defines high performance using the trust equation - credibility, reliability and intimacy
• Recognises that leaders cast a shadow - and that people copy what you do, not what you say
• Knows that impact intended and impact felt are rarely the same
• Uses multi-channel repetition to keep values front of mind across a remote, global team
• Resists panic hiring during rapid growth, even when teams are stretched and momentum is high
• Invests heavily in operational rigour, recognising that growth can easily mask deeper problems

Chris offers a grounded perspective on scaling at pace - and on why humility and trust matter most when momentum is high.

How do you take over from agency founders and scale the business without losing trust, culture or momentum?

James Leavesley is CEO of Torchbox, the digital agency for innovative nonprofits. He leads a 110-person team, having taken over as the agency transitioned to employee ownership.

In this episode, James shares how he:

• Scaled Torchbox from 50 to 110 people by changing how decisions are made, owned and communicated
• Replaced intuitive founder-style leadership with clear processes, without slowing the business down
• Took over from long-standing founders without trying to replace them or their personalities
• Shifted from protecting people in internal comms to being transparent with context, preventing speculation and unhelpful stories filling the gaps
• Keeps teams aligned using practical frameworks like the SCARF model and the Vital Few, even in a fully remote business
• Protects innovation from BAU through a dedicated innovation lab, close links to delivery teams and a client co-funding model

James offers a candid look at what really changes once an agency moves beyond founder-led scale, and what it takes to keep the business healthy as it grows.

How do you build an agency group that’s more than the sum of its parts?

Tina Judic is Co-Founder and Chairman of the independent agency network Tomorrow Group. She founded the search agency, Found, 17 years ago and has since built this into a group of five agencies.

In this episode, Tina shares how she:

• Stepped aside from running her own agency to lead at group level, overseeing and empowering MDs across the businesses
• Protects the distinct culture of each agency while aligning them to deliver greater group-wide impact
• Spun out the data team into a standalone business with its own brand - and learnt some hard lessons along the way
• Acquired agencies and learned why protecting rhythm and culture matters, deliberately keeping each one independent
• Created group-wide roles across AI, delivery and growth to connect the businesses and drive consistency
• Anchors impact around four core traits across the group - curiosity, drive, honesty and empathy

Tina candidly explains what it really takes to move from running one agency to leading a group of businesses that thrive together.

How do you align an entire business around a set of outcomes?

Zoë Blogg is Managing Director of the search marketing and digital PR agency Reboot. She took over the business from its founders just six months ago.

In this episode, Zoë shares how she:

• Shifted from Operations Director, focused on fixing everything, to leading the entire business
• Runs two weekly sprint cycles with the Senior Leadership Team, focused on outcomes tied to annual OKRs
• Shares weekly OKR progress with the entire team, so everyone understands how the business is performing
• Works to an annual plan - but no longer plans further ahead due to rapid market shifts
• Uses the 9-box grid to track performance and potential, and to monitor people’s progress over time
• Runs a weekly client-skills session for all client-facing team members

Zoë leads Reboot on a 4-day working week, which has driven clear gains in productivity, utilisation, creativity, revenue and profit.

How do you get the absolute best out of everyone in your team?

Jon Goulding is Founder & CEO of the creative agency Atomic. He runs a group of four agencies united by one mission: to unleash the superpower in brands.

In this episode, Jon shares how he:

• Grounds the agency’s work in four principles - being unmistakable, unmissable, unforgettable, and unlimited - to unleash the superpower in brands
• Believes every person has a superpower, and that his job is to identify, describe and nurture it
• Focuses on amplifying people’s superpowers (rather than fixing their weaknesses)
• Builds teams around complementary superpowers
• Encourages healthy collisions, bringing together different people and skills to create something new and exciting
• Inspires everyone in the team to have an unhealthy need for responsibility

Jon fundamentally believes in the power of the superpower - and that each one is shaped by three major life events, all experienced before the age of 25.

How do you build a thriving team and happy clients using DISC personality profiling?

Victoria Usher is CEO and Founder of the multi-award-winning B2B tech PR consultancy Gingermay. She’s been running the global consultancy for 16 years.

In this episode, Victoria shares how she:

• Has a senior team member meet 1-to-1 with each client every month, contributing to impressive long-term client retention
• Uses seven core competencies that all team members self-score against every three months
• Sent her team to acting lessons to help them put on a professional mask, set their body language and use the correct micro-expressions
• Coaches the team on DISC profiling so everyone understands each other’s personality types and communication styles
• Profiles clients’ DISC profiles, matches them with similar team profiles and tailors communications accordingly
• Uses DISC to put people into roles that align with their strengths and core motivations

Victoria is a passionate advocate for boosting emotional intelligence and self-awareness across her team - and it’s working, with client NPS scores at their highest ever levels.

How do you transition from a full-time YouTuber to running a 100-person agency?

Mike Craddock is Co-Founder & CEO of the social creative agency NewGen. He’s been running the business for 10 years and leads a team of 100 people across the UK, New York, and Paris.

In this episode, Mike shares how he:

• Instils the mantra “Slow down to speed up”, after growing the agency too quickly at the expense of quality in the early days
• Has a ‘F**K It Bucket,’ a monthly pot of money the team can spend however they want to support current or new clients
• Pushes responsibility down by creating multi-disciplinary teams to solve business problems and drive initiatives
• Challenges account teams to take a new initiative to a client at least once every 3 months, and share what they’ve done differently every 2 weeks
• Ensures senior people have 10–20% free capacity to think and bring proactive ideas to clients
• Runs a GG NewGen Slack channel where people praise each other and react using custom emojis representing their values

More recently, Mike has made a number of senior hires to take the business to the next level, engaging the wider team throughout the hiring process so everyone understands the new roles.

How do you reinvent the traditional agency model?

Samppa Vilkuna is Founder & CEO of the creative company, Superson. He leads a small in-house team alongside more than 400 specialists worldwide.

In this episode, Samppa shares how he:

• Set up the business to be the Airbnb of the agency world - the world’s best creative agency without a single creative person
• Resources from a massive pool of freelancers, so there’s never a conflict of interest in having to sell his team’s skills to clients
• Hires freelancers based on skillset, location, and personal interests - so he can always provide the best possible team for clients
• Has processes to ensure newly formed teams rapidly become high-performing
• Creates a sense of belonging for freelancers so they feel part of the Superson community 
• Truly collaborates with clients, co-creating work alongside them and eliminating the need to sell it in

Samppa used to work in-house. Frustrated by his suppliers, he set up his own agency with a flexible talent pool - so the team is always the best possible fit for clients’ needs.

How do you help 300 people understand their impact on the business?

Victoria Sugg is CEO of the creative comms agency, Emperor. She’s been leading a team of over 300 people across the UK and UAE for the past 3 years.

In this episode, Victoria shares how she:

• Regularly explains what’s happening with the business and its strategy, then translates this into what it means for everyone day-to-day
• Sits down with all new joiners to explain the history, culture, ambition, and their role in achieving it
• Maintains channels to stay connected to the team, understanding what they think and want from the business
• Has a Partner Board of diverse team members, acting as a bridge between the wider team and leadership
• Is hyper-transparent about business performance and how everyone can influence it
• Observes the five B Corp buckets - governance, clients, environment, community, people

With a strong background in new business, Victoria has a people-centred leadership style and encourages her team to be proactive, interested, and interesting.

How do you embed the idea of being extraordinary into every aspect of your business

Jon Lonsdale is CEO of the B2B marketing agency Publicis Pro, which he’s led for almost 25 years. Originally Octopus Group, they were acquired by Publicis in 2021.

In this episode, Jon shares how he:

• Reviewed everyone’s job specs to define what an extraordinary version of each role looks like
• Moved from using values to behaviours, to show the team what extraordinary looks like
• Has intentionally maintained key habits to drive culture, from their annual festival to their Monday morning meetings
• Runs a ‘Spotted’ competition each month, where people highlight the best campaigns they've seen outside of work
• Founded the agency with the mantra: "Let’s create the best job ever for the people who work for us"
• Navigated the Publicis acquisition so his team got the best of having an indie culture and being part of a larger group

Jon and his co-founders have led the business for nearly 25 years, maintaining consistency and a long-term approach to decisions.

How do you drive people through the intensity of agency life while still offering strong support?

Rebecca Hull is Managing Director at manifesto, part of the publicly listed TPXimpact, where she’s led a team of 100 people for 4 years.

In this episode, Rebecca shares how she:

• Organises the business around conscious leadership and helping people operate 'above the line'
• Uses their manifesto to guide day-to-day behaviour
• Empowers people to come together around high-value moments, fostering internal communities
• Invests in leadership coaching, creating a ripple effect throughout the teams
• Has navigated much of her career as a single parent, giving her deep empathy for people's personal circumstances
• Applies her lived experiences of working brand-side to agency leadership

Rebecca was tasked with merging three businesses into one just one week into her role. She shares her empathy-led, programmatic approach to the integration - and discusses much more.

How do you rapidly scale a profitable agency in just two years?

Vicky Hope is Co-Founder & CEO at LOOP Agencies. In only two years, they’ve grown to 15 people and are on track to double in size over the next year.

In this episode, Vicky shares how she:

• Used half their original funding to pre-book a Christmas party for a team that didn’t yet exist - giving them something to aim for
• Resigned a disrespectful client in the early days, even though that client was funding the business
• Encourages brilliant work by challenging everyone to be bored with the status quo and excited by tackling hard problems
• Awards spot bonuses privately to acknowledge the small, behind-the-scenes actions that go above and beyond
• Transitioned to an employee-owned business model (EOT) after just two years
• Is already building the next level of leadership to enable succession planning, creating an exit path for herself and her co-founder

Vicky embeds the mantra "It won’t fail because of me" throughout the business, ensuring everyone understands their role in the company’s success.

How do you scale an agency in an industry you’ve never worked in?

Anant Sharma is CEO & Founder at Matter of Form, a design consultancy that works primarily with luxury brands. Over the past 15 years, he’s grown the business to a $10m turnover.

In this episode, Anant shares how he:

• Evolved from being a busy fool with a growth-at-all-costs mentality to fostering a safe, calm culture for his team
• Runs a ‘Know Your Client’ initiative to ensure his team is always aligned with clients’ business goals
• Bought a Design Thinking School so his team could double down on L&D and contribute to teaching
• Invests in business support roles, allowing him to focus on what matters most
• Offers executive coaching to all senior team members
• Uses self-deprecation to encourage everyone to be their true selves

Anant aspires for Matter of Form to be a place where people can transform, allowing them to buy into the company and making it a memorable, important part of their career journey.

How do you launch and scale a business with an average employee age of 24?

Alex Bodini is Co-Founder & Group CEO at Spin, a creative-first social agency. Over 9 years, he's grown the business to 75 people.

In this episode, Alex shares how he:

• Uses the High Challenge, High Support framework to drive supportive performance growth
• Takes on the role of 'Chief Repeating Officer' when introducing new concepts to the business
• Has invested in a 'professionalising the business' initiative for the past 2 years, bringing in senior talent to shape structures and processes
• Shifted the business from being a stepping-stone employer to a destination employer
• Focuses on creating enough headroom for all their talent to continue growing
• Acquired other agencies and worked to integrate their operations and cultures

Alex uses the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) to guide everything they do, from setting Rocks to running Level 10 Meetings, and assessing the team regularly with the People Analyser.

How can you make a genuine and positive difference to the entire sector you operate within?

Sam Gregory is co-CEO of the PR agency Tangerine, leading a team of 110 people. She took over the business in 2011 and has overseen significant growth since then.

In this episode, Sam shares how she:

• Puts entrepreneurial spirit and courageous thinking at the heart of everything they do
• Embeds a culture of bold, brave, and creative work aligned with clients' business objectives
• Prioritises a clear vision and overarching business plan as her number one focus
• Maintains full transparency internally with their business plans, decision-making and financials
• Strongly believes in the benefits of their Employee Ownership model
• Actively recruits apprentices to access raw young talent and keep the business at the cutting edge

Sam is dedicated to creating a workplace where everyone feels genuinely valued. And it’s working - last year, Tangerine was featured in Campaign’s Top 100 Best Places to Work.

How do you bring together two well-established businesses to create a new entity?

Phil Fearnley is CEO of the creative company, House 337. He led the creation of the business in 2022 by merging 200+ people from two separate businesses, ODD and Engine. 

In this episode, Phil shares how he:

• Brought together two businesses by leveraging their joint histories to forge a shared future
• Set up seven internal teams to lead the integration and formation of the new company
• Had the team create highly original core values - Alchemic, Inventive and Soulful - that the business could truly own
• Personally ran workshops with every single team member to reinforce these values and their importance
• Made 'House' central to their new name to reflect a culture of membership and belonging
• Refuses to tolerate "Big I Am's" who undermine a team mentality

Phil is also a former Wales U21 rugby player. He applies team principles from his playing days to foster a true team ethos.

How do you create a strong culture and community with a global remote team?

Ranzie Anthony is co-founder and CEO of Athlon, a global design & technology company. He’s been running the business for 14 years, with a team of 100 people across 4 continents.

In this episode, Ranzie shares how he:

• Overcame cultural, language, time zone, and process differences to build a high-performing global team
• Brings the team together to build cultural bonds and create enduring memories
• Rewards and recognises positive behaviour whenever someone does something great
• Sets a one-team culture, treating everyone equally, regardless of location or role
• Fosters a sense of community where people care for each other and go the extra mile 
• Encourages team members to embrace change so they have maximum impact on the business over time

Ranzie believes strongly in a remote-first and global culture. It leads to better wellbeing for the team and a greater understanding of life in different parts of the world.

How do you motivate diverse leadership teams across an agency group?

Andrew Southcott is the CEO of Captivate Group, overseeing 4 independent agencies and a team of 120 people.

In this episode, Andrew shares how he:

• Adapts his leadership style to get the best out of everyone and get out of their way so they can excel 
• Pushes a DEI agenda because of the noticeable improvements to their work 
• Takes what he's learnt from his stand-up comedy side hustle and applies this to leading the group
• Encourages senior team members to look ahead and proactively work out how to apply their finite resources to solve problems
• Focuses on operations as each agency scales to ensure consistency in delivery
• Recruits different types of Managing Directors for start-up vs. scale-up phases for the group agencies 

Andrew is passionate about building a great place with great people, delivering great work for great clients. And in this episode, he breaks down exactly how he does it.

How do you continually embed AI to create a high-performing business?

Fergus Dyer-Smith is founder and CEO of Wooshi, an AI-enabled content business. He got early access to the original GPT from OpenAI back in late-2020.

In this episode, Fergus shares how he:

• Realised the potential of AI early on and created automated solutions for most business processes
• Built an AI-powered creative ideation product that ended up replacing their Creative Director 
• Developed an AI tool that enables their sales team to generate client proposals without input from the creative team
• Advocates for widespread AI adoption to save time, encouraging people to reinvest that time to find new ways to add value
• Expects us to deliver up to 100 times the output compared to a pre-AI world
• Proactively prepares for AI to potentially replace him, ensuring he's ready for whatever’s next

Fergus firmly believes that AI will lead to opportunity and abundance for all of us. While its adoption can feel scary, he feels great excitement about the possibilities.

How do you create a performance culture whilst maintaining warmth and affection?

Ian Finch is founder and CEO of Mando Group, a digital consultancy that makes technology work for everyone. He’s been running the business for 27 years.

In this episode, Ian shares how he:

• Moved away from decision-making led by informal watercooler moments to being highly metric-driven
• Uses the VMOST framework to cascade business goals into team, department and individual goals
• Profiled his superheroes internally and built out values and core competencies from their behaviour
• Realised that his workaholic tendencies and high expectations meant that his team couldn’t thrive
• Uses NLP coaching with his team so they come up with the answers themselves and get into a performance state
• Moved away from having a ‘duty obligation’ by realising that just because he can do something, it doesn't mean he should do it

Ian candidly shares the story of his major burnout and having to step away from running the business for 3 months. He gradually reintegrated and transformed his leadership style to become an enabler to his team.

How do you become truly self-aware as a business leader?

Nikki Gatenby is a Non-Exec Director, Cognitive Behavioural Coach and bestselling author of 2 books. She has 25 years of agency experience including 10 years running the agency, Propellernet.

In this episode, Nikki shares how she:

• Articulates business visions in a novel way so they’re memorable and easy to understand 
• Pushes for a culture where everyone can say when things aren’t working so they all develop and grow
• Looks after people's wellbeing and avoids them burning out by regularly asking 4 simple questions
• Brings in backward reflection and retrospectives so teams always learn from their experiences
• Enables personal growth by getting everyone to be learn-it-alls (and not know-it-alls)
• Uses working style analysis so teams understand how best to work with each other

Nikki talks openly about her 25-year career - including how she self-manages to prevent her two previous burnout events from ever happening again.

How do you achieve rapid growth with a diverse team across 3 continents?

Hannah Springett is Founder & CEO of HLabs. She started her no-code creative agency just 4 years ago and has rapidly scaled to a global team of 40 people. 

In this episode, Hannah shares how she:

• Instills a growth mindset within the team so they believe anything is possible
• Places authenticity at the heart of everything she does - including being open about her endeavours going wrong
• Has learnt to supercharge her empathy skills - especially to get the best out of introverts
• Values diversity and intentionally recruits globally to increase this even more
• Spends quality time with team members to properly understand their ambitions and motivations 
• Maps out her 10-year vision for each pillar of the business, aligning everyone around a set of big lofty goals

Hannah is deeply committed to changing the lives of each of her employees. She shares how she does this in our open and authentic conversation.

How do you grow to 300 people globally with a laser focus on people and culture?

Tamara Littleton is Executive Chair & Founder at Social Element. She started the agency as a remote-first business 22 years ago. 

In this episode, Tamara shares how she:

• Puts attracting and retaining brilliant talent at the top of their flywheel and as their key business objective
• Used her corporate background to apply strategic thinking from day one and grow into a large business 
• Leads from the back to keep out of people’s way and allow them to take the business forward 
• Appointed external auditors to measure how well they’re doing for diversity and help them continuously improve 
• Rolled out DISC training across the business so everyone better understands each other, is more respectful and challenges ideas 
• Takes it as her personal responsibility to retain the culture so the team keeps turning up every day and doing a great job

Tamara openly shares her 22-year journey from sole founder to handing over the running of the business and appointing two co-CEOs.

How do you set the weather in your business and get everyone to love what they do?

Becky Simms is Founder and CEO of the agency group, Human First Collective. 14 years ago she founded her agency, Reflect Digital, which she integrated into the group last year.

In this episode, Becky shares how she:

• Is driven by the mantra, “Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”
• Has a robust, clearly defined recruitment and onboarding process, ensuring every hire is a great cultural fit
• Uses a ‘Vivid Vision’ and working groups so everyone deeply buys into the company direction
• Brings their values to life with external speakers, including a Gold-winning Olympian
• Invested heavily in tech to make team meetings fully inclusive and engaging for remote participants
• Transitioned the agency to a flexible 4-day workweek - and has never looked back

Becky firmly believes that the leadership team sets the weather for the agency. This philosophy guides all her communications.

How do you grow while continuously strengthening your culture and developing antibodies to incompatible working styles?

Steven Writer-Maguire is Director at the consultancy Clarasys. He joined the firm 8 years ago and has overseen growth from 40 to over 200 people in London and Boston.

In this episode, Steven shares how he:

• Rapidly transitioned away from a traditional hierarchical consultancy mindset to one of trust and enablement
• Set up a Team of Teams model where multi-disciplinary teams make decisions and collectively solve client problems by themselves
• Uses their monthly F**k Up Challenge so everyone can safely share mistakes and learnings
• Encourages people to act as business owners and make their own decisions about what’s best for the company
• Puts everyone through their internal course, Clarasys Code, so they all learn about emotional intelligence and neuroscience 
• Created the Clarasys Triangle (featuring People, Business and Clients) to guide their decision-making

Steven passionately shares his ‘why’: To build the best firm their people will ever work for. As a result, their culture gets stronger the larger they grow.

How do you set happiness as your North Star to drive year-on-year growth for 12 years? 

Jaye Cowle is Founder at Launch. She started her performance marketing agency 12 years ago. She’s overseen continued growth with a focus on people-powered performance.

In this episode, Jaye shares how she:

• Placed the concept of ‘powered by happiness’ at the core of what they do internally and with clients
• Uses the 3 pillars of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose to underpin team motivation
• Accepts that their happiness proposition can be off-putting... but it’s worth it so they don’t have a vanilla agency proposition
• Created a feedback culture where people can communicate how happy they are, share ideas and celebrate each other weekly
• Uses their values as a common shared language in recruitment, onboarding, personal development and celebrating successes
• Is shaping their client offerings around their values and happiness mantra, elevating them beyond their current service offering 

Jaye also talks about the impact of her near-death brush with cancer 5 years ago. She leans in far more on the things she’s passionate about and lives a more amplified life.

How do you align individual and business goals across an agency group with 120 people?

Kate Ross is Managing Director at eight&four Group. She co-founded her agency 14 years ago, sold it to an agency group, and then acquired the group 2 years ago.

In this episode, Kate shares how she:

• Invests heavily in AI to boost morale and reduce fear of the technology
• Builds high-performing teams by ensuring people care about the business, about clients and about each other 
• Emphasises her team understanding the context and taking ownership of everything they do
• Challenges her team to come up with ideas for business success and then empowers them to execute 
• Actively seeks out feelings of pain in the business to help address and resolve them
• Has a robust 6-month probationary period to ensure new hires are a good fit

Kate also talks about how 3-year planning doesn’t work for them. Instead, they adopt the Kaizen philosophy of continuous process improvement.

How do you identify your most motivated team members and get them to contribute even more?

Tim Cameron-Kitchen is founder at Exposure Ninja. He’s grown his fully remote agency to 80 people in the UK and Philippines over the past 12 years. 

In this episode, Tim shares how he:

• Identifies people ready for more responsibility and pushes them to do more than they think they’re ready for
• Leans fully towards abdication on the abdication-to-micromanagement spectrum
• Uses a lot of process so everyone operates autonomously against their frameworks
• Follows a 10:80:10 model for team motivation (10% are fundamentally motivated, 80% are situationally motivated, 10% are fundamentally demotivated)
• Became a convert to people skills training and now invests heavily in this (especially with the leadership team)
• Realised he wasn’t the best person to take the business forward so handed over the CEO reins last year

Tim also talks about Wednesday Wins and Thankful Thursdays… and how he uses a kitten Giphy to keep everyone aligned around their shared vision!

How do you get quality running through every aspect of the business?

Chris Ailey is CEO & Founder at Honchō, working with the likes of Sephora, John Lewis and eBay. He started the multi-award-winning agency back in 2008.

In this episode, Chris shares how he:

• Aligns everyone around their BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) to be the best search agency in the world
• Hires people with the skills and characteristics they don’t already have
• Grants his team the freedom to try new things and to fail, whilst ensuring accountability 
• Fosters a culture of collaboration across different teams 
• Pushes himself out of his comfort zone to encourage everyone else to do the same
• Enters lots of awards as a way of driving the team to maintain quality

Chris talks candidly about the ups and downs of life as an agency leader.

How do you create a business where both extroverts and introverts can thrive?

Zsuzsanna Recsey is CEO at the community engagement agency, Standing on Giants. Previously an executive coach, she became CEO 4 years ago and has grown the business from 25 to 60 people.

In this episode, Zsuzsanna shares how she:

• Has embedded a culture of resilience, emotional intelligence and coaching through individual and team programmes
• Builds trust by always assuming that her team, clients and stakeholders have the best of intentions 
• Makes sure the leadership team consistently demonstrates their values in all day-to-day activities
• Has a process to quickly identify and address behaviour that doesn't align with their values
• Has created an inclusive environment so introverts can contribute as much as extroverts
• Creates space for reflection so they can all always learn from what they’ve done

Zsuzsanna’s thoughtful and reflective approach continues to create a high-performing team and a high-performing business. She’s not the typical Jazz Hands agency CEO.

How do you set the ethos of your entire business just from its name?

Sam Fenton-Elstone is CEO & Co-Founder at Anything is Possible. He’s grown his agency to 65 people in just 6 years, winning almost 40 awards along the way.

In this episode, Sam shares how he:

• Embeds the idea that ‘life is better when anything is possible’ across every aspect of the business 
• Gets the right balance between having structure and boundaries, and granting autonomy
• Sets the business up so autonomous team members can make good decisions as quickly as possible - and so the business benefits from collective intelligence
• Constantly strives to build a better, more exciting, more inclusive agency compared to the norm
• Runs the business like a university with a disproportionate spend on L&D and a strong Alumni network
• Encourages everyone to push themselves forward in a way that’s right for them - enabling the team to collectively operate at their highest possible output 

Sam isn’t interested in Anything is Possible becoming a big agency. Instead, he wants them to be a great agency with everyone doing their best ever work whilst there.

How do you maintain an entrepreneurial spirit in a global marketing agency?

Ian Millner is Co-Founder & Global Chair at Iris, a business he started 25 years ago and which he’s helped grow to 1000 people across 17 countries.

In this episode, Ian shares how he:

• Achieved the right balance between enjoying the journey and heading towards a shared destination
• Brought together the right team with the right chemistry at the very start - which naturally attracted clients
• Created a shared ownership structure to drive motivation and loyalty within the team (peaking at 50 shareholders)
• Allowed people to follow their passions and dreams by backing their ideas for new ventures and opening in new locations
• Created a sense of excitement and being together on a big caper within the business
• Navigated taking outside investment and the impact this had on culture

Ian humbly talks about his incredible journey, how it unfolded, and what he did to get his team to be high-performing.

How do you create and maintain a culture to enable happy and high-performing teams?

Jane Slimming is Founder and CEO of Zeal. She’s been running the agency for 14 years. 

In this episode, Jane shares how she:

• Defined their values on day #1 and consistently embeds these into everything they do
• Allows people to progress their careers based on their unique factors of success
• Is very transparent about business performance, no matter how badly they’re doing
• Gets people to disagree with her and then actively praises them when correct to do so
• Launched the Zeal Bucket List to push people out of their comfort (and make their personal dreams come true)
• Spearheaded Zeal to win the award for Best Agency Culture 

Jane was a great podcast guest with a lot of ‘zeal’. Her quote about what’s worse than having a hole in the team is truly memorable!

How do you maintain a high-performing team when growing from zero to 100 people

Danny Bluestone is Founder and CEO of Cyber-Duck. He started the agency in 2005 and grew it to 100 people. Last year they were acquired by CACI. 

In this episode, Danny shares how he:

- Balanced the competing needs of financial performance and the all-important people aspects

- Built a culture around adaptability, accountability, selflessness and having an entrepreneurial spirit

- Embedded the right type of behaviours both when the business was small and then when it became larger

- Implemented a recruitment process as rigorous as Google’s, based on their three pillars of exceptional talent

- Created a mission for each individual in the team aligned to their business plan 

- Recruited the wrong people in the early days and had to deal with a large-scale team rebellion 

Danny talks candidly about what worked well and what didn’t, during his almost 20-year agency journey. 

How do you get everyone in a large business to be high-performing? 

Vanella Jackson was Global CEO of Hall & Partners for 13 years, leading a business with a total revenue of $130m.

In this episode, Vanella shares how she:

- Applied a ‘learn, stretch and grow’ ethos to underpin high performance across the business

- Made sure people felt valued and supported across 100s of team members

- Maintained an entrepreneurial spirit within a large, networked agency 

- Identified her allies, the people who would always tell her the truth about what’s going on

- Got everyone pointing in the same direction with a purpose and vision mapped back to their roles

- Liberated herself from self-criticism and then worked to liberate others

Vanella signs off our conversation with a challenge for all business leaders - listen to find out what this is!

Welcome to Human Powered, the new podcast about creating a high-performing agency or consultancy business.

In the first episode, our host, Trenton Moss, explains why he's launching the podcast in conjunction with his bestselling book, also called Human Powered.