Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Wildwood Talent

After Work with...Holly Ripper, CEO @ Havas London

Ahhh Holly Ripper, the CEO with endless energy. And I love it.

Holly and I had a lovely discussion that started off with me questioning the pressure she feels as a CEO making such a volume of agency-changing decisions, daily. And ended with us sharing our passion for retail advertising and how retail experience can propel juniors' careers forward.

During our cosy, tea-propelled chitchat we covered:

🐘 The pressure of decision making at high volume and short timelines.

🐘 Not needing to know the answers on the spot and taking care and time with your decision making.

🐘 Risk + trust and wanting Havas to be 'a little bit dangerous'.

🐘 The love of retail and how working on a piece of retail can further your career.

🐘 Relentlessness in account handling.

🐘 Accountability as an inspiration not seen as the opportunity for blame.

To discover why the elephant emoji is relevant, check out Holly's favourite saying in our intro.....

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Dads in advertising (or actually...in any industry), this one's for you 🧡

We sat down with James Fox to discuss parenthood and how it transforms your leadership style for the better.

And in James case, having kids with Special Educational Needs (SEN) and a big job can completely change your perspective for the better.

Because compassionate leaders create working environments to support whatever their employees are holding onto outside of work.

And that creates a supportive environment for you to do your best work.

James and I reunited and chitchatted about:

💡 parenting SEN kids: how raising his two gorgeous boys completely transformed his approach.

💡why the best leaders lead with curiosity, compassion and patience - because you never truly know what someone is carrying outside of work.

💡why a perspective shift makes you fiercely protective of your time and who you spend it with.

💡 normalising therapy - why putting therapy sessions directly into your open diary sets a powerful precedent for workplace well-being.

A massive thank you to James - who is an extremely compassionate leader and a beautifully genuine human.

After Work with...James Fox, former CEO @ Havas London

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Stop chasing perfection and start experimenting!

To celebrate Leo Burnett’s birthday, we tracked down the CEO of their Sydney and Melbourne branch for a special episode:

After Work with...Clare Pickens (National CEO of Leo Australia)

Clare and I have known each other for years. And we’ve been talking about filming an episode of After Work for years too.

The only issue was proximity - Clare’s now based in Sydney and we shoot in London.

So when we discovered she’d be in Cannes in June, we popped our big girl pants on and decided to shoot an episode on location.

I was bricking it to be honest - we were winging the location, fighting the sun + constant background noise and using fans to cool down the overheating phone cameras.

Thank goodness Clare was a dream guest, giggling with me about all the mishaps.

But what we captured, we are very proud of.

An episode where a strong theme sings through, which was very apt for this episode - stop perfecting and lean into the unknown.

Because as Clare says, the best things happen when you stop trying to control every outcome and start experimenting.

Clare and I cooled down over iced coffee and discussed:

🍹 Experimenting instead of perfecting and leaning into the unknown.

🍹 Really loving your lifestyle (Australia and all the beaches...)

🍹 Progress over process. Does our busy schedule actually lead to impactful work and outcome?

🍹 Opportunity finding you through showing up.

Big thanks to The Mondrian for the use of your gorgeous garden.

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Fancy some useable career advice? Ok, here we go....

After Work with...Gina Hood, CEO LePub | London.

Gina generously joined us on the sofa to focus an episode on career tips, from her experience in the industry.

DAMN - wish I'd had this advice when I was a junior.

We high-jumped onto the sofa (not really, but Gina is a former athlete) and discussed:

🎓 actively taking hold of your career by having an active mindset when it comes to opportunities.

🎓 having a career champion (mentor) both inside and outside work.

🎓 not falling into the comparison trap - always run your own race.

🎓 flip the way you think about success; happiness front and centre.

🎓 the importance of range in your career.

🎓 how showing effort is a good thing.

🎓 using her competitive mindset as a driver.

🎓 parents - are we thriving or surviving?

#advertising #ceo #careeradvice #london #podcast

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Most working parents are falling over juggling kids and work.

So what happens when you chuck in another responsibility - caring for ageing parents?

Hello Sandwich Generation.

You are all are stretching in many directions with your competing responsibilities, at work and at home. But are you coping?

Claire Hollands generously sat down with me to explain who the Sandwich Generation are - and tips on how to cope when you feel the pressure mounting.

After Work with...Claire Hollands, CEO @ Saatchi & Saatchi UK.

Claire shared insights on:

🦢 how she manages to stay afloat in a leadership position, with conflicting responsibilities at work and at home.

🦢how sharing vulnerability in times of need is fundamental.

🦢the importance of assuming positive intent.

🦢how organisations can better support employees, who are quietly carrying more than anyone could manage.

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Fancy a cheeky Founder Focussed bitesized listen from Natalie Graeme?

It's 7 minutes of expertise from one of our favourite founders, to round off our Founder Focus month.

Natalie reflects on life, 9 years into her Uncommon Creative Studio lifespan:

• how Nat always wanted to be a founder but considered it a pipe dream, until she met her Founding Partners.
• advice for anyone starting an agency today.
• how to help back entrepreneurs.

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Lucy Jameson's interview is one of my favourites.

Her absolute confidence in the company she has built, alongside Nils and Natalie, has never faltered (and I don't think ever will). And even with hindsight, she wouldn't change one single thing about their journey and rise to success.

Lucy's confidence and brain shine through but so does her ability to laugh and share more vulnerable moments, for example, how she struggles with being seen as a leader.

We sunk into the little blue sofa and discussed:

- whether her ambitions have been realised 9 years into Uncommon's lifespan.

- the power of 'no' in shaping the agency.

- how to have a healthy argument in creatively tense moments.

- how she doesn't see herself as a leader.

- that laughing is one of the best parts of our job.

Did I ever think that 2 out of 3 Uncommon founders would say yes to After Work episodes? Absolutely not. Are you next, mighty Nils Leonard? Let's make it a hat-trick 😉

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Producers - this one's for you.

You are some of my favourite people.

Problem-solvers, leaders, multitaskers.

Without you, we'd be nothing.

So I thought I'd grab two of the top Chief Production Officers, from two of the top creative agencies, to have a chat.

We discussed:

• what a CPO actually does.
• how moving from producing to leading the department is a big transition.
• production as the 4th leg of the agency table.
• how these brilliant CPO's help their department avoid burnout and help retain working parents.
• how AI enhances production.

Thank you, Stephen Ledger-Lomas and Emma Davenport.

Friends in conversation really light up our sofa.

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Strategists, this one's for you!

For our final, festive After Work Drinks episode of the year, we cherry-picked two of the best, funniest and most approachable strategists in town.

Oh, and they are mates, so the sofa chem was on point.

We knocked back some drinks and discussed:

🧠 what a CSO actually does.

🧠 how the role has changed over the years.

🧠 the need for resilience in the role.

🧠 whether their department can be seen as intimidating.

🧠 how to be a concise wordsmith, with sticky bits of language.

🧠 whether the majority of their department are happier working solo or in collaboration?

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Our first episode of the year covered a conversation about instinct, experimentation, chaos and why thinking more like an artist might be the future of strategy.

Oh and a bit about her amazing co-Founder, Sir Idris Elba.

(I might have repeated his name a few times, to get that tiny bit closer ☺️).

For our first sofa chat of the year, we discussed:

✨Why Alien Baby was called Alien Baby.

✨The pros and cons of having an artist as a co-Founder.

✨How artists’ instinct-led ways of working allows for experimentation.

✨Brands releasing their inner artist.

✨Founding a business that supports navigating Maternity Leave alongside your own career growth.

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Our sofa chat with Helen explored leadership without ego, preserving culture (while evolving it) and why emotional intelligence & perseverance matter more than ever in creative agencies.

We sipped herbal tea, marvelled over how high my heating was turned up (I may have gone into winter over-kill) and had a lovely 13 minute chat about leadership:

✨ In a new role, how enhancing magic (rather than shaking things up) can be more effective.

✨ Emotion and vulnerability in leadership, why advertising talks about it more than it practices it.

✨ Flexing your style of leadership - knowing when to inspire, when to energise, and when to simply listen.

✨ Perseverance in a culture obsessed with efficiency.

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I've been wanting to meet Hollie for a while.

Not only because she'd been recommended as a powerhouse of a leader but also because she has just moved to my second home, Amsterdam.

Hollie gave this interview everything, emotionally. She shared some hard-hitting moments in her career - from a lack of feeling like she belonged in our industry to her IVF journey.

We snuggled up, created a space for sharing and discussed:

-Moving to Amsterdam and falling off our bikes.

-What optimism means at 72&Sunny.

-Coming from a working-class family in Birmingham and not feeling a sense of belonging in advertising.

-How Hollie changed feeling embarrassed of her background to feeling proud

-Her IVF journey and how that affected her work-life, emotionally and practically. And some advice for anyone about to go through an IVF journey.

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The excitement and intimidation I felt having these two powerhouse CCO's on my sofa was extreme.

But as they are the least intimidating and most lovely, warm people, that soon dissipated.

Raising a glass to my first two Creatives on the sofa - and what a duo!

We sipped negroni's and had a relaxed chat about:

• intimidation in the creative department.
• what a CCO actually does. And whether it takes them away from the work.
• how they run creative reviews
• work they have loved in the last 12 months and campaigns they'd bite their right arm off to have been part of.

I feel very lucky to have spent time with these two.

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2 years after our first interview...NAT'S BACK!

A lot has changed for her over the last 6 months.

She now has a SMALL baby + a BIG business.

Nat opened up about how she found Maternity Leave, after 20 years working full-throttle in the advertising industry.

-how her co-Founders ghosted her communications to prevent the urge to be half-in, half-out.

-how being out on Maternity Leave has given her the opportunity to redefine her role.

-dealing with the guilt of leaving one baby (the business) to have another -

-changing leadership styles after becoming a mother.

• focussing on her emotions during the return to work - logistics she can work out but noticing the emotional pressure is key.

It's special to see our top leaders sharing their vulnerable side.

Good to see we are not alone in our worries, pressures and juggles.

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Oooh, I really like Mel Arrow.

She's relaxed, easy to talk to, likeable... and she wore the best trousers!

Mel moved from a Chief Strategy Officer position to become a CEO. Not unlike others in our industry (Lucy Jameson at Grey and Paula Bloodworth at Alien Baby).

I wanted to find out why CSO's make excellent CEO's. And which parts of the job were tricky to adjust to.

We snuggled up and had a chitchat about:

• Mel's new sauna addiction.
• having conviction in her subjective taste (not judgement).
• moving into a CEO role as a strategist.
• simplifying the complex and bringing clarity to the role, especially with communication.
• learning how to listen rather than solve.
• learning from failure, not just success, to focus on future potential.
• her love for language and finding the most exciting way to inspire.

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Claire and Alicia shot an episode of After Work Drinks to help shed some light on the joys and thorns of being a Founder.

Whether you’re 2 years in (Alicia) or 13 years in (Claire) there are still challenges that keep you on your toes.

One thing is clear: being a Founder isn’t just a job.

If you're lucky, it's the biggest professional commitment you'll ever make.

We covered:

💗How these two became Founders - accidental or planned?

💗The best moments and the gritty parts no one talks about.

💗Building a culture while staying financially solid.

💗Navigating pressure when everything sits on your shoulders.

💗The moments that make you question it all… and the reasons you keep going.

💥 April is our Founder's Focus month. Follow us for more Founders' insights 💥

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