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.