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 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 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 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.

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.

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 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 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.