Creative Capes (Future London Academy)

In our new interview, Stefan Sagmeister legendary designer, typographer and co-founder of Sagmeister & Walsh shares thoughts on the evolution of his career, design agencies and creative process. Watch the full interview to hear more about: 👉 Why scaling is not the best way 👉 What is the future of creative industry 👉 How to create purpose-driven work This episode is a must-watch for creative leaders and changemakers seeking inspiration and practical wisdom from one of the industry's greats. 00:00 Stefan Sagmeister: A Design Legend 00:44 Balance Productivity and Creativity 02:45 The Shift from Commercial to Self-Initiated Projects 03:38 Exploring Long-Term Perspectives in Design 06:14 How to work with clients? 12:25 The Evolution of Stefan's Design Career 18:19 Advice for Designers 22:04 Reflections on Running a Design Company 26:16 The Future of the Design Industry and Final Thoughts For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme. Learn more and Apply 👉 https://bit.ly/3wXJox1 #leadership #design #designinspiration #designleadership

We sat down with Dem Gerolemou at DeepMind - an AI research company that joined Google in 2014. In 2016 Deepmind Health was launched to explore how advanced technologies can support clinicians in providing patients the care they need quickly and efficiently. We discussed ethics and empathy in relation to AI technology in healthcare, how Dem approaches his role as a User Interface Designer, and how much he benefitted from being a mentor.

How do you grow from 6 to 1000 people? From £0 to £232 in revenue? When is it time to step down as CEO?

Steve Bell, former Iris Co-Founder, and now CEO at Team17 Group managed over 1000 employees in 14 offices around the world and oversaw Iris' work with some of the biggest, most creatively driven and technologically advanced global brands. 

Here is what we covered in the second episode of Agency Growth Stories with Steve: 

00:00:00 - Intro: Who is Steve Bell? 

00:02:56 - Fire Round Questions

00:11:50 - Iris’ Early Days and Fast Growth

00:16:14 - Culture over Money: Creating Meaningful Equity & Working with the Right Clients at Iris 

00:21:35 - Multiple Founder Dynamic and Hierarchies  

00:24:50 - Scaling Iris Globally & Tough Wake Up Calls

00:34:00 - Maturing Iris, Outside Investments, Mergers & Acquisitions

00:59:00 - Stepping Down as Founder and Becoming a CEO at Team17

01:04:50 - How Should You Start an Agency in 2024?

01:09:00 - The Future of Creative Consulting Services in the Age of AI

01:11:24 - Determining Who to Work With in the Early Days

01:13:45 - How to Keep & Grow Clients 

01:18:25 - Pitching & Winning Business

01:22:18 - Last Words

For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme:https://fla.wiki/4byNd0p

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Chief Design Officer Series: Episode 2
Mark Kawano, Chief Design Officer at Zoom, shared his 25+ years of experience in companies like Apple, Slack, and Adobe and the importance of influencing Design beyond the design organisation.
Join us for the third episode of our Chief Design Officer Series, where we talk to Chief Design Officers from the most forward-thinking companies. 

https://fla.wiki/41fznNE

In our second episode of Design Leadership webinars, we talked to the wonderful Fede Garcia, Global Chief Creative Officer at PR agency BCW Global. Fede shared insights on how to motivate teams to create bold ideas, what is the future of advertising, how cancel culture influenced creativity, what it means to be creative and what are the main qualities of a good leader.

For more leadership insights check our Executive Programme For Design Leaders. Learn more 👉 https://bit.ly/3wXJox1

Chapters

1. Welcome to our Design Leadership webinar
2. Social Media, Creativity and Impostor syndrome
3. The infinite game
4. Brand marketing: promoting yourself and the brand on Social media
5. Creative career: from Creative Director to Chief Creative Officer
6. What does a Chief Creative Officer do?
7. How to build a creative culture, empower bold ideas and creativity
8. How to prove the value of creativity and design, taking the risk
9. Balancing high-quality work and mental health
10. Self-awareness, happiness, and enjoying life / how to become happy in life
11. Future of advertising: Transmedia storytelling
12. Power of emotions in creativity
13. Q&A - Qualities of a good leader
14. What is the difference between being creative and being a creative
15. Who can become a good leader?
16. Creativity VS Business
17. How to sell ideas and be a confident leader
18. Being a quick learner and having the growth mindset
19. Time management skills and workload prioritisation
20. Is resilience important?
21. Creating a vision

In this engaging conversation, Talia Cotton shares her journey from working at Pentagram to starting her design studio — Cotton Design. She talks about the challenges of the first year of being an agency founder, the main leadership lessons she learned and insights on building and managing a team. Watch the full interview to find out: 👉 Three things you must do when starting an agency 👉 How and who to hire during the first year 👉 How to build your network and find new clients 👉 What Talia will never ever do with her team 👉 Where she goes for inspiration 00:00 Hello Hello Hello 01:16 Leaving Pentagram and starting a design studio 03:30 What you need to do before starting an agency 05:58 Winning creative work or how to find clients as a creative agency founder 08:06 How to pitch yourself in the creative industry 09:25 Hiring and Building a Team 12:23 Teaching and how it helps to hire design talent 13:10 How to hire talent during the first year 15:30 Two key lessons on hiring from Michael Bierut, partner at Pentagram 17:35 Inside look into how Pentagram works 22:53 The most important thing in the first year of running an agency 25:53 What you need to consider before you take a project 27:04 Things you need to do to get more clients 28:45 Working from Office VS Remote team 29:15 Where to look for inspiration when you are an agency founder 33:49 If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be? For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme. Learn more and Apply 👉 https://bit.ly/3wXJox1

Our fourth guest in our Leadership Series was Sinead Keenan, Business Psychologist at SpencerStuart – a global leadership consultancy firm with 57 offices in over 30 countries. We discussed what are the future skills Business Leaders need to have. Sinead also gave advice on how to find your purpose and how to give and receive feedback. 

Sinead will also be a teacher on our Executive Programme For Design Leaders. Learn more here

We've got a special episode of Creative Capes Podcast 🎙 for anyone who is trying to scale Design Thinking in their organisation. We sat down with Nicole Licciardi – Global Design Thinking Senior Manager at Mars Inc 🍫 who is the driving force behind their User Centricity movement and, in our opinion, a superhuman. 🔥 We've been collaborating with Nicole for the past 2 years on building and scaling Design Thinking learning programmes across the globe and it's really amazing what she and her team managed to achieve.

In our chat with Nicole, we talked about how the movement started, the challenges at every step of building Design Thinking capacity in the organisation and how they overcame them and managed to scale the movement at Mars globally. We hope you enjoy our chat and if you want to see our faces, watch on our Youtube Channel @futurelondonacademy. 

How can creative leaders thrive? And how does AI come into play? John Maeda is here to answer your pressing questions.

In our first episode of Creative Legends, the series where we talk to creative industry icons, we interviewed Microsoft’s VP of Design and AI. He shared his lessons on how to be a great leader, become an excellent communicator and navigate design in the age of AI. 

𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗝𝗢𝗛𝗡

John Maeda is a world-renowned artist, computer scientist, educator and investor currently serving as VP of Design and Artificial Intelligence at Microsoft. John is a TED speaker, industry influencer and author of books The Laws of Simplicity, Creative Code, and Redesigning Leadership. He was called the “Steve Jobs of academia” by Forbes and named one of the "75 most influential people of the 21st century" by Esquire.

For more than a decade, John has worked to integrate technology, education and the arts into a 21st-century synthesis of creativity and innovation. He taught media arts and sciences at MIT for 12 years and served as the Associate Director of Research at MIT Media Lab.

He is the first-ever recipient of the White House’s National Design Award for algorithmically-generated visualisations informed by data and AI.

For more leadership insights check our Executive Programme For Design Leaders.

Learn more: https://fla.wiki/3R7M8Dr

Obsessed with branding? Then listen to these great tips from Campbell and Robyn Butler, Co-founders of Lovework Studio. Together they have worked with some of the best brand agencies around. From Wolff Olins, Design Studio, Dragon Rouge and many more. In our chat, they explained why ugly logos are a good thing, and how to present your ideas to clients in an unconventional way. If you're a visual listener, watch this on our YouTube Channel. 

Campbell and Robyn also curated The Ultimate Course on Brand Design & Strategy, Branding Now. Learn more here.

Without any computers or a bank loan, Stuart Trevor launched his first collection at the age of 28, reaping £1.5M.

Today, the founder and former CEO of AllSaints has three successful brands under his wing, loved by the likes of Beyonce, Gwen Stefani, and Justin Timberlake.
Join us for our third episode of Creative Legends to hear all about how Stuart made it and what fashion was like before Zara.

Join us for our third episode of Creative Legends, the series where we talk to creative industry icons, and get inspired to continue growing as a design expert. For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme: ⁠https://fla.wiki/47PS6j8

We sat down with Ilaria Squicciarini from Depop – a social marketplace where over 13M people go to buy, sell and discover unique items. Their mission is to empower fashion creatives, offering them with a platform that celebrates their individuality. We talked about changes in customers’ behaviour in the past years, how Gen Z use technology and how they create campaigns that go viral.

On episode 16 of the Creative Capes Podcast, we had a great time speaking with Christopher Bahry, Co-founder and Creative Director of Tendril - a design-driven animation, VFX, and digital innovation studio with offices in Canada and Brazil. Christopher shares how important creative partnerships are in growing as a designer, human and a business. We also discuss his learnings from co-founding Tendril 10 years ago to now, as well as what's the next big thing in motion design. If you want to see Ekaterina's and Christopher's faces, head over to our Youtube Channel @futurelondonacademy 

Christopher is also one of our industry experts on our Creative Business Masterclasses 👉 Learn how to run and scale your design business 

In this interview, Justine Lançon, CCO at modern jewellery brand Mejuri, will share everything you need to know about being a Chief Creative Officer. What does it mean to be a creative leader? How Mejuri branding was created? What qualities and skills do you need to grow from the creative director to CCO? How to build and hire a design team?   

For more leadership insights check our Executive Programme For Design Leaders at bauhaus.futurelondonacademy.co.uk 

On episode 15 of the Creative Capes Podcast, we had so much fun speaking to Thierry Brunfaut, Founding Partner and Creative Director of Base Design  - an international network of studios based in Brussels, New York, Geneva and Melbourne. Thierry shares how he set up Base Design 30 years ago - as well as the risks he took, and everything he learnt along the way. If you want to see Ekaterina's and Thierry's faces, head over to our Youtube Channel @futurelondonacademy. 

Thierry is also one of our experts on our Creative Business Masterclasses 👉 Learn how to run and scale your design business 

We had a great chat with Sébastien Van Laere, Founder of Superframe – an agency using insight and foresight to develop brand-, innovation- and business strategy for some of the biggest global brands. We discussed why thinking about the future is important in our lives, some of his favourite trends of 2021 and whether Clubhouse is a trend or just a fad. 

Sébastien also curated our Innovation Strategy Course – A practical course for Senior Strategists who want to level up their strategic thinking 👉  

Join us in a conversation with Veronica Fuerte, Creative Directress and Founder of Hey Studio, a Barcelona-based creative agency known for its colourful, playful geometric designs. Hey Studio worked with many clients worldwide, including Google and Apple. During our interview, Veronica shared insights from her 16-year leadership journey why it's important to hire a coach, keep your team small, and how to succeed by working in your own unique style and build confidence as a leader. 💎 00:00 Meet Veronica Fuerte, Founder oh Hey Studio 01:26 Veronica's Early Career Journey and Agency Vision 03:50 Expanding Hey Studio: Side Projects and Merch Store 06:45 Managing Growth and Team Dynamics 11:38 Why to hire a coach? 21:31 Women at Work: Insights and Challenges 23:28 Authenticity and Personal Style 29:40 Final Thoughts #designinspiration #leadership #design

Don Norman, the legendary designer who coined the term "User Experience" and served as Apple's VP, shares insights from his remarkable career. At 89, he reveals why most designers fail to reach the C-suite, how AI will reshape design (not replace it), and his mission to revolutionise design education.

Grab a cup of tea and settle in, this conversation might change everything you do from now on.

For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme.

Learn more here👉 https://fla.wiki/4hKKZxs

#DonNorman #Design #UserExperience #Innovation #FutureLondonAcademy

We visited the founder of Progression Jonny Burch to all talk about career progression and design. We spoke about how to find a founder with the same values as you, what skills you need to be a design manager and what Jonny wishes he knew about career progression before working at Deliveroo! 

We were super inspired speaking to Ariel Ross, a creative operations expert with over 15 years in scaling agency processes. Her expertise lies in developing operational frameworks for creative agencies, making projects run smoothly and keeping teams happy. We chatted about what three qualities every great project manager should have. Also, the biggest mistake every company makes on creative operations that we can learn from. If you want to see their faces, check out this chat on our YouTube 📺 

Ariel has also curated all her tools/frameworks into an online course – Creative Ops 👉 https://bit.ly/3gK3hBB

Jeri Ellsworth is an inventor, entrepreneur and founder of Tilt Five, the world’s first augmented reality gaming system. During our interview, she shared where her passion brought her to an amazing career plot twists: from building race cars and running computer stores to creating aerospace navigation systems and leading hardware innovation at Valve Corporation. When her first AR startup failed, an unexpected call from Atari's founder helped her bounce back to create Tilt5, launching the largest AR Kickstarter in history.

Check out our courses: https://fla.wiki/4giVnw5

We were super inspired by our interview with Ilenia Notarangelo, Co-founder, CEO and Creative Director of Illo TV. The Turin-based creative agency specialises in Illustration and motion design and has created some remarkable work for the likes of Google, Airbnb and Samsung. We talked about how Ilenia started her career from a not-so-creative place. Also, the importance of picking the right business partner, and overcoming the psychological struggles of running your own company. For those who want to see their faces, you can watch this chat on our YouTube Channel 📺 

We sat down with Joanna Brassett, Founding Director of intO – an innovation consultancy that works across the world developing strategies for companies like Uber, Skyscanner and Nike. In this episode, Joanna explains what cultural context in research is and how it can help us understand socio-cultural trends that are relevant, that influence business in the future and improve user experiences. We hope you enjoy our chat and if you want to see our faces, watch on our Youtube Channel @futurelondonacademy. 

Janaki Kumar is Chief Design Officer at JPMorgan Chase & Co., a thought leader, innovator, and author who was named a Women of Influence by the Silicon Valley Business Journal in 2016. Janaki is a proven leader in building, coaching and inspiring high performance design teams, leveraging design-thinking, customer empathy, and co-innovation. She is the co-author of Gamification at Work – Designing Engaging Business Software. She was a co-instructor at Stanford’s Graduate School Business LEAD course and inventor on over 20 patents. During our interview, she shared how she became CDO, how to prove your value to C-suite executives and what skills to develop to become CDO.

For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme. Learn more 👉 https://fla.wiki/3EaHsKf #leadership #cdo #mba #designleadership#leadership #cdo #mba #designleadership

In a Design Hotline edition of the Creative Capes Podcast, we sat down with Mike Reed and Sam Russell of Reed Words – chatting about all things brand language, played some quick-fire, brand writing games and answered our special guests' burning questions on brand writing and language.   Mike and Sam are also curated our Building A Brand Language course –  learn how to write for brands consistently and with impact 💥 more info here 👉 https://bit.ly/3jHJByN

Our final guest in our Leadership Series was the legend that is Buzz Pearce, SVP of Design at checkout.com. Buzz has over 20 years of experience in the design industry, leading teams at Skyscanner, Skype, and Microsoft, to name a few. We discussed how to communicate the value of design to your leadership team. Also, he explained how to build a safe, company culture to give honest feedback. 

Buzz will also be a teacher on our Executive Programme For Design Leaders. Learn more here 

In this engaging conversation, Timothy Goodman shares his journey from working with top brands like Apple, Nike, Google, Samsung, MoMa, Netflix, YSL, Time, The New Yorker to his passion for public art, personal expression, and tackling societal issues through his work. Learn about his creative process, the balance between commercial and personal projects, and the challenges and risks he has faced along the way. During our interview Timothy shared how to balance commercial and passion work, how he hires team, why he never was a freelancer and why it is important to create artworks for people. Watch the full interview to find out: 👉 How to balance passion and commercial projects 👉 How to create art and design that make impact 👉 How to find the right people for projects 👉 Timothy's unique philosophy behind creating his art

TIME CODES 00:00 Who is Timothy Goodman? 01:05 Timothy Goodman on self-Expression 02:21 Evolution of Timothy's Creative Process 03:54 Creative career challenges 06:52 Balancing Personal and Commercial Work 08:36 Creative Team Dynamics and Finding the Right Fit 18:19 Taking Risks and Personal Projects 25:36 Current Work Philosophy 35:08 Final Thoughts For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme. Learn more and Apply 👉 https://bit.ly/3wXJox1 #designleadership #leadership

On episode 13 of the Creative Capes Podcast, we had a blast speaking to Elizabeth Gilmore, Creative Director of the brand studio at Dropbox. We are certain you've all heard of Dropbox! Dropbox originally started as a files storage service and now is more of a smart workspace with products like Dropbox Paper that allow teams to collaborate on creative projects wherever they are. In today’s conversation, Liz will share her thoughts on how to build strong brands, increase conversions and why authentic leadership is important for any creative team. We hope you enjoy our chat and if you want to see Ekaterina's and Liz's faces and matching lipsticks, head over to our Youtube Channel @futurelondonacademy. 

In our fourth episode of Design Leadership webinars, we talked to Kate Stanners, Global Chairwoman & Global Chief Creative Officer at Saatchi & Saatchi. She has played a key role in the transformation of the agency post the acquisition of the digital agency Outside Line, successfully combining digital, social and design into the creative offering. She has won numerous awards for clients including Carlsberg, T-Mobile, Pampers, Holsten Pils, Lurpak, Nurofen and Cadbury. She is also part of the committee at the V&A museum and is President of D&AD.

Kate shared insights on being one of the first creative women in the Advertising Industry, her journey and tips for getting to the top, the importance of asking for help and coaching, and the skills you need to become a successful Chief Creative Officer and how to get there.

For more leadership insights check our Executive Programme For Design Leaders.
Learn more 👉 https://bit.ly/3wXJox1

We learnt so much speaking to Aporva Baxi, founder and ECD of branding agency, DixonBaxi. Aporva has an amazing career working as a creative director across the world and is now running the agency for more than 18 years. We chatted about what it was like to drop the career of a creative director in high demand to start your own agency. And how important it is to always stay creative. If you're a visual listener, watch this conversation on our YouTube Channel 📺 

We sit down with Hilary Lovie, Commercial Innovation Manager at John Lewis & Partners. We talked about how to drive innovation within a big organisation, what role innovation catalysts play in this transformation and how to get your brain into the alpha state!

In our second interview in our Leadership Series, we were joined by Fura Johannesdottir, Chief Design Officer of Huge Inc. Fura has over 20 years of experience in the industry, working for brilliant companies like R/GA, Publicis Sapient and loads more. We discussed her approach to design leadership and the best way of talking to business leaders about the power of design. 

Fura will also be a teacher on our Executive Programme For Design Leaders. Learn more here 

On episode 14 of the Creative Capes Podcast, we sat down with Sean Thomas, Executive Creative Director of JKR - a global creative agency that has been reigniting some of the world’s most well-known brands for over 30 years, from Budweiser, Burger King, Dunkin to Heinz, Snickers, The National Lottery and many others. In this conversation, Sean will share his thoughts on how to create an effective brand strategy as well as his learnings on winning and losing clients. If you want to see our faces, head over to our Youtube Channel @futurelondonacademy. 

We sat down with Ben Langsfeld, Group Creative Director at BUCK. We chatted about how Buck created a very special culture that makes people leave their egos at the door, how to work on a project for 8 months and not to get bored, and how to learn anything you want. We hope you enjoy it and if you want to see Buck’s work and our faces – check out this interview on our Youtube Channel @futurelondonacademy 

How do you succeed as a start-up? How do you grow your agency from 20 to 100 people? How can you carve your niche in the market? 

In our last episode of Agency Growth Stories, Emily Heyward, co-founder of Red Antler – the leading creative agency for startups and new ventures, including Hinge, Prose and AllTrails – shares her insights on these questions and more. 

Emily was named among the Most Important Entrepreneurs of the Decade, a Top Female Founder and one of the Most Powerful Women of 2019 by Inc. Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine.🔥

Here is what we covered in our chat with this creative legend: 

00:00:00 - Intro: Who is Emily Heyward? 

00:01:15 - Rapid Fire Questions

00:03:30 - Red Antler: How It All Started

00:14:25 - Defining Your Clients & Revenue as a Start-Up

00:18:53 - Growing Beyond 2 People: InHouse vs. Freelance

00:21:50 - Bringing In Clients in the Early Days

00:26:30 - Hiring & Establishing and Effective Team Structure 

00:35:34 - Pricing Projects as an Agency 

00:40:15 - What You Need to Change as a Leader to Grow

00:44: 22 - Where is Red Antler now?

00:46:05 - The Future of Small & Mid Agencies 

00:47:15 - Opportunities in the Current Market

00:50:27 - Transparency within the Agency

00:52:15 - What Keeps You Going as a Founder?

00:56:24 - How a Project-Based Business Works: Hiring vs. Freelancing

00:59:03 - Helping Clients Understand the Importance of Brand 

01:04:28 - Marketing and Community as Part of Your Brand Strategy

01:08:08 - AI in the Creative Industry: Uses and Shortcomings 

01:12:00 - Key Things to Define for a Client’s Strategy 

01:14:02 - How Do You Keep Key People Without Giving Equity Away?

01:17:50 - Can You Growth Without Expanding Your Services? 

01:20:10 - Final Thoughts

For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme: https://fla.wiki/3TBeTLq

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In our third episode of our Design Leadership webinars, we talked to Josh W Higgins, VP, Executive Creative Director for Atlassian leading multi-disciplined Creative, Design, Ops and Production teams who work across all consumer touch points. Previously, Josh was the Global Chief Creative Officer for Reality Labs at Meta and Design Director for President Obama’s 2012 historic political campaign.

Josh shared insights on how design can change the world, how to create the role of CCO at global companies like Meta, how to implement users' feedback and how designers can learn about the influence of business has on their work.

For more leadership insights check out our Executive Programme For Design Leaders.
Learn more 👉 https://bit.ly/3wXJox1

Chapters

00:00 - Welcome to our Design Leadership webinar
02:00 - Josh X Barack Obama: Trust
06:14 - The Value of Design: Design can change the world
10:30 - Josh X Meta: Rebrand, Branding Marketing, Brand Book
15:30 - Dynamics of CCO + CMO: Does your business need both?
19:13 - From Exec Creative Director to First CCO of Meta
23:40 - Creating the role of CCO: How to talk to top management
28:22 - Meta - Oculus Quest: How Design changes Product/Brand Awareness

We sat down with Dharmesh Raithatha, Product Partner at Forward Partners and talked about how to acquire your first customers, hire people, go from Pre-Seed to Series A and how to test your MVP.

Maria Giudice founded the iconic design agency Hot Studio and sold it to Facebook after an unexpected chat with Mark Zuckerberg. Now, Maria shares the top lessons from her time at the media giant, running her own agency and teaching leaders to embrace creativity for maximum success. Join us for our second episode of Creative Legends, the series where we talk to creative industry icons, and get inspired to continue growing as a design expert. For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme: https://fla.wiki/47PS6j8

We sat down with Claire Campion, Senior Creative at Anyways Creative. In this conversation, Claire shares some amusing stories from her career, including how she messed up an interview at Anyways and still got hired. We also dive into how Anyways created an immersive experience for Sonos in New York while being in London, what creative process they have in the studio and why collaboration is a big part of everything they do. We hope you enjoy it and if you want to see Anyway’s work and our faces – check out this interview on our Youtube Channel @futurelondonacademy 

We loved how honest Max Ottignon was in our chat. Max is the Co-founder of Ragged Edge – a fantastic London-based branding agency working with some of the fastest-growing startups such as Mindful Chef, Bulb, to name a few. We discussed mistakes Ragged Edge made throughout the 14 years it has been running. What makes its company culture so special, and what makes a bad haircut. For those who want to see their faces, you can watch this chat on our YouTube Channel 📺

The third guest in our Leadership Series was Guy Duncan, Chief Technology Officer at Tide – one of the fastest-growing FinTech companies in the UK. Guy has over 20 years of tech leadership, previously as a CTO of BMW and other large organisations like Valtech and PayU. Be prepared to get really practical insights on how to convince your leadership team to launch your idea, how to reduce your work stress and how to prioritise your time as a C-level executive. 

Guy will also be a teacher on our Executive Programme For Design Leaders. Learn more here 

Chief Design Officer Series: Episode 2

Travis Isaacs, Chief Design Officer at Webex Collaboration at Cisco, shared his perspective on the unique superpowers designers can bring to the boardroom and the essential skills needed for success in executive roles.

Join us for the second episode of our Chief Design Officer Series, where we talk to Chief Design Officers from the most forward-thinking companies. https://fla.wiki/3ALA1rx

This month we had an inspiring conversation with Martin Raymond, Co-Founder of Future Laboratory. He shared his insights into the future and how we can prepare for what awaits us in the coming years.

We discussed the skills leaders will need in the future, the role of impact metrics in business and how creatives can succeed in the boardroom.

From how he got his first clients, the importance of branding, founding Wolff Olins and stories about his time in the army – British graphic design legend Michael Wolff reveals details about his past never heard before in this first episode of 'Michael Wolff Telling Stories'.

What is the key to rapid growth? When is it time to expand your team? How should you approach a global expansion? 

In this episode of Agency Growth Stories, Natalie Graeme, Co-Founder of Uncommon – Europe’s fastest-growing start-up in advertising history, answers these questions and more, as she shares her experience of growing Uncommon from 0 to over 200 employees, working with global brand partners – including ITV, WWF, British Airways and SiriusXM –  and creating a memorable brand identity through ingenious PR strategies. 

Here is what we covered: 

00:00:00 - Intro: Who is Natalie Graeme? 

00:01:11 - Rapid Fire Question

00:06:11 - Early Days: The Formative Years of Uncommon 

00:09:55 - Uncommon’s Studio Model

00:14:35 - Uncommon’s Rapid Growth & Secret to Success

00:23:40 - Uncommon’s Global Expansion &The Strategy Behind It

00:32:23 - Growing Beyond 30 People: When to Hire and How to Structure Your Team

00:44:45 - From 70 to 240 People and How Your Role as a Founder Changes

Questions from the Audience: 

00:52:20 - What are the Most Common Mistakes of Agency Start-ups in The Early Days?

00:53:50 - How do you Control Quality and Production during Growth in a Joint Venture?

00:54:53 - How do you Manage Client-Side Delays and Keep Things Running? 

00:56:20 - How do you Balance Hiring Full-Time Vs. Freelance?

00:58:39 - How did you Secure Funds at the Start?

01:01:53 - How do you Select Clients? 

01:03:33 - Do you work with Retainers or on a One-off Project Basis?

01:04:29 - What was Uncommon’s PR Strategy at the Beginning? 

01:05:34 - What is the difference between your Studio Model and an Advertising Agency?

01:08:28 - How do you Get New Clients without Word of Mouth? 

01:12:13 - How Important is the Agency’s Brand?

Final Advice 

01:15:08 - What Can You Do to Look After Yourself as a Founder? 

01:16:50 - If You Could Change One Thing in the World, What Would It Be?

For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme: https://fla.wiki/435hkc4

Get more inspiration from us on other channels: 

➤ https://www.instagram.com/futurelondonacademy

➤ https://twitter.com/FLondonAcademy

➤ https://www.linkedin.com/school/future-london-academy/

In our last episode of this Design Leadership series, we talked to Tiffany Rolfe, Mom & Global Chief Creative Officer at R/GA. Tiffany shared insights on how to stay relevant in an ever-changing industry, fight imposter syndrome, step out of your comfort zone, get to a C-level position as a Creative and the skills you need to become a successful Chief Creative Officer while also being a parent. Tiffany leads a team of over 200 cross-disciplinary designers, thinkers and makers that create work at the intersection of storytelling and technology. R/GA’s clients include Nike, Verizon, Samsung, Airbnb, Slack, ESPN, and Instagram.  

For more leadership insights check our Executive Programme For Design Leaders.  Learn more 👉 https://bit.ly/3wXJox1

Our first guest in our new Leadership Series is Bidisha Sinha, Senior Associate at the legendary Zaha Hadid Architects. We chatted about the need for a new Bauhaus, what it was like to work with Architecture pioneer, Zaha Hadid, and the challenges and rewards of being a design leader. 

Bidisha will also be a teacher on our Executive Programme For Design Leaders. Learn more here

We had a chat with Emma Barratt, Creative Director and Head of Design at Wolff Olins London. In this conversation, Emma spoke about design leadership and her journey of becoming a Creative Director in the most admired agency in the world. We also discussed the challenges of being in high positions and her personal battle with dyslexia. We hope you enjoy it and if you want to see Wolff Olins’s work and our faces – check out this interview on our Youtube Channel @futurelondonacademy. 

 We sit down with Liz LeBlanc, Associate Head of Design at Livework, the oldest service design in the world. We talked about the service design process, how to manage a studio and how to future proof yourself. 

How do you design a fail-proof hiring process? How do you balance purpose and profit in the early days? And how do you find your first clients? Get your answer in our first episode of Agency Growth Stories – a series where we talk to the founders of the world's leading agencies about what's on every founder's mind. Our first guest was the wonderful Abi Freeman — Co-Founder of Brink — an international consulting agency which uses Behavioural Innovation to advise on new ways of working to change the world. Here is what we covered: 00:00:00 - Intro: Who is Abi Freeman? 00:02:52 - Fire Round Questions 00:04:54 - Why Abi Co-Founded her Company Brink 00:08:01 - How to Find Your First Clients 00:12:17 - How and When to Grow Your Team 00:20:20 - Services to Keep External Rather than In-House 00:22:05 - How to Hire and Manage an International Distributed Team 00:29:12 - Brink’s Failproof Hiring Process: Hiring for Ways of Being Not Just Doing 00:34:21 - How to Build Intimacy with Your Team 00:39:00 - Purpose Vs. Profit, Finding Balance in the Early Days 00:48:18 - How to Measure the Impact of Your Projects 00:56:32 - Common Blinspots in Founders 00:58:01 - How to Get Clients through Networking 01:04:04 - How to Take the First Step to Start Your Agency 01:06:35 - How to Navigate Procurement Processes 01:14:05 - Behavioural Change and Climate Change 01:17:01 - Last Words For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme: https://fla.wiki/4byNd0p Get more inspiration from us on other channels: https://www.instagram.com/futurelondonacademy/ https://twitter.com/FLondonAcademy https://www.linkedin.com/school/future-london-academy/

Chief Design Officer Series: Episode 1

Claudia Abt, Chief Design Officer at citizenM hotels oversees design and space planning for new hotel developments. She shares her perspective on being a designer at the C-level, what she had to learn when she became a Chief Design Officer and what value she brings to the business through design. Join Future London Academy for the first episode of Chief Design Officer Series, where we talk to Chief Design Officers of the most forward-thinking businesses. https://fla.wiki/4fbtJ3f