Awaiting Approval

Season 3 of Awaiting Approval is here. 22 episodes. 22 conversations. 22 themes. One season. Starting May 7th. Watch the trailer now. E1 — David Martin — Curiosity — 7th May E2 — Debbie Millman — Becoming — 14th May E3 — Nacho Zuccarino — Vulnerability — 21st May E4 — Odeya Noble-Bougay — Continuity — 28th May E5 — Charles Cadbury — Conviction — 4th June E6 — Tamora Petitt — Clarity — 11th June E7...

Season 2 of Awaiting Approval comes to a close with something a little different. No guest this time. No one-word theme attached to a single conversation. Just me, stepping back to look at what this season became. And honestly… I’m still a bit stunned by it. Since launching the show in summer 2025 with no marketing spend, the podcast has grown far beyond anything I expected. More than 10,000 liste...

David Sheldon-Hicks, founder of Territory Studio, closes out Season 2 of Awaiting Approval with a conversation about awareness… and what it really takes to build something that lasts. We start in the garden with a hot drink. After long stretches in dark studios and edit suites, David will take any excuse to get outside. From there we move into the organised chaos of creative life: shelves of unrea...

Lou Maxon returns to Awaiting Approval for part two of our conversation, and this time the theme is care. We meet in a metaphorical Bryant Park with Mountain Dew in hand and quickly move beyond nostalgia into something deeper: what it really means to lead with kindness in an industry obsessed with speed, scale, and minimal viable products. Lou shares the story of the Mr. Rogers figurine that sits...

Dan Onufrishyn is Director of the Creative Leadership Program at Miami Ad School. But before the title, before the CV, before the impressive brand list, there is something simpler running through this conversation: generosity. We start on a nature walk with green tea in a thermos. Mountains, sketchbooks, laptops, stream-of-consciousness doodles. It quickly becomes clear that Dan thinks in systems,...

Lucy Jackson is the Founder and Chief Clarity Officer at Studio Jackson. She’s also a brilliant example of what happens when you back yourself, even when the plan isn’t fully formed yet. We start with a metaphorical drink in an English country pub and quickly get into Lucy’s love of flexibility, autonomy, and working in whatever spot has the best light. From there, she takes us through a career th...

Sandra Gonzalez didn't take the expected route into design leadership. She started in engineering, moved into education, product, and front-end development, then taught herself UX by building her own mobile app startup, intentionally designed to give her hands-on experience as a mobile UX designer and help her break into a UX career. That same conviction runs through everything she shares in this...

Hiring in 2025? Brutal. Struggle. Chaos. Messy. Exciting. In this special bonus roundtable episode, Adam is joined by five leading recruiters and talent partners – Laura Baker, Erica Fortgang, Sam Gale, Meg Rye and Jared Tredly – for an unfiltered state-of-the-market conversation about what’s really happening in design hiring right now. This isn’t a tips-and-tricks episode. It’s a frank, human dis...

By day Odeya Noble-Bougay is Director of Product Design at Aviv Group, but at heart she is a maker. Someone who thinks with her hands, listens deeply, and believes that creativity is as much about care and connection as it is about output. Her journey spans sound engineering, visual communication, early usability work, telecoms at massive scale, property tech, and leading large, pan-European desig...

William Barraclough has built a creative career driven less by formal pathways and more by instinct, curiosity, and a willingness to try things before knowing where they might lead. Now Head of Product Design for International Wealth and Premier Banking at HSBC, his journey spans skateboarding, DJing, restaurant work, early digital agencies, global brands, and leadership roles earned without ever...

Hardy Sidhu is the Founder and CEO of Format-3 , but labels have never sat comfortably with him. Designer, strategist, business builder, father, philosopher… Hardy has moved fluidly through roles and identities since entering the industry as a teenager, driven less by titles and more by a constant need to feel, question, and stay awake to the moment he is in. In this episode, Hardy joins Adam for...

Angela Arnold has built her career by listening deeply. To herself, to others, and to the quiet signals that tell you when something feels right… or when it doesn’t. As Head of Product Design at Genomics England, her work sits at the intersection of craft, care, and impact, shaping experiences that matter in some of the most sensitive and complex human contexts. In this episode, Angela joins Adam...

Joel Gill has lived several creative lives in one. Musician, engineer, global design leader, single father, mentor, and now Chief Experience and AI Officer at Experience Artisan. His story stretches from hiding in a school music room and becoming a session synth player & pianist in 1980s London, to shaping early digital at British Airways, to leading design inside megacorps like Shell, HSBC and S&...

Venessa Bennett has built a career that mirrors the evolution of digital itself. She is now Global Director of UX at Dye & Durham, but her journey began in graphic information design, moved through early digital agencies, transport consultancies, comparison sites, and eventually into design leadership, where she found her true sweet spot. Her story is one of intentional growth, constant reinventio...

In this episode of Awaiting Approval , Adam sits down with Hema Meta for a deeply honest, heart-first conversation about what it means to keep going when life and work both feel heavy. It is a quiet, powerful episode about bravery in the very ordinary moments - telling the truth about how you feel, asking for help, and staying soft in a world that keeps hardening its edges. Across the hour, Hema l...

Anjali Gajera Patel has lived multiple creative lives across India, the UK and now San Francisco, where she is Director of Product Design at Ancestry. Her story spans advertising, freelancing during a global recession, self-taught UX, major in-house roles at Clorox, GAP and Kodak, and the cross-continental journey that eventually led her to one of the most loved consumer brands in the world. In th...

Chris Nguyen has lived more creative lives than most designers ever get close to. He is the Founder of UX Playbook, former Head of Product Design at TrueMonkey, and previously UX Manager at Wizeline, where he helped grow the team from a dozen designers to more than forty. In this episode, Chris joins Adam for a fast, honest conversation about designing a career on your own terms. He shares how he...

Cat How has built one of the most talked-about branding agencies on two continents. She is Co-founder and Executive Creative Director at How&How, D&AD Jury President 2026, and has been recognised among the 100 Women to KNOW in America and 100 Most Influential Creative Leaders in 2025. In this episode, Cat joins Adam for a relaxed, very human conversation about the reality of creative leadership. S...

Awaiting Approval Season 2 will premiere 4th December 2025. Yes, the podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership is back. With 17 brand new episodes, 16 brand new guests, and one familiar face from season one! This season I talk with design leaders from Microsoft, Ancestry, Elsevier, Lloyds Banking Group, Vodafone, BMW, Rightmove, Shell, British Airways, HSBC and many more.* You can...

Bonus Episode – Season One Exclusive Cast Roundtable Conversation Welcome to this - a roundtable conversation with as many of the cast of Season One as schedules would allow. This is your once in a lifetime chance to sit in on a chat with exceptionally talented creative leaders from a myriad of disciplines including design, advertising, user research, user experience, product design, animation, in...

Bonus Episode – Behind the Mic with Adam Jennings, Creator and Host of Awaiting Approval What does it really take to make a podcast about creative leadership - without a production team, a marketing budget, or a safety net? In this special bonus episode, Adam pulls back the curtain on Awaiting Approval itself. Why it exists. Who it’s for. What it’s becoming. From a quiet idea shared with a partner...

Roger Rohatgi - Chief AI Officer (Former VP Global Head of Design at BP, with past work with brands such as Verizon, Twitter, MTV, Motorola Solutions, Oracle and more) What happens when a motion designer turned creative director becomes one of the world’s leading voices in Human-Centered AI? In this episode, Roger Rohatgi takes us on a remarkable journey from lifeguarding and cleaning gas pumps to...

Jason Giles - VP of Product Design at UserTesting (ex-Ticketmaster, AT&T, Microsoft) From laying carpets by day and playing synths by night to becoming a VP of Product Design at UserTesting, Jason Giles’ journey is anything but conventional. In this episode, we dive into his early struggles with imposter syndrome, how a supportive culture at Microsoft helped him rise, and why he believes some of t...

Dr Chris Arnold – Author, Ethical Marketing Pioneer, Neurodiversity Champion (Former Creative Director and Board Director at Saatchi & Saatchi. Founder of Creative Orchestra and Dyversity Lab) What if your greatest creative strength was the very thing school told you was wrong? In this energetic, honest, and refreshingly unfiltered conversation, Dr Chris Arnold shares how being ADHD and dyslexic b...

Lou Maxon - ECD at Maxon House (Acer, BMW, McDonald's, Lego, Lexus, Sothebys, etc) From crafting editorial layouts at Time Out New York to building immersive brand experiences for global giants, Lou Maxon’s career is rooted in curiosity, craft, and storytelling. In this conversation, Lou shares what it’s like to lead from a forest-bound studio on rails, why authenticity beats scale, and how his wo...