Own It

This week on Own It, we’re talking to Amy Ferguson from Terri & Sandy . The New York agency was Ad Age ’s 2025 Independent Agency of the Year, and its clients include Disney Princess, Gerber, Freshpet, Nutella and Revlon, among others. Amy joined the firm a year ago as its first chief creative officer and a partner. Her resume reads like a tour of the industry. She started as a $5.25-an-hour i...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Michelle Nardi-Marlo and Trista Countryman from Efficiency Media . The Chicago-area firm specializes in strategic media planning and buying that makes every dollar work harder. Their road to ownership is a little different from most. Amy Abrahams founded Efficiency Media almost 20 years ago and, when she was ready for what’s next, transitioned the agency to emp...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Tracey Pattani from BSSP … that’s Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners. The firm was the 2025 AdAge Small Agency of the Year. Its clients include ESPN, Amazon, Kikkoman and Wild Planet, among others.  Tracey came up through the account side of the business, spending time at FCB and Digitas along the way. Her work lies at the intersection of creativity, AI a...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Judith Carr-Rodriguez from Fig .  Her firm bills itself as storytellers for the information age, and that they are. Judith was named to Meta’s “THE List” in 2023. She was one of Ad Age’s Leading Women in Advertising, Marketing and Media in 2022. And one of the 40 over 40 most influential people in advertising in 2021 by Campaign U.S. Her resume is impressi...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Amanda Atoyebi from Red Thread Strategy Partners . She and the firm specialize in transformative commerce strategy to help brands grow. Her solutions over the years have helped clients like Gatorade, Tropicana, Quaker Oats, Colgate, Unilever and Energizer, among others. Amanda and her husband have an 18-month-old son. She is also a life-long equestrian and owns...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Katie Schibler Conn from KSA Marketing . Katie has been a part of the Own It community from day one so this episode has been a long-time coming.  Katie jokes that her firm’s initials, K-S-A, stands for Kick Some Ass. And my, how true that is for her clients. The business evolved from a small consultancy to a 15-year-old agency helping lead brand governance...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Brandi LaFontaine from Together With . She is based in Victoria, British Columbia in Canada, but the agency has locations in Buenos Aires, Toronto, Miami and Louisville.  Together with lives in what they call a contrast – data with empathy, logic with intuition and collaboration with candor. You can tell this conversation will be very interesting.  Br...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Laura Hutfless from FlyteVu . It is a full-service entertainment marketing agency that helps brands connect with consumers through the entertainers and events that drive pop culture. The firm has been recognized as one of AdWeek’s fastest growing agencies, received Chief Marketer’s Top 200 lists twice and has won many awards for its impactful and innovative cam...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Meranne Behrends from Words From The Woods . She is a strategist and started Words From The Woods in Portland, Maine, almost nine years ago. Her resume is full of leading strategy and planning for major brands dating back to the mid-2000s. She worked her way through Deutsch / Lowe, Wieden + Kennedy, The VIA Agency and MullenLowe among others.  She spent si...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Sommer Poquette from Keep It Real Social . She was a teacher before the blogging revolution of the early 2000s. She became a mom blogger, but quickly became effective at bridging the gap between brands and what we now call influencers. After 10 years of a successful venture there, she started Keep It Real Social to help brands optimize their digital and social...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Ari Krzyzek from Chykalophia . Her firm is a web conversion focused firm. They bring brand ideas to life to transform their websites for growth. Speaking of growth, the agency was born from Ari’s simple website design consulting work she began in 2009. So she has seen ownership from that seed of consulting int a large and successful agency. Ari is originally fr...

This week on Own It, we’re talking to Kiley Peters from Rayne IX . She and her firm specialize in helping women entrepreneurs launch, scale and build valuable businesses. And not just in the advertising space, but many verticals. And she is the perfect person to do just that because she is a serial entrepreneur with experience building her own businesses, including a very successful content market...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Cass Cruz and Karen Goodman from Nova Consulting . Their firm focuses on branding but specializes in helping founders and business leaders turn what they stand for into meaning and growth for their companies. Karen spent time at Bose on the brand side and MullenLowe and Havas, among others, on the agency side before joining forces with Cass.  Cass also spe...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Abby Lovett from CPT Visibility Advisors . I’ve been looking forward to this episode for a while because Abby has expertise in the sometimes intimidating world of A.I. She helps companies with their visibility in the world of artificial intelligence.  You may want to get out your journals and take notes on this episode. We talked about her firm, the world...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Rene Ryan from Backpocket Agency.  Her firm is a boutique agency that drives engagement for its clients. She’s spent the last 20 years at several firms in the content marketing space, honing strategies for clients across many sectors.  She co-founded BackPocket Agency two years ago and is blossoming into ownership. I so enjoyed hearing about her journey, her th...

This week on Own It, we’re talking to Beth Johnson from RP3 Agency. It is a full-service creative agency that cuts through the tsunami of sameness with wildly original ideas that drive results. She founded RP3 in 2009 so she has a long history as an owner to share with us. She’s also a big traveller, which you know we love talking about.  We talked about her journey, her inspirations and role mode...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Lauren Bello from Sia Partners. She joined the firm as a partner two years ago after several years at Ready Set Rocket where she ultimately served as CEO. Sia Partners is a next-generation global consulting group in strategy, artificial intelligence and management. We talked about so much. Her roles as an owner, a mom, her journey to ownership and so much more....

This week on Own It we’re talking to Erika Saracco from Colorwheel Digital. Her firm specializes in integrated marketing strategies that connects brands with audience across earned, owned and paid channels. They eliminate ad waste to make every dollar count.  We talked about her journey, who has helped inspire her to create and own, and even her addiction to cold plunging after time in the sauna....

This week on Own It we’re talking to Leah Lane from Strong Brew. Leah came to ownership through the entertainment industry as a television producer. But building shows is just as good a training ground for building teams, businesses and agencies.  Strong Brew challenges traditional agency models by placing empathy and collaboration at the core to combat the often chaotic and ego-driven world enter...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Suzanne Powers from All&. She and her partner Jennifer Breithaupt founded the firm a little over a year ago. Suzanne spent many years at McCann, Crispin Porter + Bogusky and TBWA. She shared some wonderful insights she picked up over her journey. I loved her story and her thoughts on closing the gender gap in agency ownership.  These conversations and so valuab...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Courtney Worthman and Stacey Gersten from Main Character. Their firm’s goal is to make their client’s brands the Main Character in stories, the marketplace and impact. They launched the company in 2025 after working together for several years at Burns Entertainment. We talked about their individual and partnership journeys, which character from Sex & The City t...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Jenna Cummings from Rival. She is originally from Spokane, Washington, but is now based in London, England. One of the things she says she loves about ownership and the advertising business is the ability to live and work anywhere and enjoy a global lifestyle. Rival is an agency focused on helping challenger brands become blue chip ones, primarily through lever...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Stephanie Crockett from the Mower Agency. She started at Mower & Associates in 2004 on the account side. By 2021 she was president and chief operating officer. She took over as president and CEO in 2023. Mower is an advertising and public relations agency with over 50 years experience connecting brands with audience in authentic, lasting ways. Stephanie and I t...

This week on Own It we’re talking to Chelsea Derrico from OpAD Media Solutions. She climbed the ladder internally at OpAD from a media planner and buyer to CEO and president, all over the last 14 years. The media agency is based in New York City where Chelsea raises a family, plays tennis and leads a firm that focuses on data-driven media decisions to produce results.  We talked about everything f...

This week on Own It, we’re talking to Kimberly Eberl from The Motion Agency. Her firm is based in Chicago and helps clients like Ace Hardware, Whirlpool and more accelerate growth with results-driven creative. Their work and thinking is impressive, for sure. We talked about her journey from growing up in Cincinnati, to working for Harley Davidson, to founding Motion 20 years ago. She came up throu...