Own It

On this episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Allison Henry Aver of Letter A. Allison has been an instrumental creative force for brands like Bumble and bumble, Kate Spade and more. She was the founding creative director for Kate Spade Saturday in fact. Allison is a creative problem solver and her agency works with emerging brands looking for personality, purpose and point of view. I enjoyed her poi...

On this week's episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Elena Robinson of Putney. I’ve been so excited to talk to and learn from Elena since she announced Putney at Ad Age’s Small Agency Conference last year. She’s been at it for a little over a year now, so this is going to be an informative episode.  Elena has been at most of the big agencies in Chicago … Leo Burnett, BBDO and more. But now she’s tur...

In this week's episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Michelle Edelman of PETERMAYER. Michelle is an ad industry veteran She’s served on the boards at the 4A’s and is currently serving on the board at AMIN Worldwide. She’s been at PETERMAYER in New Orleans for 10 years.  Michelle grew up thinking she would be a doctor. She actually went to medical school before opting for public affairs and healthcar...

In this week's episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Ellen Faulkner of Lewis Communications. We are going to learn a lot this week. Ellen is the CEO of Lewis where she has been for almost 39 years. She started as an account coordinator, but moved up and was SVP and managing director until last year. Interestingly enough, she purposefully avoided ownership. But as time went on, she joined five others...

In this week's episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Sally Weavers and Jenny Jones of Craft Media London. Both credit their mentoring and inspiration to a string of formidable women leaders in advertising. Now that they’re the formidable leaders, they’re inspiring more women to follow that path to ownership.  Sally and Jenny both came up through media and strategy. They’ve worked with some of the bi...

On this episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Sara Eolin and Veronica Diaferia from Tinygiant. Tinygiant is a Canne’s Silver Lion award-winning production company that has worked with an incredible roster of the world’s biggest brands and agencies. Their big selling point is they offer the intimacy of a boutique firm at the speed and scale of a production company that does big work.  We had such a f...

On this episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Michelle O’Grady from Team Friday. Michelle is big into life experiences, and to compliment that, has a background in experiential marketing. She’s based in Los Angeles where Team Friday has existed for the last decade. It’s a creative agency with purpose driven and culturally relevant work in mind. I love these conversations, especially this one with Mi...

This week on OWN IT, we’re talking to Kate Wolff of Lupine Creative. She comes from a family of powerhouse women, including her mother who is an attorney, and her grandmother is Janet Wolff, one of the first women inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame. Kate has lived up to that legacy, starting Lupine Creative after navigating a career that included stops at TBWA/Chiat/Day, DDB and others. As...

On this week's episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Leigh Chandler of Sister Mary. It’s an exciting time to talk to her because she is in the middle of launching the firm. She’s a native Brit who moved to New York 10 years ago.  Leigh is a traveler and keen observer of different cultures and people, which makes her a fantastic translator to them from brands. We talked about the inspiration behind t...

On this episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to MaryBeth Adduci and Karin Rose of 6. We’re going to explore a different angle to ownership with this dynamic duo. MaryBeth and Karin are both creatives and met as creative partners at DDB in Chicago. They started 6 to build an agency that focused on what they call work that matters.  But the two still freelance as a creative team for others. The combinat...

On this episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Amy Deneson from House of Puff, Pheno and the Cannabis Media Council. Each of those endeavors prove she’s not only entrepreneurial, but isn’t afraid to take that plunge into founding and owning agencies and businesses within our space.  We talked about why and how each of those were started, the challenges of marketing in the corporate cannabis world, an...

In this week's episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Jane Ferguson, a correspondent for PBS Newshour and contributor to The New Yorker. As you might expect, this episode expands our conversation into the world of journalism and how Jane has seen parallel challenges in gender equity and opportunity. Since our industries are not only similar, but intimately intertwined, this conversation is an importa...

In this episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Blair Brady of The With Agency. It is a brand partnership agency based in Atlanta. She is a mom, a cook and a former ballerina. She started like many of us as an intern at an agency. Her career took what she calls zig-zags through a couple of agencies before she launched With in 2012.  Blair had so many interesting things to share including the perspecti...

On this week's episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Shannon Gabor of Clever Creative. She has been an agency owner for almost 18 years, so we tapped into her wealth of experience in ownership. Shannon came through the creative side of the business and, in a rather timely coincidence for what’s going on in the world today, she once worked on the licensing and packaging team at Mattel for the Barbie...

Today's episode of OWN IT features Sarah Latz and Francesca Piancone-Crowley from Book180. It is an online portfolio school that sources the best agency talent to teach new professionals in our industry! That is so cool! The conversation that became the idea for Book 180 was born during COVID. The two worked together at a portfolio school in Chicago before and during the pandemic and saw the onlin...

On this week's episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Haley Dagan from The Written World. As you might expect, her background is as a copywriter and her firm specializes in purpose-driven copywriting and content marketing.  Writing has been a big piece of her journey along the way. In fact, when she worked in the hotel business, she started a travel blog. She then started blogging and writing as a fr...

In this week's episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Alana Ficalora from Aligned for Impact. Alana is a dancer away from work and does a lot of community and volunteer work in Los Angeles. She actually comes from a deep tradition of building community. She founded HER - Helping Each Other Rise, a community group of like-minded women dedicated to helping women in advertising and entertainment. Her fi...

On this episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Mary Knight of Hydrogen. She is a writer and came up in the business on the creative side of the aisle. In fact, she is currently working on a satirical novel of climbing the corporate ladder we can’t wait to read! Mary’s father was a marketing director on the client-side of the advertising business. He raised her and her sisters with the mindset that a...

On this episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Megan Devine from cat&tonic. She came up through the account side of advertising, but is also a painter with a creative side. That mix turned out to be important in her climb to a position of ownership.  But her path to ownership includes experiences of being fired, leaving an agency and starting something new with partners and then rebranding that agenc...

We're airing an encore presentation of OWN IT today in honor of a recent accomplishment by Libby Brockhoff from Odysseus Arms. We talked to her first almost one year ago about her path to ownership which included a stint working for James Patterson, some of the biggest agencies in the world, then founding Mother. That firm just recently won the D&AD President's Award! Libby since moved on to found...

Today we’re talking to Barbara Pantuso and Lisa Reid from Nimble Works. These sisters started their creative collaboration when they were kids with a fun neighborhood newspaper. But they didn’t always work together. In fact, Barbara started her professional career in the restaurant business.  Lisa’s career was more rooted in writing and marketing creative. Eventually, the entrepreneurial spirit le...

On this episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Ali Cox from Noble West. It’s not every day that you run into an Olympic athlete. Ali not only is one, she was a member of the United States Silver Medal-winning Women’s Eight Rowing team in 2004.  It’s also not every day you run into an agency owner that is also a farmer. Her family has farmed for generations in California's almond and melon fields.  Yo...

On this episode of OWN IT, we’re talking to Allison Bakken from Collective Measures. Her path to ownership is very different and interesting. She began at an agency called Nina Hale, once a small agency owned by a woman. When Nina retired, she sold the company to its employees.  Allison became the managing director and guided the company through a rebranding to become Collective Measures. She now...

In this episode of OWN IT we’re talking to Rachel Carlson and Jourdan Huys from the brand new agency Foul Mouth. They officially announced the firm’s opening the week before we spoke, I’m so excited to talk to new agency owners at the very beginning of their journey. But make no mistake, Rachel and Jourdan are not new to the business. Both have a long list of successful work at a variety of the to...

In this episode of Own It, we’ve got something new and special for you. Our conversations about closing the gender gap in advertising agency ownership shouldn’t be limited to just one person asking the questions. So I’ve asked Carrie Kerpen, who you heard me talk to a few weeks ago, to step in and host an episode. Not only will she host from time to time, but so will many others who are active in...