Sweathead, A Strategy Podcast

Jani Westcott is a planner who plans to help more people get into planning by giving them new ways to see themselves and to speak about themselves. Essentially, she plans planners. Truth be told, she does this mentoring work with people who aren't just looking to get into planning but into the advertising industry as a whole and she focuses her work on helping women and people of color. In this co...

Natalie Burns - Brighton, UK Annalie Killian - New York, USA Sheldon Lawrence Tarpey - Birmingham, UK Jesse Alleva - Alaska, USA Siddharth Seth - Chicago, USA Alexandra Suarez - Puerto Rico Dillon Key - Arkansas, USA Join 9,000+ strategists: http://www.sweathead.co

Bruce Clark is Associate Professor of Marketing at Northeastern University in the D'Amore-McKim School of Business. This chat happened today - Friday, March 13 - and is unedited. In it, we discuss how COVID-19 has affected the teaching and learning of marketing, what marketing students need to learn, and what marketers might do well to contemplate in these turbulent times. You can find Bruce here:...

James Lees is a strategist and a co-founder of Group Think in London. With over 1,000 members, Group Think brings together strategy-inclined folk several times each month to learn and to hang out. They even trialled a space for strategists to work together inside a co-working location. In this chat, we discuss how Group Think approaches its events and the topics that are on people's minds right no...

David Navarro is Executive Creative Director at Ueno in New York. He's spent swathes of his career working websites and digital products, and he's done this in Spain, the Netherlands, and the USA. And while we could have spoken about all the incredible work he's done, we decided to discuss how companies new to strategists can help strategists succeed. (PS I said GFC = Global Financial Crash but it...

Genie Gurnani is Head of Creative, Asia-Pacific, at Vice Media. Genie grew up near Yosemite National Park, a relatively isolated part of the States before then attending UC Berkeley and VCU Brandcenter, and working in agencies such as David&Goliath, TBWA\Chiat\Day, and Leo Burnett. In this chat, we discuss Genie's push from a small town to elite schools, from planning to creative, from the US to A...

In my first summer in New York, Cristina Pansolini interned with me and a small new-age strategy clique at Saatchi & Saatchi. She was astute, competitive, and very capable. These traits have taken her into fulltime roles at Saatchi & Saatchi, Wieden + Kennedy, and McCann. She's had quite the career trajectory. Now, she leads strategy at Sylvain Labs and applies her strategy skills to different kin...

Tristan Burrell is Chief Strategy Officer at Vizeum in Sydney, Australia. Whenever I've worked with media agencies, there's an echo of my experience working with Tristan in my desires for each media plan but often the desires go unmet. In this episode, we discuss how Tristan landed a creative role inside a media agency, the impressive cast of characters he grew up around at Universal McCann, winni...

Marcus Collins is a marketing lecturer at the University of Michigan's The Ross School of Business. He used to write love songs for a living. He's worked at Translation and Doner, he's run digital strategy for record labels (including for Beyoncé) and he's taught at NYU, General Assembly, and Miami Ad School. In this episode, we discuss the idea of a portfolio career and having multiple dreams of...

I took about 20 of your questions for a walk after pilates. Now my mind feels like my body. Thank you. http://www.strategymegaclass.com http://www.instagram.com/markpollard

Nick Ellis is cofounder of Bristol agency Halo. Paul Bailey is Halo's strategy director. In this episode, we discuss what it takes to do strategy at pace because, well, that's how most strategy needs to happen these days. And we arrive at a list of 10 - let's call it 11 - ideas that will help you in your day job. You can find Nick here https://twitter.com/Nickhalo01 Paul here https://twitter.com/p...

Haley Gordon is a strategist at BBH in Los Angeles. Part of her attempts to work her way into a strategy role involved attending the BBH Beautiful Minds program, named in honor of a man a lot of us knew for his writing and generous teaching spirit, Griffin Farley. In this chat, we discuss Haley's attempts to get into strategy and her experience in this weekend-long, competitive bootcamp. You can f...

Sai He is a copywriter and runs the hilarious social media presence Dong Draper. He thinks he’s one of the most introverted people in the industry. I have a hunch a few listeners might contest this claim. Either way, Sai is prolific and still finding his feet in the industry. My question to him: What are you going to do after this industry? You can find Sai here https://twitter.com/adversaising Do...

Julian and I have just launched Season 2 of The Strategy Megaclass. It's called F**k Yeah Rainbow Cannons. And it's coming to NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle in March and April. It's a full day of strategy training covering words, briefs, ideas, and strategy frameworks. Details and tickets are here http://www.strategymegaclass.com We thought we'd use the occasion to talk through some work...

Clare Barry is a copywriter from Liverpool, England. She struck Internet gold with an article titled "Everyone’s a copywriter. Right?" in which she captured the frustrations of many of her peers. Now, she's back in the mines again. This time she's writing a book in public and on the road. It's called "Drink. Smoke. Swear." It's going to be like "Eat Pray Love" but Clare. You can find Clare here ht...

Justine Armour started as the Chief Creative Officer of Grey New York this week. Big job, big city, big ambitions. In this episode, we discuss the journey from doing the work to helping others do the work. We touch on missteps along the way, as well as ideas that can help people doing creative work do better creative work.  You can find Justine here: https://twitter.com/jusarmour You can find Mark...

Stephanie Matthews is Partnerships Director at Creative Equals where she is currently launching the next series of their Creative Comeback Returners Programme. The programme is a two-week bootcamp for people who've worked in the advertising industry but have had a prolonged period away from it and now need a hand to get back in. It involves training as well as working on a real creative brief. Som...

Claire is a strategist in Paris. We met at an impromptu strategy get-together in Paris a couple of weeks. It was organized by M&C Saatchi Head of Planning Gregory Duquesne. Having been fortunate enough to hang out with and enjoy long conversations with strategists around the world, I've realized these are some of my favorite conversations and that many of the non-strategy topics we discuss are ech...

Tamer Kattan is a stand-up comedian who's plied his strategy trade at 72andSunny, TBWA\Chiat\Day, and Deutsch.  He was born in Egypt, moved to the USA when he was 8, and then he had to work out how to adapt to an unhappy father and to unpredictable and sometimes violent environments as he grew up. Unfortunate for Tamer but lucky for us–because now he makes jokes about it all. P.S. Tamer is in NYC...

Heather LeFevre is back. Last time, we discussed applying strategy to life. This time, we discuss 10 things we hope advertising students can contemplate as they embark on their careers.  You can find Heather here https://twitter.com/hklefevre - and make sure you check out her book “Brain Surfing.”  For more strategy talk:  Newsletter: http://www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/ Instagram: http://...

Julian Cole and I decided to speak in public for an hour before we plan the year. Well, probably, a few years. It's the first time we've sat face-to-face to plan the events we do–specifically, The Strategy Super Sizer Megaclass. We discuss things we've learned about strategy, doing events, and life.  Details for the next megaclasses will appear here soon: http://www.strategymegaclass.com You can f...

Lee Maicon is Chief Strategy Officer of McCann - the North American Chief Strategy Officer. It's a big role but Lee cares about the small things such as the craft that goes into account planning. "Craft" can be an esoteric word that planners throw around like the phrase "classically trained" planner. So we discuss what craft is when the word isn't used in an esoteric way. You can find Lee here htt...

Two things Toronto-based strategy head Dino Demopoulos has spent much of life doing are music and strategy. In this interview, we discuss how promoting events, running record labels, and DJ-ing have something to do with strategy. You can find Dino Demopoulos here:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/dino-demopoulos-91b1073 For more strategy talk: Newsletter: http://www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/ I...

Jane Evans runs the Uninvisibility Project.  Having been a prolific creative director and having run an agency, she's now on a mission to make women over 50 uninvisible.  You can find Jane here https://twitter.com/janee and The Uninvisibility Project here https://www.uninvisibility.com/ For more strategy talk: Newsletter: http://www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/ Instagram: http://www.instagram...

Marco del Valle is a strategist at Epoch Design in the UK. He recently posted hypothetical strategies every day for a month. How do you sell Britney Spears to CEOs? The durian to westerners? Yoga to body builders? We discuss how Marco made a move from the Philippines to the UK and then go through 10 different strategies. You can find Marco’s work here: https://twitter.com/marcodel_valle/status/119...