Sweathead, A Strategy Podcast

I spoke to Priyanka today. She was in Bombay - or "Mumbai," as some call it. Earlier this week, news abounded with fears of international war between India and Pakistan. We discuss this then we discuss doing strategy as the only planner in an agency and how India's diversity requires different approaches to advertising. War to strategy - easy segues all round. You can find Priyanka here: https://t...

Jerrold McGrath helps artists and creators solve big problems and work out how to make a living from their art. He spent a decade consulting with companies and leaders at the amazing Bannf Centre in Calgary and now advises Artscape Daniels Launchpad, a program that takes places in a 30,000 square-foot space in Toronto. We discuss: - How to have a creative practice - Understanding the systems in wh...

Tom is 20+ years into strategy work and now runs brand strategy at Re in Sydney, Australia. He's worked in the UK, NYC, and Sydney.  We discuss: - The blindspots of different types of agencies doing brand strategy - How complexity has earned many companies money - The return to simplicity in strategy You can find Tom here: https://twitter.com/thepunkrockshop   For more strategy talk: 1. Strategy n...

Mel McShane has spent well over a decade at renowned design agency Wolff Olins and consults with executives around the world on their brand strategies.  One question up-coming strategists are sometime curious about is which type of agency actually does brand strategy because... so many agencies say they do everything but when you're in them you realize it isn't always true. We discuss: - Where bra...

Simon Smiles is the Chief Investment Officer for the Ultra-High Net Worth investors of UBS in Switzerland. He spends his days with people who have over $50M in investments with UBS. UBS banks with half of the world's billionaires. Simon has a PhD, he is a regular attendee of the World Economic Forum and the Milken Institute events, he speaks with hundreds of the world's business, government, phila...

Jonathan Colmenares and Matt Butler established Open Strategy at the start of 2015. They assembled strategy presentations and tools into a website. Then they launched a Slack channel which housed thousands of strategists. Then events and an email newsletter. Then they both left the full-time agency world, reduced how much time they spend online and they now spend less time talking about strategy. ...

Imagine if you could put your strategy skills to work for some kind of good. All that brainpower, that empathy, and that creative lust... surely you could change the world. Well, in some places it might be possible. Harsha Prag is based in Johannesburg, South Africa, a country of 50 million people with 11 official languages and a lot of social problems that need help. Having run account planning a...

Tom Morton is co-CSO of R/GA in the USA. It's a new role, so new it was announced this week. Tom shares the role with Jess Greenwood. With over 60 strategists in 7 US offices while working with large and fast tech companies but not just tech companies, what does strategy do at R/GA and how is strategy different between the USA and England, the other place both Tom and Jess have worked? We discuss:...

Samanta Judez is Managing Director of DDB Barcelona. Before this, she was the agency's CSO. She isn't alone as a planner-turned-agency-leader but the convention is to reserve the role for someone from account management. So, what can a planner bring to agency leadership? We discuss: - What an MD does - How to know if this path is for you - Planning in Spain - Barcelona's long history of creativity...

How would you feel the day you found out you had cancer? How would you feel the afternoon after your first chemotherapy session? How would you feel the sleep before spinal surgery? Would you seek out and do more strategy work or less? Would you know how to speak about any of this with your family and friends? What would you say?  Murray Calder is strategy director at Mediacom in Edinburgh. He also...

Sudeep Gohil has worked in Sydney, London, Portland, LA, Mumbai, and Tokyo. He's run a Droga5 office, led strategy at Wieden and Kennedy, helped 72andsunny develop plans for Asia, and now runs brand strategy at KPMG.    We discuss: - How moving around helps you connect more dots - Working in a growing market like India - Taking a break from agencies - The move from strategist to CEO - How it feels...

The strategy life is full of lonely strolls through the garden of the mind, blank timesheets, and career paths. Sometimes, there are allies. Sometimes, there aren't. Sometimes, you don't even know. Do strategy in a massive city like New York and the sense of isolation can multiply by the number of people in the city in some bizarre and ironic act of revenge. With her crew at STRTGST, Tina organize...

Jake Rusznyak has held very senior creative roles in very good advertising agencies in Sydney. BMF, Host, and The Monkeys feature on his resume. But what caught my eye was an article Jake recently wrote about being a father of twins while wrestling the needs of clients and maintaining a marriage to a CMO.  We discuss: - The idea of symmetry in relationships - Love languages - The power of routine...

Kate Bordwell leads design research at Skyscanner in Scotland. Yes, the website that helps you fly places for your Instagram feed. And in former lives she was an account planner and a digital strategist. So how do all these experiences inform her approach to design thinking?   We discuss:  - What design thinking is - Working across company silos and departments - Ways to approach ethnography - Com...

Tess McGourty is strategy lead at Elephant in Los Angeles. Elephant is part of digital agency Huge so Tess now works on digital projects. She started in a media agency then spent several years in advertising. And she has written several articles for strategists new to the industry. So this is what we decided we'd talk about.  We discuss: 1. Mentorship and what's the point? 2. Unusual career leaps...

Nancy Hill became President and CEO of the 4As in 2008. The 4As is the American Association of Advertising Agencies. It is the main advertising agency body in the USA. In 2008, the economy tanked, middle-management roles disappeared, salaries didn't disappeared, and the misbehaviors of agency leaders started going public. Many people set up their own agencies as a way to do work they liked and to...

Tom Beck once ran then sold an agency. Now, as the Executive Director of the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA), he helps other people who run agencies.  We discuss: 1. The eras of digital agencies over the past 20 years 2. The missteps some agencies have taken 3. How to get the people to work... specifically, what are the challenges in bringing in strategy, account management, user experience, an...

Marketing consultant Wiemer Snijders recently gathered some of his favorite brains into a book. The book is a call to marketers and strategists of all kinds to deploy more evidence and more facts in their work. The book's name is "Eat Your Greens". It is available through Troubador. We discuss: 1. The 5 most useful fact-based ideas to marketers right now 2. The allure of consulting models and diag...

Fernando Machado is the Global CMO of Burger King. His marketing team is one of the most creatively awarded teams in recent years. And that's all you need to know. I recorded this interview with a brand new microphone but I didn't edit it much. I want you to hear a chat between someone at the peak of his game and a beginner. Yes, the beginner is me. Although, the way Fernando talks, he seems to ha...

Lucy Cochran has just arrived in New York. She's run strategy teams in Australia and Amsterdam. She's won a bunch of awards. She ran the Melbourne arm of the Account Planning Group. And we decided to give ourselves the challenge of discussing and answering 20 of the main questions facing strategists right now. They include: 1. Why don't clients want to pay for it? 2. Why don't some agencies suppor...

Suzy Batiz is founder and CEO of Poo-Pourri. She is in a minority of business leaders who insist creativity is so important to a business that it's a default expectation of everyone in her company. As is the use of intuition. Having just launched the new direct-to-consumer brand Supernatural, Suzy has used creativity and intuition to create an empire of honest and comedic advertising and products...

Heather Lefevre has done a lot for strategy people. With The Strategist Survey, she helped strategists understand their salaries. With her book "Brain Surfing", she takes strategists around the world with her to meet and experience other strategy minds. But she's also done a lot for herself by applying her strategy sensibilities to her own life. We discuss:  - Writing a brief to find love - Divorc...

Courtney Ackerman is a researcher and author. She focuses on positive psychology. Her first booked was called "My Pocket Positivity" and contains tens of exercises to help people practice positivity. She has two new books in the pipeline - one on bliss and one on gratitude.  We discuss:  - What is positive psychology? Is it misunderstood?  - Bliss and gratitude and how they affect the brain  - Tur...

How much is happiness a leap of faith? And, like entrepreneurship, does the leap ever end? Meet Mo Seetubtim. Mo runs The Happiness Planner while running around the world to cities such as Bangkok, London, San Francisco, and New York. She once worked in a media agency in Australia but left and created her own company. And a new way of living.  We discuss:  - Happiness in different parts of the wor...

In October 1990, Miguel D’Souza started The Mothership Connection on 2SER FM with Roxanne. Within a couple of years it was Sydney’s preeminent hip hop radio show. Every Tuesday at 2pm (or at 2.30pm for a period), it was one of the few places on any radio station that played hip hop, underground hip hop, local hip hop, while also hosting hip hop DJs and open mic freestyle sessions. Around April 199...