Inspiring Futures - Lessons from the Worlds of Marketing and Advertising

Christine Olivas began her career by hand-delivering 50 resumes to San Francisco startups, which resulted in one startup hiring her. Her entry into agency work came when an owner heard a webinar she produced and was impressed enough to bring her aboard. At this agency, she excelled by running two departments and contributing to significant growth. After years of success there, she transitioned to a strategy role at a New York agency before going freelance. When client demand exceeded her capacity, she built a team, evolving into her current thriving business (No Single Individual) that provides agencies with talent across multiple disciplines. Christine's journey illustrates the power of hard work, risk-taking, entrepreneurship, and market understanding. Our hour together revealed not only her remarkable path but also her insights on how agencies have the opportunity to be more flexible and adaptable with talent in today's challenging environment.A shift that's creating new opportunities thanks to the breadth and depth of freelance talent. 

Tara is the Chief Creative Officer at Rethink NY.She has extensive creative experience from agencies including Y&R, BBH, Mother, and Droga (x2).In our conversation, we discussed her experience at Miami Ad School, where she was forced to think seriously about funny- to an approach and perspective on being sensitive enough to find funny in the world around you.We discussed her experiences and challenges at the different agencies she's worked at.How Rethink throws has a unique West-Coast culture that's designed to make working in a New York agency less like a hot house.How clients still want great workBut this all depends on the relationship and how Rethink has a unique way of making this work from the get-go. 

The latest Inspiring Futures podcast features an interview with Pip Bingemann- the co-founder of Springboards.aiAs strategy departments grapple with how to use AI, this podcast seems timely.Pip is an agency strategist who embraced AI from the early days, learned basic code, and built a model that attracted the attention of several agencies. Fast-forward two and a half years, and Springboards.ai has funding, sales,  and customer service teams in multiple countries, as well as a bench of tech talent that includes a 17-year-old math genius. Pip is doing something different with AI- recognizing that strategists need partners to help them bring their ideas to life, Springboards.ai is designed to be fun and creative. Its focus is on delivering variance vs. the typical AI model, where output is about conforming to an average.

The latest Inspiring Futures podcast features an interview with Michael Miller and Chris Nobile- two of the three founders of consulting group Consiglieri.Before the founding of the consultancy, Michael and Chris worked together and helped build T-Mobile's in-house capabilities. In our conversation, we talk about what they learned from the T-Mobile experience and how it informed the development of their consultancy. We discussed the pieces that matter, like the power of asking why certain things are happening, building operational competence, and doing things that help turn legacy marketing organizations into modern ones. In a complex and complicated marketing world, Consiglieri exists to help CMOs build and operationalize their marketing function, allowing the CMO to manage the day-to-day. 

The latest Inspiring Futures podcast features an interview with Ali Burton. Ali is Head of Incubator at Gate One in London, which is a Havas-owned start-up incubator. He's also in the process of growing his own start-up Catch. https://catchcameras.co.uk/The idea of Catch is to lean into the movement for people to appreciate the analog, enjoy waiting, learn new skills, and build IRL communities. In our conversation, we talked about what he's learned from working with start-up founders, how he's thinking about and growing his business, and what it was that drove him to develop the company.

The latest Inspiring Futures episode is all about "Futures".My guest is Donna Dupont, Chief Strategist, Foresight and Design at Purple Compass.As the Founder and Chief Strategist in Foresight & Design for Purple Compass, Donna Dupont brings skills and insights developed over 20 years working with leaders in healthcare, emergency management, government public policy, strategic planning and program design. She has facilitated a range of foresight and design activities for clients in healthcare, emergency management and military.In the conversation, we talk about the world of "Futures" what it is, what it isn't, the skills required, the approaches, and some of the challenges involved. 

The latest episode of Inspiring Futures features an excerpt from a webinar I hosted with Brent Vartan of Bullish. Brent began his career as a strategist at shops that included- BBDO and Deutsch. Bullish was founded in 2016 with the promise of bringing ad agency expertise, including strategy, to the start-up world. The company describes its approach as "blending capital, consulting, and creation to design the most remarkable businesses in the world."In our conversation, I spoke with Brent about the pivotal role that strategy and strategists play in this space. It's a world where strategists work upstream, partnering with CEOs and founders to shape their brands in ways that are aligned with their vision and expedient to their needs and culture. We dive into what this entails and what it takes to get it right.

Mark is the co-founder of Squint Consulting. Before Squint, Mark was an experienced Head of Strategy working with clients like Nike, Netflix, Samsung, and Diageo. His career spanned New York, London, and Amsterdam and he spent his formative years at R/GA, the world’s leading digital innovation firm.In our conversation, we talked about his experience at R/GA, why he wants to be a "brand," not just a "freelancer," working with companies that, after 5-10 years, are finding they've reached the "plateau" with performance marketing and now need to think more deeply about their brand, his work with Olipop and how happiness is an important new space for brands today. 

YAMA Group was founded in 2009 and has steadily built a reputation as one of the leading small, independent pharma shops in the world. It has worked on brands including Botox, Humira, and Keytruda and works with Takeda, AbbVie, and Pfizer. It's a highly creative agency that works across all aspects of pharma marketing including efforts to reach specialists and has developed its unique products for these interactions involving the creation of "digital patients.In my conversation with Martin and Michelle- we discuss the world of pharma marketing, look at what matters in the space, and how the agency differentiates itself and has created its own unique culture. This is an agency that grew its revenue an astonishing 67% in 2023. 

My latest Inspiring Futures podcast episode features an interview with Dr. Anastasia Kārkliņa Gabriel.Anastasia is a cultural theorist, writer, social critic, and strategist specializing in inclusivity within marketing, media, and tech. She earned her doctorate in cultural studies from Duke University and is now using her expertise to help brands ignite cultural innovation and leverage the power of media for good. Dr. Gabriel is the author of Cultural Intelligence for Marketers, published by Kogan Page in March 2024.She has consulted for the world’s largest brands at research and creative agencies like Wieden+Kennedy, Dentsu Creative, McCann New York, Kantar, and Canvas8 and been featured by the American Marketing Association, the Association of National Advertisers, the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Advertising Week, Campaign US, Teen Vogue, and others,In our conversation, we talked about her early years and upbringing in Latvia and her school experience in Hong Kong. We talked about what culture means to her, how she thinks about it, and its importance.