Running an Agency in the Age of AI

CEO, Productive

Tom spent 15 years running his own agency, growing it to 300 people. Now, as CEO of Productive, he works closely with hundreds of agency leaders facing those same pressures. Rather than adding another hot take on AI, Tom will unpack what’s actually going on in the agency world right now.

COO EMEA, Croud

Charlotte has been building operations since she was 21, when she co-founded Born Social, a social agency later acquired by Croud. Now operating at group level post-acquisition, she's thinking about scale differently: how to protect culture, maintain momentum, and make decisions that hold up over time.

Founder & MD, We Are Toucan

Lynn is a storyteller and strategist who founded We Are Toucan, an award-winning creative agency helping brands and organisations tell stories that stick. With three decades of hard-won experience in ops, culture, and growth, she's not afraid to ask the questions others won't. She'll be bringing that instinct for the human thread to her role as moderator of a fireside chat with Charlotte.

Co-Founder, Tommy

Today, with ChatGPT, Claude, or whichever accessible tool, it is easier than ever to produce content — which means sameness is now the default. Obsessed with what makes brands truly distinct in a sea of forgettable content, Marcus has developed a groundbreaking framework for measuring brand distinctiveness rooted in the first academic studies linking behavioral and cognitive neuroscience to memory.

Director of BeSci & Innovation, Reflect Digital

Lottie has spent her career asking one question: why do people actually do what they do? Starting out in paid media, she found her answer in behavioural science — and hasn't looked back since. Now leading behavioural science and innovation at Reflect Digital, she's on a mission to prove that understanding people is the most powerful growth lever an agency has.

Founder, Agency Folk

With 20 years of experience in the agency world, Michael knows what happens when a firm tries to grow faster than its foundations can hold. As founder of Agency Folk, he brings agency leaders together through masterminds, gatherings, and events, meaning he's heard every version of this conversation before. He’s the natural choice to moderate our panel and ask exactly the questions others would rather dodge.

Co-Founder & Director of Ops, Atomic Smash

David co-founded Atomic Smash straight out of university with a simple ultimatum: get clients in three months or get a proper job. As the person who has overseen operations through every stage of that growth, David knows better than most what scaling actually demands — and why no tool, however powerful, can do the hard work for you.

Agency Operations Consultant, Manish Kapur Consulting

Manish has spent over two decades working inside creative agencies — long enough to know where the friction actually lives and why the obvious fixes rarely hold. Now working independently with founders, he brings hard-won clarity to the things that matter: how you price, how you deliver, and how you protect margin when it counts.

Managing Director, Reboot

Zoë has spent a decade building what many talk about but few manage: an agency that grows fast and stays profitable. At Reboot, she's turned headcount, revenue, and margins into a story that moves in the right direction — all at once, not in trade-offs. She's the kind of operator who makes hard calls look obvious.

CEO, ITG, Powered by Storyteq

Andrew previously led Publicis Creative and Production and served as global CEO of Leo Burnett, having been pivotal in building Starcom MediaVest into the world’s largest media agency as Global President. Now CEO of ITG, he’s helping brands unlock AI’s value through its Gartner-recognised Storyteq Content Marketing Platform.

Senior Operations Manager, GAIN

Kerry is an operations professional at GAIN with almost 30 years in digital marketing. A systems thinker by nature, she has spent her career working out how agencies actually function — and what needs to change. In her fireside chat, she'll get into the real operational problems agencies face today and whether AI can genuinely power up the way they run.

VP of Biz Dev, Productive

With years spent working alongside agency leaders on the operational challenges that hold growth back, Kresimir brings a sharp understanding of how agencies actually run day-to-day. He'll be moderating the fireside chat on whether AI can genuinely transform the way agencies operate — and what it takes to get there.