Creative Leadership

A creative function that knows what it’s doing and why, produces work the business values, and has the trust and clarity to operate at its best.

The leader understands both the work and the business—and can hold the two together under pressure.

Because growth adds complexity faster than most teams can absorb it.

New stakeholders, new processes, new expectations—and often no one stopping to make sure the team still understands its purpose and how it fits.

Clarity doesn’t disappear overnight. It erodes gradually, and by the time it’s obvious, it’s already a problem.

By being clear about what matters and honest about what doesn’t. By protecting the conditions that allow good work to happen, even when the business is pulling in every direction. And by making sure the team feels steady—even when you don’t.

By keeping the team connected to their purpose when everything else is shifting. Change creates uncertainty and uncertainty creates noise.

My job is to filter that noise, communicate honestly, and make sure the team knows what’s expected of them—even when the bigger picture is still being worked out.

Through doing it—and getting some of it wrong. Through listening and reading and learning from others. Practical experience as a journalist and copywriter, co-founding an agency, spending fifteen years inside one of the UK's fastest-growing businesses, then working as a consultant with global brands.

Usually because the function hasn’t scaled with the business. What worked at one size stops working at another—the ways of working, the team structure, the relationship with the rest of the organisation.

Performance drops when those things fall out of alignment.

I start with clarity on what the team is actually there to do—and make sure that’s connected to what the business needs.

Then build the ways of working, the conversations and the relationships that keep those two things pointing in the same direction.

I've been leading creative people since 1998, including deputy editor of the official Manchester United magazine. I co-founded a content agency in 2001. At Conrad I restructured the briefing process for the agency. At Signet I recruited and led the content team for the launch of Ernest Jones.com. At Ocado I spent fifteen years growing from first copywriter to Head of Creative & Branding, leading a 45-person studio and sitting on the senior leadership team.

Since then I've led and co-led advisory practices, consulting for global in-house agencies at EKCS and InnerGroup, and worked independently with creative leaders across multiple industries as a consultant, coach and adviser.