That’s where I come in.
I work with agency leaders and their teams to find better ways of working together. Most owners have the right instincts about their business. I bring the insight, guidance, and methods to make your vision achievable.
Let’s get started.
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Photo strip: four working photos — on stage at the Ad Age Small Agency Conference, the workshop wall of sticky notes, the client conference room, the workshop audience — edge to edge, in a warm olive/gold duotone.
Agencies have always been businesses in motion. New clients, new services, a growth spurt, going remote, and now AI: there’s always something, and every shift quietly pulls the way the firm runs out of alignment with what the firm has become. Running an agency well is largely the ability to realign as change happens. It’s a skill, and it’s hard to exercise if you’ve never done it or watched it done; most owners are facing this round for the first time. Done well, realignment does more than fix the drift; it reinvigorates the place. I’ve been in the room for hundreds of these.
Every agency mission, vision, or values statement I’ve ever read commits to the same three things: brilliant work and happy clients; passionate, engaged people who love the work and the company; and healthy growth and margin. Nobody needs help writing that. The drift shows up as a distance between the wall and the Monday, and it hides in five places.
The drift hides in five places.
Pick your proudest value. What’s the most common behavior in your firm that quietly refutes it, and how will you change that?
What I do: I find these gaps with the whole agency, using a participatory workshop: the Agency Diagnostic, which comes in several flavors. It gives us the target list and the metrics we need to start making changes.
Who in your firm hasn’t been asked for their thinking in a month, and how did a disempowering process find its way in?
What I do: Growth makes execution harder, and the firm flexes inward, losing sight of, and the capability for, deep engagement with clients. I teach rituals that reinvigorate how people work together, and with clients.
What does someone in one of your departments believe about another department that they’d never say in a mixed room, and what’s your evidence it isn’t true?
What I do: I simplify structures: less complexity, less hierarchy, and bring people back together for more efficient, more enjoyable execution.
Where are your leaders spending their time: sorting out org charts and promotions, or elevating the conversation with clients, present and future?
What I do: Realigned functions and a focus on value creation reshape managerial thinking. Where it’s needed, I coach individuals on the leadership and management team.
Count the tools your firm runs on. How many are bending your people to their way of working, and how many have dissolved into everyone doing their own thing?
What I do: Tools either try to do too much or too little. I help leadership teams rationalize, often reduce, their reliance on tools, cutting cost and smoothing operational flow.
Read: Culture Drift — It’s Monday, do you know where your mission went? →
They’re not saying the work is bad. They’re saying they can’t see what makes you different from the next firm that could do it. And they’re probably right — not because you lack judgment, but because your judgment is invisible. It’s buried inside deliverables. The strategy arrived free in the pitch; the invoice billed for the production that followed. The client never saw the thinking. They only saw the output. And outputs are exactly what AI is making cheaper by the month.
The fix isn’t to argue harder for your value. It’s to swim upstream. Get involved earlier — in how the client frames the problem, in what they’re actually trying to accomplish, in the decisions that happen before anyone writes a brief. When your people are in the room for the question, not just the answer, the client experiences your judgment directly. That changes the pricing conversation, because now they’re not comparing your deliverable to someone else’s deliverable. They’re relying on your thinking.
Research on what drives the highest client ratings tells a striking story: out of 91 attributes, work quality ranks only #30. The top-rated firms aren’t doing the best work. They’re the ones whose clients feel most strategically supported.
The firms that figure this out aren’t just surviving the AI shift — they’re the ones whose clients stop shopping.
(Agency CEO, 2026)
“It’s been a journey. When I first sought you out, I was looking for someone who could bring some sanity and enlightenment to the operational monster we’d built. I wanted an outside perspective to show us what we were missing and possibly to validate a thing or two. Even with high expectations going in, I got more out of our time together than I could have hoped for.
Beyond the great systems and processes you helped us deploy, you managed to shift the mindset of so many people here. The last eight months breathed new life into some, elevated others, and helped us collectively turn the page on the next chapter.
Your methodologies are not only sound, but the way you communicate and achieve buy-in is masterful. I’ve learned a lot observing your style and will continue to work it into my own leadership style. You’ve positively impacted many lives here and I’m very grateful our paths crossed.”
Agencies advised. Over 15 years of structural work.
Paid back within 3 months. Level 1 cost recovered on first project. [verify]
Likely or very likely to recommend. [verify]
Faster delivery. More work per hour, less rework. [verify]
The methods live on.
I still teach the whole Workstream Program. The full AgencyAgile methods — refined across 200+ engagements over 15 years. Team-driven scoping, reverse-communication briefings, pod-based structures, daily coordination redesign. Available in short-form, remote, and refresh formats.
UNMANAGED — Five first-place book awards. Kirkus called it “a bracing, standard-resetting approach to doing management right.” Get the book →
The Mostly Helpful Psychopath — My next book, written in public. What happens when machines talk fluently without understanding a word. Read the chapters →
Three questions every agency exec should be able to answer.
The economics that justified keeping your team away from your client just expired.
When AI makes assembly free, what are you actually selling?
Why the models that sound best fit worst.
Pod-based structures reduce coordination overhead in matrixed organizations.
If something here resonated, I’d like to hear about it.
30 minutes. No pitch, no deck. You tell me what’s not working; I’ll tell you what I’d look at first.
Book a Conversation →Prefer email? Tell me a bit about your agency and what’s on your mind. I’ll get back to you personally.
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