With the second annual Agency Leaders Summit fast approaching, Conference News has spoken to speakers and panellists about their upcoming sessions, the importance of agency leaders coming together and the biggest challenges facing creative leaders today.
Launched in 2024, the CN Agency Leaders Summit offers an exclusive platform for agency founders, directors and leadership teams to come together and discuss market shifts, nurture sustainable growth, and build resilient creative businesses.
Returning this September, the event aims is built for senior members of the agency community, discussing pertinent strategy-focused challenges to support their organisation. Through a balance of content sessions and networking opportunities, this summit supports agency leaders to strive towards best practice across the sector. Find out more about the summit here.
The summit is taking place on 11-12 September at East Sussex National Resort.
In this interview, we speak to Grace Louisy, managing director at HeadBox. Louisy will be speaking on a panel session on day two, called ‘The Leadership Mindset: Cultures That Scale Without Breaking’. The panel will bring together founders and directors to discuss the human side of running a modern agency, where culture, inclusion, and resilience are not ‘soft’ metrics, but strategic ones.
What can attendees expect from your session? Why do you think this conversation needs to happen now?
We all know that the way we work has changed, and currently, there are five generations at work, each with different goals and needs. We’re in an economic climate where most workplaces are streamlining their resources and cutting their budgets, meaning people in our industry are feeling overworked and underpaid. DE&I policies are being diluted, staff are disparate, and the list goes on! Essentially, there’s never been a more important time for businesses to align on their workplace culture.
I read so much about the divide between generations, the stereotypes and the challenges. My aim is to move away from this narrative and give tangible solutions to agency leaders who want to drive a culture of positivity and inclusivity, without compromising on high performance.
What’s one insight or challenge from your own experience that has shaped your approach to this topic?
Working in the event tech space has given me first-hand experience of pivoting and pivoting quickly. We run a very agile, dynamic team at HeadBox, and we’ve built a company culture from the ground up. We have experience in growing, on a global scale, whilst retaining a values-based culture that’s long-lasting.
Why do you believe this subject is important for agency leaders navigating today’s business landscape?
It’s a cliche, but a business is only as good as the people doing the work. To rise to the plethora of contemporary challenges, any successful team has to have the capacity and potential for imaginative work practices. By definition, this can only come through retaining talent and expanding domain knowledge beyond tried and tested KPI-centric models.
What type of leader or agency will benefit most from attending your session?
Any agency that has experienced significant structural changes within the last year, or any leader who is either trying to recruit or retain top talent, will benefit from this session.
In your journey through the events industry, what’s one leadership lesson that’s stuck with you along the way?
Back in 2020, Andrew, CEO and Founder of HeadBox, shared a book by Yetunde Hofmann, which centred on love-based leadership in organisations. The idea is that leading with love will develop richer relationships with stakeholders and unlock greater potential with teams. Ever since then, I’ve tried to apply love-based leadership in my daily life: how I show up to work, how I manage my teams, how I interact with venues and suppliers and how I communicate.
Even when I make tough decisions, I always try to lead with love.