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 Matt Green, strategy director at Broadsword. Green will be speaking in a session on day one called ‘Scaling Up & Down: Balancing the Talent Pool’, which will explore how event agencies are adapting their workforce strategies to remain responsive, competitive, and values-led. From managing permanent vs freelance talent and maintaining client consistency, to rethinking what roles are considered core, the session will examine how to build scalable structures without compromising integrity.
What can attendees expect from your session? Why do you think this conversation needs to happen now?
I hope this session enables a wider discussion around talent and opportunity within our sector. Although events happen throughout the year often agencies physical project landscape can be very pinpointed into certain times in the business cycle.
Managing and maintaining the right amount, and level of talent within your ecosystem can be challenging, even more so now in a turbulent 2025.
What’s one insight or challenge from your own experience that has shaped your approach to this topic?
Working globally, with a remote team ensuring we are able to up and down scale our talent at the right times has been key to delivering a successful project and, ultimately the recent success of our business. With that in mind it has been difficult with project lead times being, often very short ensuring we have the right people in place at the right time can be costly.
We have found the best route to combatting this is be constantly having honest conversations, both internally and externally.
Why do you believe this subject is important for agency leaders navigating today’s business landscape?
As I previously mentioned in the sectors Broadsword work in, predominately B2B and B2E project lead times can be very short – in the summer of 2024 we organised a 3 global location product launch for one client with 6-weeks lead time over August.
Sharing insight and discussing strategies for combatting the combined pressure points in the agencies diaries can be mutually beneficial for our own workforce, the freelance pool and clients alike.
What type of leader or agency will benefit most from attending your session?
I hope bringing this topic to CALS will benefit leaders of both large and small agencies. Margins are tight, the global landscape is challenging and a business’s runway can become short very quickly if their provision is incorrectly balanced.
In your journey through the events industry, what’s one leadership lesson that’s stuck with you along the way?
I live my life by the mantra that nothing ever comes to the person who always says no.