How I work.
The rest of this site covers what I have done. This page is about how I do it, and what I am like to work with.
Where this comes from.
At BBDO and JWT I learned the craft with someone senior between me and the hard question. When a client pushed back, the person above me took it.
Then I spent eight years running my own agency, and there was nobody above me. The question came to me, and so did the pricing, the forecast, the margin and the payroll. I learned more in those eight years than in everything that came before, because every decision had a number attached and none of it could be handed up.
It changed how I manage. Once you have been the last line, you stop seeing your team as the people who deliver and start seeing them as people who need cover. My first manager at BBDO did that for me, and I have tried to do it since.
Those years also taught me the commercial half of the job. A full calendar and a good month are not the same thing, so I learned to read the margin every week rather than at the quarter. We held accounts for years, and never by discounting to stay.
These days I run the commercial and client side of an agency here in Dubai. A good part of my time goes into founder and executive visibility, which asks the same question an account does: what is worth saying, and what is noise. I use AI as leverage across the work, so a focused team carries more without adding headcount.
The shape of the job has not changed in 20 years. Hold the strategy honest, keep delivery reliable, and keep the client and the team pointed at the same outcome.
Three things I hold to.
- Clarity before activity. Every team is busy. Fewer can say which of this week's work moves the business. I would rather cut half the plan and have everyone understand why the other half matters.
- A recommendation, not a menu. A team that brings me five directions has usually not finished thinking. One clear recommendation with the reasoning visible is worth more, and it is easier to argue with.
- Say it early. I report as the work happens rather than at the end of the month. A problem raised on day three is a conversation. The same problem raised at the review is a failure.
What I usually inherit.
Accounts arrive with one of a few things wrong. The client has gone quiet and nobody can say why. The retainer renews on habit rather than on results. Delivery costs more than it should and the leak is hard to find. The senior person is the bottleneck, and the team stalls every time they are busy.
Those are four versions of the same problem. The servicing is usually fine, and nobody is actually leading the account.
What that has looked like, with the numbers →
Away from the accounts.
I have been in Dubai since 2020, by way of Montreal and Beirut. I speak Arabic, English and French, and German is the one I am working on now.
Where to find me.
I write The HOLD Letter because the decisions that hold an account together are rarely the ones anyone writes down. Working them out in public keeps me honest about them. I am also on LinkedIn most days. If this is your world too, either one is a good place to say hello.