Thinking
The importance of your senior team
Written by Jon Ross
16 May 2022
The growth potential of any agency is defined by the depth and capabilities of its senior team. You need experienced talent to successfully drive leads, develop client pitch strategy, lead a pitch team and instil C-Suite confidence at crunch times. Then you need leaders who can deliver to client’s program strategy and implementation on budget.
The more senior leaders you have who can execute the new business and client strategy processes, the greater your firm’s revenue growth potential. Are you as owner taking every step possible to build a leadership pipeline? Is your current team fully prepared today to excel at these critically important functions?
To fuel agency growth and enhance the value of the company, thriving agencies have a process (and performance metrics) for the consistent development and management of the next generation of senior talent.

Thriving agencies have a process for the consistent development and management of the next generation of senior talent.
To fuel agency growth and enhance the value of the company, thriving agencies have a process (and performance metrics) for the consistent development and management of the next generation of senior talent.
Important considerations in building a leadership pipeline.
- Is your agency’s value proposition well defined and understood by your team?
- Is your value proposition supported by proprietary intellectual property (process, products, thought leadership platforms)?
- Are your agency’s senior team and organisational structure designed to effectively and efficiently service and sell your agency value proposition?
- Does your firm have a consistent methodology for overall client service delivery (data, strategy, content, program execution, channel-agnostic delivery, and back-end analytics)?
- Does your agency have a process for lead generation and reputation building? How central are you personally versus your team for success in these areas?
- Does your agency have a consistent best-of-breed new business qualification and pitching process?
- Does your agency have a thorough professional development program built around your client service delivery process, proprietary intellectual property/products and new business process?
- What level within your firm drafts client and new business pitch strategy documents? Is your mid-level talent involved?
- Does your current leadership team have clear and aligned roles, success metrics and incentives?
- Does the staff have career roadmap documents detailing skills and accomplishments necessary for outstanding performance?
- Does your agency have a thorough and timely process for handling staff reviews, promotions and salary increases?
- Do your current recruiting, selection and hiring processes consistently garner A-level talent?
Obviously, building a leadership pipeline is a highly complicated and important process. It requires thinking through many aspects of agency life and incorporating this into a teaching process. It should include formal training, informal mentoring and, at the right time, you are letting go so the team drives major clients and new business pitches with little or no involvement from you. Success will bring greater revenue growth and a much larger valuation for your agency at exit time.