The Unfiltered Truth About Being a Female CEO in Digital Agencies – Vanessa Cartwright (ex-Astound, Blast Radius, Fluid)

Vanessa Cartwright – 25-year digital agency titan (Astound Commerce, Blast Radius, Fluid) and the sharpest M&A / transaction-readiness advisor in the game – goes completely unfiltered on MarTalks:

• Why women still walk into mostly-male boardrooms in 2025 (and how the loudest voices in tech are currently celebrating zero-empathy leadership)
• The brutal loneliness of being CEO: no real peers, can’t show weakness up or down, and the myth of “having all the answers”
• The hidden deal-killers in agency exits: client concentration, founder risk, missing recurring-revenue rigor, and profitability by service line
• Why some agencies are waking up to find their beautiful recurring revenue just got eaten by Shopify + composable
• How to productize services without losing the creative soul clients pay for
• Building safe, competitive-free peer groups for first-time CEOs (especially women)
• And yes… restoring 100-year-old wooden sailing boats, hoisting sails next to polar bears in the Arctic, and why every CEO needs a real hobby

If you’re a female founder, first-time CEO, agency owner eyeing an exit, or just want the real talk on power, money, and empathy in 2025 tech, this one hits different.

#WomenInTech #DigitalAgency #FemaleFounders #CEOlife #AgencyExit #Commerce #MarTech #MarTalks

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Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO.

Visit RosensteinGroup.com to find out more.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Mar Talks, the number one podcast for e-commerce and marketing applications. Mar Talks is devoted to covering the latest technology developments that drive the global commerce ecosystem from advertising to last mile. Enjoy all of our content at Rosenstein Group.com slash Mar Talks-Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Go, Rosenstein. Welcome to Mar Talks. Mar Talks is where we talk about the digital economy and things happening within the e-commerce software and Martech software world. And today my guest is a digital agency pioneer, a CEO that's been at this for two and a half decades, working across some names you recognize, like Astound Commerce and Fluid and Blast Radiist and RMG and in three different countries. And she's got three different passports to show for it. And with that, everybody, Meet Vedaskartwright. Welcome to the show, Vanessa.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Well, thank you, Daryl, and thank you for hosting me on the show today.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Well, it's lovely to have you. It's been gosh, I think we met at uh NRF 15 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

I would think so. Something like that, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Gosh, I guess we've been at this for a little while.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

When you said two and a half decades just then, that was a little alarming, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah, well, my hairline is more indicative of that than yours, but yeah, it's been a while. But that's a good thing, I think, in this day and age of change. Because I think it gives us perspective. And that's why I'm really happy that you're here because we're gonna really explore your perspectives on some very uh pressing issues, I would have to say, in technology. And one of the big ones is obviously the role of women within technology, which I still don't think gets enough airplay. And I know you agree. I guess we should start with the big question, which is from your own experience and from what you're dealing with right now, what are the biggest challenges that uh still face women taking the reins of a digital agency?

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Yeah, so let's jump right in there. You know, as you know, Darren, we've talked about you've you've touched on my kind of background at a number of different agencies and stepping into leadership roles at, you know, really the majority of those. And I um always, I suppose, discounted the impact of gender in my career. I had a great experience working with you know a number of different, very strong female leaders and just I think assumed that there were no barriers, there was no impact based on gender difference, and we'd sort of pass that time. And, you know, by this point, we'd have boards of directors made up equally, not just of different genders, but a full range of different diversity, that we'd have leadership teams where it wasn't just the chief talent officer that was female, but that we had more female chief operating officers and chief executive officers. And I think the reality is for those of us that have been in some of those roles, that there's still not that many. It's not that there are none, but they are a little few and far between. And so as a woman stepping into those roles, and you know, I think particularly for a generation of women doing it for the first time, you know, you do still find yourself working with executive teams that are predominantly male, with boards of directors that are predominantly male. And that don't get me wrong, they're fantastic male leaders and men who've been given great guidance to me in my career and been incredible mentors. And, you know, I think that continues. But I think the reality is it is still more often than not that it's a male-dominated industry when it comes to technology. Women are definitely encouraged to join it as actual technologists. And I'm not a technologist, as you know, I'm more of a business person in the industry. But I do think that you kind of get to a certain point and you see fewer and fewer progressing into those senior roles. So I think there's an opportunity and a need for women in those roles to have an opportunity to kind of connect with each other, to share some of their common experiences and common challenges. And much as I was quite reluctant to think about that as needing to be gender specific, I think it is a little helpful just because women do find themselves often in rooms which are they're the only woman. And so it's helpful sometimes to kind of connect with others in that situation.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

It just boggles the mind because our economy is consumer-driven and business-to-consumer commerce is growing so rapidly. It's remember when it was nothing, and now it's 20% at least of all purchases, substantially more when you look at clothing or apparel. So women make up the majority of the purchasing decisions that are taking place in our economy. So you think brands that are looking to make themselves more accessible and more relevant would be more inclined to work with agency partners that are more in touch with that. And that the agency world would be more encouraging. We'd see more women in that role. What the heck is the disconnect?

SPEAKER_02 5:48

So I'm not sure. I suddenly know obviously, you look around the sort of uh let's call it the kind of political landscape today, and you can see that some of the biggest technology leaders that are, you know, in the world, again, predominantly male, are exhausting the values of masculinity in the workplace, de-emphasizing empathy, which I think is an extremely important aspect of leadership. So I think there are some unfortunate things happening in the kind of public discourse there that's not helpful. I suspect also still we are in a world where the sort of the cohort of founders typically were, well, again, not always, but a lot of them were male. They've often built successful companies and successfully exited those companies. A lot of them have subsequently gone on to set up their own funds or holding companies. And so I think you're sort of still lifted on the boards, etc. So I think perhaps we're still in the, you know, the era post-that generation. What I do love to see, and I'm working with a number of really fantastic female founders right now, is that there is quite an exciting cohort of women coming into the industry, looking to be disruptive, both in terms of the nature of the businesses that they're starting, but also kind of coming in and offering an alternative, as you say, to clients who perhaps want to think about purchasing services and developing partnerships with businesses that are led by women. And that I don't think people should be making choices on that basis. I think it should be about the quality of the work, you know, the excellence of the delivery.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Without a doubt.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

But I like to see that there are businesses that are getting founded by really energetic, smart women. And that will, I believe, lead to those women will create wealth, they will create their own futures, they'll sit and create their own funds and boards. And I think perhaps we'll see that as a little bit of a turning point.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Well, I I invested in one myself after meeting a founder at uh shop.org, and it was a wonderful experience at Shop Talk, I'm sorry. And I just can't say enough about this woman. She's Annabelle Maldonado. She is an incredibly dynamic, gifted, driven leader who's just really pumped up about psychometric product discovery and just kind of swept me along for that journey. And I I can't wait to see what happens. But do you really think there's a a unique set of guidance and and lessons you can give women having been through what you've been through over the last 20 years?

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Well, yes, I think that there's sort of a couple of facets to it, you know, and I don't think that it is always specific to women. I think about it as people stepping into a very senior leadership role for the first time and what kind of, you know, there's several different scenarios that that might cover, and they each present fairly specific challenges. So sometimes people step into that role for the first time because they're taking over from a founder or an existing leader that is voluntarily leaving, they've met their earnout requirement, they're looking for their retirement, whatever just the next step in their career, that has a certain set of challenges. There's other opportunities when people come into that role for the first time when they might be taking over from a leader who is perhaps unvoluntarily exiting the business. That has a lot of other challenges that go along with it. And then, of course, you've got the those founders and CEOs that are starting their own business. So I think there's some commonality around going into the role for the first time that I'm very interested in because nobody really gives you much of a guidebook. You're probably going to be figuring it out along the way and dealing with the challenges that come with taking over an established culture, taking over from a founder who may be very charismatic and has a lot of loyalty amongst their team. You may be coming in needing to change direction or problem solve in a way that you haven't done before. So I think there's a lot of ways that those people moving into that role for the first time can be supported better perhaps than they are right now. And I particularly focus on people in those very senior roles because what I hadn't expected moving into that type of role for the first time was the kind of isolation. And I think that is talked about quite a lot in terms of leadership, but you do find yourself without that sort of group of peers because you no longer have them. You're the person with whom decision making rests. So it's difficult to fully open up and share when you no longer have that actual peer group and you need to be the person who is making decisions and is establishing leadership. And then you most likely, I also discovered that there's almost never no boss, or there is one, even if your title is CEO, it could be your board of directors, it could be your global CEO, it could be your investors, but you have someone, typically speaking, to report to. So I think there's some real issues around that. And we're all in quite competitive businesses. And so I think creating safe spaces for people to build relationships where you kind of take the competitive nature kind of off the table and let people sort of share. I think that's uh a pretty sizable challenge that people don't always anticipate with taking on the role. And then I think there is, of course, just the practical nature of running a digital agency business, whatever kind it is, whether you are running an established one, trying to work out how to deal with AI and embed that into your business, or whether you are starting something that is inherently native in that kind of AI world that we're in now. I don't think anyone really knows what that roadmap looks like at the moment. And so, you know, there's just a lot of practical sharing with other people to talk about what the challenges are and how other people are addressing them.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

It's lonely at the top. I've spoken to so many CEOs that talk about that. I mean, the pressure is there to perform, to be a good steward of capital. And you don't feel like Superman every day or superwoman. You feel like, I don't know if I've got the right idea of as far as where we're going to go. And you can't express that to anyone. So having a peer group is extremely important. And I encourage leaders to form those if they don't have them. Having a hobby is damn important if you don't have something you enjoy doing when you're not at work. It's like, for goodness sake, get yourself a hobby. I recommend pickleball. I think it's terrific. I don't know if how pickleball has if it's landed in any uh substantial way in England yet, but over here it's going bananas.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Yeah, no, absolutely. Wow, I am not a pickleball player, but I certainly know plenty of people that are. I think you touched on something, Darryl, when you talked about how you don't necessarily feel like Superman every day or Superwoman every day. And I think establishing your own style of leadership is something that's incredibly important. And I don't think this is unique to women, but I think perhaps it's a little bit more relevant because many of the role models that we have of leadership are still male. And I think that tends to lead to a sense that there's a very particular kind of leader that you should emulate. Strong, decisive. There's a lot of, I've been in so many different rooms where either like military language is used or gambling language or fairly male, many, many sports analogies that are typically, you know, more male sports than otherwise, lots and lots of football metaphor. And then of course, there's still the golf course, which surprises me, but is still very much the case that doesn't seem to have found its female equivalent yet. So I think trying to, and I I've heard some new female CEOs come to me and say, look, I've listened to a competitor who happens to be male doing a great interview, but they come across as so forceful and so X, Y, and Z, you know, is that how I should be? And goes back a bit to my reference around the impact of empathy in the workplace. I think some of those other values, kindness, joy, gracefulness, those are important. It's not whilst we're in a competitive situation, we're trying to win business, we need to deliver results. There's hard, tangible objectives that everyone is trying to meet. But you need to find your way of building rapport with your team, of building relationships with your clients. And it doesn't have to fit a particular mold that you've seen with somebody else. You can, and I so I think that's another reason why I like to lead the networking group that I've set up specifically for first-time female digital CEOs and managing directors, is so that it just gives people a space to talk about what values do they have, what do they see as their sort of model for leadership and to sort of question some of the maybe more traditional norms in that area.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Well, you bring up a great point that there's not an organization that's really dedicated itself to that. So kudos to you for actually founding one. And we will at the end of this make sure that uh we give everyone how to get a hold of you so that they can join and then and and benefit from that, which is wonderful. But you've made an interesting shift since you've left the agency world. And, you know, I was actually just reading this morning in the information that uh we're about to see a wave of mergers within the AI ecosystem, but you've been very involved in acquisitions and mergers of digital agencies and working with private equity firms and venture firms that are in the midst of doing that and building combined offerings and combined service teams. One of the issues that we discussed is executive replaceability, the fact that a lot of these agencies they're founded by an individual who's extremely charismatic, who brings in most of the clients, who builds the practice, and then they want to leave. They want to sell. And investors are notably apprehensive about making that acquisition because what happens when the person who brought in all of the business and directed all the delivery hits the road? Is this worth anything? Are these people going to stick together? Are they gonna be able to execute? Is this practice worth as much as it's generating today? So, what are the things you've done is you you help prepare founders for successful exits. And obviously, not every company is ready for that. What are the big tells that you've found when a company isn't ready for a liquidity event?

SPEAKER_02 17:12

I just presented the findings of it. I call it a transaction readiness audit with a sort of decision-making framework component. And I just presented the kind of final deliverable of one of those exercises to a founder slash CEO and herb executive chairman. And the things that I look at, of course, financials, client portfolio, if it's a product business, what is their product roadmap and what is their process for managing it, if it's a services business, what services drive recurring revenue, and then look at uh, you know, of course, a sort of a general risk assessment in terms of the marketplace and the competitive landscape. What I have often found is there can be things in the financials. Typically, people aren't going to ask for that kind of assessment if they don't feel they've reached a certain level of a certain size and a certain level of profitability. They often, though, don't necessarily understand their profitability fully. So they may not have mapped out and done the analysis to understand profitability by different service line or product type, by client or by client tier. They may not have a pipeline that is well enough managed to be able to provide both sort of retrospective reliability, can they prove that they have been able to manage their pipeline to their targets and that their forecast is accurately managed? And are they able to look forward and have a reliable forecast? So helping people, and again, it's often not that they don't know or even have the systems in place to collect that data, but they may not have the maturity or the kind of rigorous process in place to make sure that they really are accurately capturing probabilities and accurate close dates, et cetera. So that's one piece of it. I think client concentration is another significant part, as is, and I think typically that is looked at an area I think is maybe not fully assessed as well as it could be, is client growth potential, whether people and businesses have in place a kind of really systematic framework for driving growth of their existing clients. And also I look at not just client satisfaction. Most people will look at client satisfaction and be like, yeah, I think my clients are perfectly happy. I don't really hear, we're not losing very many clients, but actual client advocacy and activating that advocacy, I think, is something that can be a bit underrated and often can need a little bit of work to put in place fully to make you really ready for a transaction. And then of course, you reference the founder risk. That was quite interesting in the assessment I'm just talking about, where fantastic founder, really, really capable, actually, a fantastic woman who'd built up an agency business and then managed to morph it into a very successful software business. However, she did really the majority of thought leadership, the majority of client relationship management, the majority of business development, and also managed the product roadmap as the final decision maker. So really overarching all of the recommendations that I made was around scalability. She may well want to stay with the business subsequently, which is fantastic, but for the business to demonstrate to potential investors or requirers that it has the business that can scale with or without the founder in place, she absolutely needed to build out another layer of executive team, which isn't about hiring lots of people, but making sure that whether it's with her existing team or bringing on a couple of key hires, that she was not the single person responsible for all of the growth drivers in the business.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

It fascinates me that companies at the exit stage of their existence, be they SaaS or agencies, still have issues with those fundamentals around reporting and pipeline management, top of funnel, and business cases from successful client engagements and growing clients. I mean, that's generally when I've got to search for a CRO, what they're hired to do when companies in that five to ten million dollar phase. And you're looking at companies well beyond that that still haven't done the basics when it comes to really understanding where do we make money? Where do we make money? I was like, wow, that's like who's where are the where are the adults in the room? Are there any adults in the room?

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Yeah, that's right. Putting in place those processes, I think obviously often businesses are founded by people who are great practitioners, whether it's from the technology side or The creative side. And so they they start because they're talented, they bring people with them, they win business, and then they get busy winning more business and then they have to hire people to do more of that. And I think sometimes by the time they reach a certain size and they're thinking about some whether it's an exit or just like the evolution of their business, they realize that they've they've got to a certain point, that they've got some kind of natural inhibitors in place because they haven't been able to take the time. And it's not through, I'm sure, lack of thinking about it. It is through lack of bandwidth and running low businesses where margins are constant pressure. How do you take the time and put in all those different processes and methodologies that are very important?

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Yeah, I'm really harsh. I should be more generous. There, they found something that they love and they're making clients happy doing it. Putting together reporting packages is not exactly exciting or fun.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

I work with a couple of great agency founders who kind of came from, you know, and I also may have worked for me at some points, but came from a kind of a rel a more disciplined background. And I think if you put them in place right at the very beginning, when you're small, and then they can grow with you, it's a great deal of an easier path than to get to a certain size and then try and top-down push-in processes.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Let's go back to the topic of executive replaceability. I mean, uh, succession planning is absolutely essential for any mature firm. They've got to have people that are aligned to fulfill roles when executives leave. That's generally when my phone rings, when somebody's left or somebody's about to. What do you look for to reassure an investor or an acquiring party that this company really has an executive program, an executive level, I would have to say, team that is really aligned around their mission and is aligned around empowering their team to reach their potential.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Well, I think you've essentially covered it because I think it is something that needs to be purposeful and that you have people that you actively have some of those conversations with. So we have had at a point in time at Esteund, which is where I was, you know, as you know, most recently Estown Commerce and then Astown Digital, at the point that the founders had taken next general investment and were looking to see what their own futures would be. It was a fairly formal process of each of the leaders, and it was not just CEO to next one down, essentially, you know, from one of the founders to me at the point for North America, but it was right across the executive leadership team, we were all responsible for nominating the what that next cohort would look like and actively having those conversations with people and talking about what some of the skills might be or the experiences that might be needed to equip people to move into the next role. So that was, I think, quite a nice example of a fairly formalized process that we could point to to our investors to say, actually, it's not just these people are here, they'll all leave and probably we'll figure it out. It was like we could actually go through and show what that next layer of leadership would look like, where it was in terms of its readiness to, you know, we've mapped everybody with a nice little kind of XY axis of willingness and sort of motivation and skill set to be able to really see where people were and talk about the specific professional gaps that they might have that to move them to the next level.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

I'm interested when a company is looking to make an exit, have you ever found a CEO that's hold non-too hard?

SPEAKER_02 25:55

That's an excellent question, also. I think that yeah, there's a lot of emotional attachment that goes with that role, of course, particularly, and that's my experiences typically with those privately owned companies that are founder-led that are looking for the next stage. And it's it's a very symbiosic relationship, right? The culture of the business is very much an extension of the person leading it, good or bad, that's what's been created. And it goes, I think, both ways that they are very engaged with and attached to the business that they've brought. So I don't know that I would say I've seen examples where people are too attached and it's difficult to separate them, but I I suddenly know that there's a lot of very fierce loyalty. I would say perhaps what can happen is sometimes there's so much loyalty towards the business that's been built that some of the decision making that needs to happen post any kind of event like that can be challenging for the original founders and CEOs because they've got people with them that helped them build the company from day one. Probably saw them through some pretty difficult times. You know, they've built a company based on the structure that they wanted, the way that they wanted the work to be done. So I think, and often the acquirers or investors may have a different perspective on some of that. And it can be hard, I think, to give up that control or to make the decisions that are needed. So I don't know that it's about them hanging on too much as amount, you know, do they, are they able to, should they, do they want to kind of adjust to be able to take the business where it needs to go for the, you know, its next stage?

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Well, what are the big issues, what are the big events that sets up an agency for an acquisition is formally productizing their offerings? And you've been involved in quite a few of those. Curious as to have you come across what are the recurring challenges, I should say, of agencies productizing their offerings?

SPEAKER_02 27:59

I think it it's finding the balance between wanting to provide a very uh customized service for your clients that's very specific to your client needs and really meets your clients' kind of brand requirements with the ability to make that something that is repeatable and is a kind of recurring revenue stream. Because I think particularly, well, let's leave some software and actually creating products to one side, but to try and kind of productize services, I think it particularly in the context of say more creative digital agency, it's you know, the the value that you kind of you bring often is that kind of unique differentiated point of view and set of deliverables. So how do you find a way of productizing that to some extent? I think that can be quite a challenge. I think goes back a little bit to understanding your client portfolio and understanding how to right-size what you do to the different sort of tiers of your clients so that you know that if it's a what's the potential of your different client tiers and how do you apply what you do differently to them in the context of e-commerce and sort of the digital landscape that you and I have kind of had a lot of involvement in together, there is a lot of um we work with different e-commerce technology platforms. And I think the challenge there, and I think it's quite a pressing challenge at the moment in the industry, is people have created very robust recurring revenue streams managing clients on particular e-commerce platforms that are now haven't certainly haven't gone away, but there are many other very significant platforms in the marketplace right now that perhaps don't lend themselves quite as readily to building the for you to build that recurring revenue stream on. So I think that is something that agencies right now, I'm not gonna be specific about that. I mean, I think a lot of current businesses have built very sustainable revenue streams managing and supporting and servicing Salesforce Commerce Cloud, previously Demandware, but you have now in the marketplace Shopify, which is going great guns in the enterprise space and you know, obviously putting out fantastic results and winning incredible business. I think one of the challenges that agencies are kind of working through right now is how do they replace the revenue that they would get from Salesforce Commerce Cloud? What's the equivalent type of revenue that they can create with Shopify, which is a platform that potentially doesn't require the same level of ongoing maintenance. So then you have to think about how do I build on different innovation streams or add in different services and offerings to supplement that.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Well, I'd certainly add in the new family of composable offerings as well, in terms of you've got a Shopify for those entry and mid-market and you know, certainly some enterprise users right now, but for those large B2B and B2C enterprises, they're going to require a much larger level of service to renovate their commerce platforms and they're going to be looking at composable players like Big Commerce or Commerce Tools or Elasticpath and the like. So if you're advising someone who's looking to start an agency today in this landscape, I want to start a digital agency. What advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_02 31:22

I think there's no question that you're going to have to found it on AI and what that can do. And you have to think through what that really means in every possible aspect. And that isn't just using generative AI to create content, right? It is you're going to have fewer people, you're going to need to create agents instead of hiring teams. You're going to need to found all your internal processes on AI. So I think that if you were starting an agency right now and you didn't build that into everything that you do, and think about what it means to build an agency where you're not going to have the same scaling factors in terms of human beings, what that actually looks like and what challenges and opportunities that presents. So I think that would be probably the number one consideration for anybody at the moment. And then assuming that you're in the sort of the subset of digital agencies focused on e-commerce, I think then you have potentially some choices to make if you're founding something. So you obviously have the range of small agencies that probably need to focus on one technology partner in particular, as opposed to, you know, the big GSIs that work across the full range of them. So deciding where you want to focus and building a niche and an expertise in that particular area and placing some bets, right? How do you look at the marketplace? What do you think the level of maturity of the various different technology partners that you could decide to work with? What do you see in terms of what their roadmaps look like, their presence in different markets, you know, whether you have confidence in their ability to build business in the market that you operate in? I think making some bets there and maybe taking some risks there as well. Because I think you can have a look right now at some of the agencies that are extremely successful and you can see that they place some bets earlier that perhaps than some of the larger agencies on particular technologies and have done very, very well from it. But there's equally others that decided to focus in different areas that haven't done so well. But that's part of the challenge and fun of starting something from scratch.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

Yeah. So you're not going to read any tea leaves for us today. All right. I can I can appreciate that. That's fine. That's fine. Well, if I'm a founder of an agency that is looking for an exit, what would be the top three pieces of advice that you'd give me?

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Obviously, understand how you make money and not just what your top client revenue looks like, but which of your clients make you money, which of your clients have the potential to make you money. How can you, with confidence, explain to an investor what the future potential of your current client base actually looks like? I've spoken to several private equity firms uh recently, and that's one of the things they still struggle with is they can look at what it looks like right now, they can understand the strength of the client relationship, but it's challenging to necessarily know or have at least a reliable forecast of how those clients are going to develop. So the more that you can do to be sure about that, which is some fundamentals, right? Talking to clients, understanding where your client's businesses are, understanding how much money your client might expect to continue to spend with you. What are they spending elsewhere? You know, those types of things. I think really understanding where your financials are, where your profitability is coming from right now, and where it's going to come from. I would say that was a clearly the most important thing. Being able to, you talked about productizing services, be clear about your kind of recurring revenue, how much revenue you can expect and how much new business you need to generate and understand the math of that, right? People coming in, they're very data focused. You can tell a lovely story and show fantastic work, but really being able to prove out that you understand the data behind it and you understand what that means, therefore, for the future's potential and scalability. And then I think we talked quite a bit about founder risk. So being clear about and I think for founders, like probably it's as much about like risk and kind of mitigating risk as kind of digging deep to understand what you want as a founder. Are you looking to grow the business? And are you looking for whether it is pure kind of dollar investment or a more strategic acquirer? But are you, do you have ambitions for the business that you can see solutions to? Do you want to, like we did with Fluid and Astown Commerce, do you want to merge with somebody that will provide complementary services to yours? And what's going to be some of the challenges with that that you can prepare for? Or are you looking to move on from the business and how do you prepare? But I think one of the things I do with founders in the in the exercise that we've talked about is that let's talk about founder goals as well. What's the do you have a number in mind? Do you have a time frame in mind? Do you want to keep working? In what way do you want to keep working? What kind of culture will suit you best? What do you want for your team and your people? So I think digging into some of those questions is important as well.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Well, that was wonderful. That was great. Let's get to know a little bit more about you, since you're our guest today. What was it that initially got you into the uh drew you, I should say, into the digital agency world?

SPEAKER_02 36:44

I had worked at a direct marketing agency in the UK. I moved to Canada. I joined a privately owned, very similar company. Um we were acquired by Jay Walter Thompson, part of WPP, and we were kind of put into a network of agencies that they were also acquiring at the same time, many of whom were digital media specialists, were more implementation specialists. And I was fortunate enough to lead a pitch for a big piece of US government work and needed to figure out which of all those different agencies did I need to bring to the table to go in and win this pitch with JWT. They managed the advertising piece, I managed all of the rest of it. So that was my first real introduction into all right, I have to work out what it means to be digital, what are all the different facets of that, how do they all work together, and how do we successfully present that to a client? I subsequently took over as managing director for that business, leading the business in Canada. And there were essentially two primary objectives that our global CEO gave me. One was don't lose HSBC. We had the main HSBC global business, and they were like, whatever you do, don't let anything bad happen in Canada because we absolutely cannot lose HSBC and nothing did. So that was good. And he also said, transition the business to a digital business. You've got six to months to a year to do it. So that's a long-winded way of explaining. But that's really how I got into digital agency business was I had to figure it out right at the cusp of when digital agencies weren't necessarily even called digital agencies. There weren't very many to look at to understand how they were structured. You know, I had to work out, all right, what does user experience mean? What is a digital project manager? What are, you know, what is a solution arc? So we had to work it all out. So I did that. I successfully got that business to the point where it was 70 or 80% revenue coming from digital work, which was the point at which I moved across to Blast Radius, who were founded in the world of digital, so that I could learn from one of the world's leaders in that category. So that's how it all started.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Well, when you were a little girl in England, I don't think you were dreaming of leading a digital agency one day. What did you want to do?

SPEAKER_02 39:10

I was clearly going to be a ballet dancer, slash show jumper, slash pianist, slash novel writer. None of those things, you know, those things appear to have really happened. But I think what probably made me well suited for it is the combination of I've always had, you know, a fairly good left brain, right brain. I studied math and languages, I studied, you know, so I so I tend to kind of I studied sciences as well as all the arts. And I did that all the way through university. And I think this business, whether you're working in it as sort of a practitioner, the kind of the creative side plus the kind of technology, more data-oriented side kind of fit well for me. And then when it comes to leadership roles, the kind of human side, the positioning, the figuring out the kind of strategic vision for the business, coupled with understanding of the financial models and how to look at business performance, that kind of works really well for my brain as well.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

You had some hobbies or activities growing up that were all requiring a tremendous amount of practice to reach a level of expertise. I mean, ballet, violin, writing, and nothing that's kind of a pastime. Those were serious pursuits. And you must have devoted a lot of time to each of them and recognized how much was required to get to the very top. That certainly comes in handy when you're looking at an agency that's having to deliver to a very sophisticated audience.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Well, we should be very clear that I never became very expert in any of those things.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Well, hey, you know what? I think we're lucky as a result. I mean, it would have been nice to go see you at the Met, but I think that there's plenty of brands out there that are, thank you, they're lucky stars, you ended up managing their account.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

I think the um equivalency of that is that one of the things I've always loved about the agency world is that you are you understand your business as an agency, but also you have to understand the businesses of each of your different clients. So you can be, and I've worked in telecoms and financial services and retail and pharma and you know all manner, and then within each of those, obviously each brand is and company is quite different. So I think that the range of interest, perhaps, that the piano playing ballet dancer who loves ponies had maybe is reflected in the fact that I like the variety and the ability to come dig into different businesses, and that's probably sustained me well through the kind of agency journey that I've had.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

Well, you know, we we we touched on it earlier. I I think every CEO needs to have a hobby. And you've actually uh you haven't picked up ballet or dance later on, you've gone in a completely new direction. You've started uh to restore derelict sea vessels, and I'm absolutely fascinated by that. Tell us about your barge.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

Well, so I I live on a houseboat, which is a wide beam barge, which is 60 feet by 12 feet. We're in a town called Woodbridge on a river here, very full circle. This is a town where I actually went to school and did dinghy sailing back in the day. So I it was not derelict exactly, but was an empty sort of steel shell. And during COVID, I had the idea that it would be a great project to take on and to fish out the barge. And so managing that kind of remotely. So I can't claim to have done very much actual carpentry for this boat, but I did oversee a fairly extensive project to get it to the point that it is now, which is quite lovely. But along the way, also acquired a hundred-year-old wooden oyster smack, which is a fishing boat that is also a sailboat. And again, don't like to think of it as actually derelict, but I will say that Especially when you're on it. Yes, exactly. But it has needed quite a bit of work, it is just back in the water, and so I have learned some form of carpentry and fine wood finishing, and also the actual kind of practical sailing skills and sort of navigation and theory skills that go along with being able to take it out once we've got the mast back on and the rigging all put back in place.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

Well, do you talk like a pirate?

SPEAKER_02 43:32

I can't. Hi. But uh no, and I uh I just spent, I think I maybe spoke to just before this, but I just spent uh a week in the Arctic on a another sailing vessel, a 150-foot schooner, also 100 years old, sailing around the Arctic. And we did have a crew, but uh, we're also highly encouraged to join in and hoist sails and all manner of things. So I've been hoisting sails surrounded by icebergs most recently.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

Oh fascinating. What was the favorite thing you saw on that trip?

SPEAKER_02 44:05

We saw we saw incredible things. We saw the most northerly inhabited settlement in the world, which is actually now a research station that has representations from many of the world's countries. We saw wildlife, we saw polar bear, we saw Arctic fox, we saw reindeer, we saw minky whale. I think perhaps the most amazing part for me was being on this very beautiful boat, being able to climb the mast as we kind of sailed through quite gracefully on a very sunny afternoon through some our past glaciers and through some icebergs. And just the that was fairly awe-inspiring from a natural beauty perspective.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Can I promise that there'll be clips of that that we can attach to this?

SPEAKER_02 44:47

You certainly can, yes.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

Oh, fantastic. Vanessa, how do people get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_02 44:53

You can find me either on through my email, which is Vanessa at alandoconsulting.com. Alando is bell A-L-A-N-D-O. That's the name of our wooden vote. Or you can find me also at my website. You can reach that by just VanessaCartwright.com or Alando Consulting.com. And I'd be happy to leave my phone number if anyone wants to do that as well.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

Well, thank you so much for being with us today, Vanessa. I know that our listeners are gonna love this show. And I want to thank you.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Well, thank you very much. That was uh that was a lot of fun. I hope people enjoy listening to it. And uh, you know, I'm definitely here and would love to hear from anyone if you have any questions. Anyone wants to join my networking group or talk about any of the agency readiness or what to do once your agency's been acquired or invested in, I would love to help.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Thanks for listening to Mar Talks, the number one podcast for e-commerce and marketing applications. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and while you're at it, leave a rating and review. To find out more about how the Rosenstein Group can help you find the right leaders for your client development teams in Martec and e commerce, please visit our website at Rosenstein Group.com.