Harriet and Hannah, welcome to the show. I'm so pleased to have you both on today.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah, thank you.

So for starters, I mean, number one, it's fairly unusual. I believe you're the first time on this particular series where we've had two guests. So welcome. And, you know, I don't know, congratulations on whatever milestone that might be. But yeah, I'm really looking forward to this.

If you could both tell me about Pablo London and your roles there.

We work at Pablo. It's an independent creative agency. We're based in London, but we also recently, back in September last year, set up in New York. And so that's our first international operation. We are really proud to say over the last five years, we've been the fastest growing independent in the UK. A couple of months ago, we were really privileged to receive the UK's Independent Agency of the Year Award and have been shortlisted tomorrow night, actually, at the Global Campaign Agency of the Year Awards for three categories from creative agencies independent to integrated agency. And Hannah and I's role is joint managing director here at Pablo. So running the day to day operations of the agency, handling various client relationships, and I guess spearheading the future trajectory of the agency.

As co-managing directors of an award winning agency, what has the leadership journey looked like to you both? And what's the day to day reality of sharing that job, if it's really shared at all? I mean, is it that you're just so expansive at this point and there's so much to do that it requires two of you? Are you sharing the job? I mean, how does that dynamic really work?

It's funny because when Hannah and I had the opportunity to join forces and step into the role of joint managing director, I think a lot of the advice we received was don't do it. Don't do a shared role or a joint role. You'll be competing against each other. And it's not going to be a great experience or good for your career. And I have to say it's been completely the opposite for us. And I think if you ever need an example of what two women can do when joined forces, like I'd like to think, you know, we're a good example of that. And I think it's all been upside, definitely on my part. And I think you'd say the same, Hannah said.

But I think when you're working at an agency like Pablo, you know, I joined Pablo now seven years ago. I think Pablo was about 35, 40 people when I joined and we're now 115, 120 people. It's been on an incredible trajectory, incredibly fast paced. It is an environment that runs at a million miles an hour. And I think one of the things, you know, when you're in an environment like that is, you know, there is a lot of work. You have to lean yourself, you know, roll your sleeves up, get stuck in, get into the weeds of things. You're playing so many different hats than you would a conventional or a more traditional agency for sure. And I think having two people to spread the load, both physically with the amount and volume of work is incredibly valuable.

But I think also we often talk about this, it's a well-known phrase that it does get lonely at the top. And I think having someone to share the mental load and the responsibility and hash out problems or like throw around different challenges and kind of work through solutions together is, you know, for me, a really valuable asset. And one of the things I most relish about our job.

I think your question in terms of how you asked it, Richard, really pierces to the essence of it, which is you talked about it being a co-MD job rather than a shared role. And a lot of people, I think when we started out, assumed it was a job share because it was very unusual to find a duo. And that was the only space in which duos had been used historically in our industry.

And I think to answer the first part of your question, Harriet and I were so lucky to work at different agencies before Pablo, but mostly larger holding company agencies. We received incredible training, worked with amazing brands. But I think our observation there on the business model was that there is a requirement when you are of a certain size and you have a certain infrastructure and you have been going for a certain amount of time to build your agency and your business like a pyramid. And you get more seniors, you can charge more money because that's the business model. That's the commercial truth at the heart of old agencies. And I don't think hand on heart that our role would work in a structure like that because there is a reality that you are pitted against each other often to move up in an agency. Andthat is the promise. You work hard, you get more money, you move up a title. And that is the trajectory at other agencies. What Harriet and I represent here and our joint MDship works because we exist within a management team and within a culture that want to be about a group of people rising up together. So it is not about who is team Hannah and who is team Harriet. It is a very flat management team that work across the agency and that want to give the platform to, we're now 120, so we've grown a lot, but we don't have those traditional layered models. We think it's slow, we think it's expensive, it's not what we believe in.

So it allows Harriet and I to lead in a way with the other management team that is genuinely very flat and hierarchical and is to your point about getting across not just our business, but crucially our client's business. And when you have a partnership like ours that is based on respect and trust and you are not being pitted against each other, you can have your eyes literally on two parts of a client's business simultaneously and clients go, well, yes, please. What's the downside to that? I think that's been one of the reasons, Richard, we've probably experienced such momentum as a business over the last few years because we structure actually our entire management structure in a now and a next team.

So we have a now team who focus on what's happening in the next three or four months period, so like building a plane, so to speak. And then a next kind of person in the management structure who focuses on what's happening in the next six months period. So like where the plane's heading and taking off to effectively to continue that analogy, if you forgive me.

We have:





Two ECDs,



Two MDs,



A deputy CSO and a CSO.

So every level we've got someone who focuses on the here and now and someone who focuses on the future. And I think what that has allowed us to is to continue to fuel our momentum, keep propelling forward whilst ensuring that we are servicing the needs of our clients and the people within Pablo to the level that they truly deserve. And I think that's probably one of the most unique and most dynamic aspects of the agency, which lends itself to Hannah's point, like particularly well to the model that we have in two of us.

It's a very interesting way of sort of, I don't want to call it delegating roles, but is that something that was intentional or did that just kind of happen? I mean, how did that come about? Because I've never heard of that before. And that's, no, no, I haven't. And, you know, when thinking about it, whatever I discussed things like this with anybody, I think about, you know, structures of companies I've been at. And you think of all the, you know, various pitfalls, you know, that they kind of come across and you come across in that particular journey. And you think a lot of that could have been avoided by having a structure like this.

Yeah. I mean, maybe one of the reasons we set up this structure, we were born out of a lot of retail clients. Some of our first clients were retail. They needed fast paced agility. I think I've worked a lot of my career on retail actually as has Hannah. And I think one of the challenges that often comes up when you are working with clients like that is you have a team who focuses on the brand and someone who focuses on the tactical. There's no cross fertilization of ideas. People get burned out. It's so fast and furious. There's no connected tissue between the different parts of the brand.

So we originally set up the model to service retail clients. You had someone focusing on what's happening in the next like three or four months while someone's working on the next, regardless of it being brand and tactical. And then we thought this model is actually working really well. It's really efficient. Could we, you know, explode that out to a bigger level, especially across our own business? And yeah, I mean, it seemed to work incredibly well.

And I think it's challenging for a lot of other agencies to employ that same model because you're effectively employing two headcount at that level. But I think it pays dividends in the long run. And I think hopefully the proof is in the pudding in terms of what we have achieved over the last few years and how successful this model has come through.

And I think a lot of clients these days, to be honest, are, you know, the amount of pitches we go into where clients are asking for senior experienced hands around their business, people who can work in a close knit way, in a more intimate way with clients to really get under the skin of their business and have that kind of, yeah, like I said, level of experience wrapped around them. Our model affords us to do that, you know, even at the creative level, we've got two ECDs, but then we formed a, we call it a creative council of like eight ECD level creatives, which allow our clients access to top tier creative talent and creative thinking on their business, you know, regardless ofwhether they're a small client or a big clients across the breadth, which, you know, in a lot of other agencies, they've got one ECD, right? You stretch across it all. So I think it just allows us to build those deeper relationships, service clients to the level that they deserve and give them the counsel and the partnership, which I think we're in the business of. It's not about being a service provider here. You know, we really want, we can be more proactive around our clients' business and support them in a better way. You know, if we're really plugged in further upstream. And I think having some of those more senior, experienced hands wrapped around our clients enables us to do so.

And your reflection, Richard, on where it came from and some of your own experiences that maybe felt like they could be answered in it. The journey that Gareth, our founder, and Mark, our CSO, went on when they started to create Pablo with Pete, the other co-founder, was the world didn't need another advertising agency. It never does. There's plenty of us, right? So if you're going to do it, do it in reaction to your customers. Exactly like we preach to our clients about go out and try and understand from potential clients what are the frustrations, what are they finding hard, what isn't working with the current shape of agency that's coming to them.

And what Harriet and I could see from our experience at other agencies was a disillusionment with a top tier of talent who would be paraded out in pitches and would then disappear. And you were on a bit of a ticking time bomb because it was impossible for that unit to be able to scale across clients' businesses beyond a certain point. So the original idea came from literally talking to clients and saying, what kind of shape of agency do you need for the future? And then Harriet and I, with our experience elsewhere, were able to start to build that solution, which we've done across business and to Harriet's point, across disciplines. It's amazing.

I think it's, I mean, I could probably talk to you all day about the structure of it and all of that and express my jealousy of it. Creative vision is awfully a deeply personal thing. I mean, it's, you know, when we create things, usually the ideas start in our head and then, you know, we try our best to express them outward. I don't think there's too many exceptions to that other than the people cheating with AI, but, you know, we'll get to that later.

How do you both blend your distinct creative approaches into one sort of cohesive agency identity? And Hannah, we'll start with you because you're on a roll. So this, I think the really important thing for me to say up top here is this is not just Harriet and I. So we sit with six other people on our management team and what we are all behind is one singular vision for this company and this business. And to your point, creative visions can flex, but in our experience, looking at the really successful agencies that have made it in time, they are ruthless and committed to why they exist and what they offer clients and they never deviate from that.

So from a kind of who we are and why we exist and what we stand for, Harriet and I have not set that. We have set that with our management team and actually as a collective, exactly with the agency. That drives us and we are really, really clear and committed to that. And I think clarity behind that is crucial when you're growing because it's really easy to get distracted. It's really easy to go, oh, what if we did this over here? And if you don't know why you're doing it, you lose the focus. And to be able to keep moving at pace, you've got to be locked into that. And, you know, why you're asking people to get out of bed every day and do what we do and come in and keep running through those walls.

And so I think it's important for us to be clear that we very much are part of that collective, to use Harriet's lovely phrase, of a business that is clear on where it wants to go and what it has to offer its clients. And then really how it works with Harriet and I, and I don't think it can work outside of this. I'm not going to spiel our creds at you, Richard, but all you really need to know about Pablo to get a sense of why it works the way it does is that we are called Pablo because Pablo means humble.

I guess to our previous point, this would not work if we were trying to build fiefdoms. And I think a lot of people, when they're honest with us, and usually it's if they're with us and they've had a couple of glasses of wine, they go, yeah, but surely like you both do your separate things and people are either going to Harriet for stuff or going to Hannah for stuff. And there's loads of egos. And it just doesn't happen because we are flanked by a management team and everybody that comes to join us comes to join us because they don't, it's not about them and their ego. It is about being part of something bigger.

So when you have a partner like Harriet, you know, she is unbelievable. She's the best person at what she does. And I know that everything that she's doing is in service. You are, sweetheart. And everything you do is in service of pushing that bigger vision that I talkedabout forward. So I go, amazing, she's got that. How can I be helpful over here? And you're constantly in communication with each other, but I never look at what Harriet's doing and go, I would have done that. differently. I go, amazing. Her brain is on. And you naturally just, because you're... Exactly. You trust. And that is not just something that Harriet and I are lucky enough to have in our partnership. We have that across the agency.

And the brilliant thing about having that and what we are so lucky from a cultural perspective to have is if you're not that way minded, like good on you. There is a different way of approaching business. We drive you mad. Like if people come in and they really want to push a certain agenda or get to a certain place that really is maybe a bit more self-serving or they've got a different, they're like, this has come by on madness. Like, no, thank you. And they almost self-eject that we're not the culture for them. So it becomes a very helpful lightning rod as well for talent of those that really want to, we have people here that I think when they discover who is in our creative bench, they go, what? You've got them working with you. And those are just creatives that don't want to be the front people. They don't want to be the show people. They just love creativity, want to be surrounded by like-minded people and roll their sleeves up and get involved. And that's really what we're all about.

Oh, you just described me to a T. That's amazing. No, I want to hear you. Yeah. I just want to make things. That's all I want to do.

On top of the last question a little bit, performance and creativity can sometimes feel like opposing forces. How do you build a culture then that values both? And how do you lead when it comes to the performance mindset? We've actually spent quite a lot of time staring at this because there were a few people of which Harriet was one who were really involved in getting Capable off the ground. And it's hard. Starting something fresh is hard. So when it starts to work, you obsess over why it's working and what's working to fuel that momentum because there were a lot of people here for a lot longer than me that really expended a lot at the beginning. And it takes a lot of energy to get there.

Something that we did that I would encourage all businesses to do is obsess over who you are as a culture when you are at your best and be quite geeky about it. What does our performance look like on our best days? What do we see? What are the patterns? What are people doing? And it's not about overcomplicating or analyzing for the sake of it. It's actually the opposite. It's about distilling down and going, when we are at our best, we don't deviate from these three things. We found behaviors as helpful. Other cultures might find other things helpful. But you get quite intentional about what does high performance look like in this environment with these people?

And as you're scaling, how do we communicate that and socialize that in a way that makes people go, whatever I'm doing, because there is a lot of noise and a lot of distraction to Harriet's point, I know that if I don't deviate too far from these three things, the path towards excellent creativity that moves our client's business forward can't be that far off. So being intentional about what you see working and pouring petrol on it, we found has been really crucial as we've grown.

Communicating that and also context, we think is key. People can't perform in a vacuum. We have the liberty of being an independent agency that can be completely open book on anything and everything. And Harriet and I and Gareth and Mark and Dan and Ross, all of our management team believe in that transparency. So not hiding from when things are tough, being really clear on when things are good and why, and giving people information.

I think Harriet and I came from agencies that maybe had a tendency to slightly infantilize. And there was good reason for that. When you are owned, sometimes you are told there are things you can and can't say and you can and can't do. We have the privilege of not having that barrier or issue. So for people to be at their best, they need to understand what is going on and how they can therefore be their best selves within that context.

So helping to articulate what high performance looks like in your culture and being really clear on that is key. Communicating where the business is and how those behaviors are therefore laddering up to where you're trying to get to means that people know the context and the information to really succeed and excel.

And then being really honest when it isn't working. That's the other really important thing that I think Harriet and I didn't have a lot of in our careers. We were in warmer bath, they would be called, cultures where people who weren't performing were what we believe kind of really left in unacceptable positions really. When you're not performing, you know what you're not performing. And when that is ignoredor when you're not talked to directly and honestly about it, it actually makes the situation worse. Somebody's confidence starts to spiral and the context gets harder. So we really believe in running that transparency through, not just for our business, but telling people where they are, how they're contributing, holding them to account. Exactly. When they're at their best, this is where they are. And if there are challenges or problems with performance, being really clear around that problem, kind and generous to that person, and getting curious on what might be happening so that they can feel like they're really contributing in the way they want to be to the business.

I'm going to sound like a broken record here and say yet again that any one of these topics I feel we could dive into for quite some time because there's a lot of things I want to dive into and ask. And unfortunately, we have a lot of ground to cover. But next question is, your agency has placed a strong emphasis on pro bono work, which I absolutely love. Why is that such a central part of your model and how does it influence the team and then the type of work that you attract?

I think, look, for us, it's really, really important that when we work with clients, like growing their business is, of course, absolutely paramount. It's the heart of what we do. But we also love putting our skills, imagination, our talents really to the test and putting them behind causes and helping people fundamentally across the world to use our creativity as a force of good and do things that are genuinely going to have real impact.

So I think one of the conversations we had when we first won campaigns, Global and UK Independent Agency of the Year, we actually went out as a management team, went around the room and we were like, what are we all really proud of over the last year? And everyone was, of course, like, we can't believe we've got here. Like, this feels like an absolute pipe dream. Can't believe it's a reality. And one of our ECDs, which has really stuck with us and become a big mantra for us moving forward, said, look, I'm incredibly proud of what we've achieved. But if we cease to exist tomorrow, would we be remembered? What's the legacy that we've left behind? What's the impact that we've genuinely have? And I think we're really proud of how far we've come. But I think for us, if we did cease to exist tomorrow, no one would remember Pablo and what we've done.

And I think that's one of the reasons why, one, we put our efforts and our time and our resources and our thinking and talent behind pro bono causes and good causes that genuinely can help people, genuinely can have an impact. But I think it's also twofold. We talk a lot at Pablo about actions speaking louder than words. And I think we've got a great belief here today that the best brands are built, you know, and not just brands telling people what they believe and what they think. They're those that are demonstrating with actions. And we live that philosophy for ourselves. And I think it's really important to think of Pablo as its own brand, not just as an agency or, you know, a creative partner or a production company, whatever it might be, like as its own brand. And so we really like to walk the talk, you know, practice what we preach.

So over the years, you know, we've done everything, especially in the pandemic. It was a time when we really felt like people needed support and help and we actually could make a difference there. You know, so we did everything from right at the beginning of the pandemic when no one could physically go anywhere, no one could take a holiday. The world's mental health was suffering. You saw it hitting the headlines all over the news. We created a series of, I don't know how much you kind of know about like binaural sound or 360 sound technology, but there was basically it's how your ears hear sound in the real world, not in, you know, stereo, like how they would normally hear them in like headphones. We created a series of sonic escapes, which were like 15 minute binaural 360 sound holidays, which took you to Mexico, Marrakesh, Jamaica, allowed you to literally plug in, escape, get a bit of mental respite when you needed it most. I think we had something like 3 million downloads in the first few weeks, gave it away totally free, found a partner in Huawei to distribute it across the globe.

Right through to, again, don't know how much of a football fan you are, Richard, but in the Euros a few years ago, Christian Eriksson, who was one of the Danish players, had a cardiac arrest on the pitch. He was brought back to life with CPR from an off-duty doctor. And we thought at the time, how can we do something to, especially in the UK, where CPR isn't taught at schools, how can we do something to get CPR into the hands of the nation, this vital life-saving skill? And if you look at countries where CPR is taught at a really young age, the survival rate goes up to something like 80%. Itis much, much higher. So yet again, we set about taking action on this and looked to try and think how we could educate younger people on how to understand and learn as you want to learn CPR and not sit as this kind of dry, boring subject matter. So we created a new range of CPR mannequins, the dummies you practice on, which had previously been modeled on the death mask of a woman found in the Seine many years ago called Ressassiani. We actually created a new range which were modeled in their kind of current day heroes. So we took someone like Connor Swindles, who's been in Barbie, SES, who dare, SAS, what else has he been in? Sex Education. We took some other high profile people and we created new mannequins in their image, genuinely mannequins that kids would want to learn on and actually save the life of. Again, we saw that translate to one life being saved from someone who had a cardiac arrest on the train and then saw our advertising and had practiced CPR on one of the dummies.

And most recently, Hannah has just launched something to help based on her own personal experiences of melanoma, which I don't know, do you want to talk to you because I'll do it a disservice. We've just launched something that we call the HiBiz Vest in reaction to a statistic that we found. Should have gotten a... Which I can talk about, which was I was undergoing treatment for melanoma myself and I came across a statistic that in the UK, the construction sector make up 8% of our workforce but represent 44% of occupational melanoma deaths. So there's disproportionate likelihood that you have working in a certain job to develop skin cancer.

So I chatted to some of the creatives here, an amazing group called Adam and Dan and Ray have led it for us creatively. And Adam said, well, what if we just did something with the HiBiz Vest? What if we took the symbol of safety on sites and upgraded it? So we developed a brand and initiative called VUC where there is a silicone logo that sits on the breast pocket of a HiBiz Vest that goes from white to intensely red in reaction to UV level to warn the wearer if they're likely to be at risk of contracting melanoma without wearing sun cream.

So something very much born from, to Harriet's point, passion projects and things happening in the world and in our lives that we can fuel our creativity into to bring products or services or behaviors out into the world that can drive behavior change. And I think it's worth saying, all of those things I've just mentioned, and there's so many more, I could probably sit and do a whole episode with you on it, Richard, but none of those things had a brief, a budget, a client. We did them all off our own backs.

And I think aside from everything I said up front about why we do it and why it's important to us, it's also important because I think if we can create movements the country or the world cares about and we can create national headlines when we don't have any of those things and a budget and a client, then when we do have a little bit, then it just sets the bar that much higher and it really pushes us on.

And I think every creative, when they join Pablo, they will be given that challenge. What's your pro bono? What's your side hustle that you'll be working on that is really going to do something that's going to have an impact and it's going to create something that's got talkability and genuinely kind of make the lives of people better.

So I think it's multifaceted why we do it, but I think it's very much in the spirit of humble and everything like Hannah spoke to earlier. But it's also being really like brutally honest with you. It's the sort of shit that gets me out of bed in the morning, okay? Like I love making adverts and communications and building businesses and like brands, but like doing stuff that genuinely is going to have an impact, you know, especially stuff when it comes to like saving lives or making a difference to someone. There's no better motivation, is there?

I don't know. If your side hustle at this point is saving lives, I think you're onto something that a great many of us out in the world should probably take note of and follow your example for sure.

Hannah, you've spoken openly about dealing with health issues during your leadership journey. How has that experience reshaped the way you lead and how you define success? I think when you, so I had a cancer diagnosis at, I was 33 and it's not going to be surprising for anybody. The strange thing about that experience is I think I thought I understand that I would one day die before that point. And then I realized that I actually didn't understand what that meant. I was young in a grand scheme of things, still am hopefully. You suddenly realize that at any moment it can be taken away and you know that on a philosophical level before that point, but then it becomes a very real, okay, I've got a certain amount of time here and I don't know how long I've got. And at any point the chips can change. And it's actually a really empowering thing to be made to realize because I think health issues and many people listeningto this, I'm sure will have been through things because statistically more people than not will have been, they change everything about your life and they change everything about your relationship to your career and work. And crucially, I guess you start to think much more about the kind of impact to Harriet's point earlier on that you want to be able to have with the time that you are gifted.

So my reflection would be, and the reason that I knew that I was in exactly the right place and was so lucky to work at a place like Pablo, is I think one of two things could have happened. I could have felt like I needed to hide it and I needed to diminish my treatment because it might make people question my commitment or ability or whatever that might have been. I can imagine there are some cultures where that is still very real today. And that is really hard if people are in those cultures going through something like that.

But there is then also a, I want to be able to really channel a lived experience into something productive and find purpose in something quite scary. And the fact that we work in an industry that allows you to do that and the fact that I worked at a business that supported that made me realize that I was in exactly the right place.

So giving people outlets for, we talk a lot as an industry about helping people bring their whole selves to work. I think that's quite a populist phrase. What I realized is that a lot of what people are going through in their personal lives that they might bring to work are the scarier, uglier, more uncomfortable things around health, death, caring, mental health. Being in an industry where you can allow people an outlet for that professionally is a gift. And I can't think of many industries that would be able to give people that platform and that privilege.

So I would really encourage other creative agencies, and we see many of them, we are in good company at Pablo, to do that. I think Harriet and I, as we came through, we lost a lot of great people at previous agencies because they would have a bit of an ethical crisis about what working in advertising said about them. I've never felt more ethically cleansed, I guess I would say. I really believe in what we do. We help create jobs. We help create business. And to Harriet's point, we also are given a few opportunities to create moments and platforms that genuinely don't make people's lives better, but can actually save lives. And that's all within our gift as an industry.

So I think health issues, they are just part of the course. And you don't have to get something as drastic as cancer or terminal diagnosis, God forbid. I was reading a book recently that I couldn't recommend more called 4,000 Weeks. There's all just about, that's the average lifespan of a human. It's actually not that long when you hear it in weeks. How are you going to use your time? How do you prioritize it? What do you want to do? And wherever you are in health, there are different, better decisions that you can be making as a business and as an individual that you're empowered to make on a day-to-day basis.

And yeah, I guess that really hit me hard because I was given information that meant that my life could have prematurely been cut short. But that's actually quite an empowering thing to go, life can be cut short. So how are you using your time? And are you doing what you love? And not even in a hippie way. I have bad days. Of course I do. I have days where I go, God, this is hard. And oh, I wish that hadn't happened. But am I fulfilled and am I challenged and am I growing? Yes. And that's ultimately what you ask for in your career.

I think it's a wake-up call, right? And it helps you focus on what really does matter and what's important to you because we all have a limited shelf life in this world. And we're very fortunate that we bloody love our jobs. But I think one of those, a moment like that really does help you kind of become really cognizant to that and ensure that you really focus on what really matters and cut all the crap away and all the stuff that is just noise to the point we made earlier and focus on what's going to really make a difference to you, what's going to make the difference to your general life.

Someone once said to me very early in my career, like there's two types of people:





Those that live to work.



Those that go to work to live.

And I think when you have such a life-changing moment like that or you have a health scare or something, I think it really does like kick into gear. Like I do love my job, but I go to work to have the life that I want outside of it and really ensuring that you get that balance right and you set the example for the team around you in the way they should operate.

Again,a whole other line of conversation that we could dig into here. But what an amazing story and such a great takeaway, I think, especially, you know, 33 is very young to not only get that diagnosis, but have that realization. You know, I think that's one of those things that, you know, my father just had his 76th birthday, and he's always talking about, well, you know, not too many years left. And you're kind of like, oh, geez, you know. But, you know, at the same time, you're like, well, why aren't you making the most of it? Travel, see the world, do everything you ever wanted to do.

I think hopefully you get a sense, Richard, now why this woman is such an inspiration to me, because I think you can deal with that at that age. And, you know, everything else that she shoulders, and you've got two young kids, and I mean, it's a phenomenal job. Like, she's an absolute powerhouse. And no, I count my blessings every day I get to work with you, because you are an inspiration and you are my inspiration. So not just for that, but for lots of things.

This next question is for both of you individually, and Harriet, we'll start with you on this one. Creativity in advertising in general are really pressure cooker worlds. But in that world of creative leadership, how do you maintain balance, not just for yourself, but also for your team?

It's challenging at times. I think Hannah and I often talk about how we strive to create an environment here at Pablo, where people can make the work of their lives, having the time of their lives. And I think it's incredibly important for us that, like I said before, you know, you've got those two types of people. I want people to come here and really thrive and be happy and fulfilled. And especially when you work in a creative industry, it's incredibly important that people aren't burdened down, bogged down with lots of things and restrictions and operating under a lot of stress and pressure. Because that isn't the right environment for creative, open minds to really thrive and get to the best work and ideas. So I think we really do try and create a space where people have that balance.

You know, they can pursue their own personal passions, you know, whether that be pro bono passion projects or, you know, their own things outside of work. You know, every single person here as part of their objectives, we have something called a healthier, happier me goal. It's something to do with investing with themselves that will make them feel more fulfilled and more balanced. You know, whether that's, you know, mine is I take a Spanish class every night, every week, once a week. Other people's are they'll go to the gym twice a week or they'll play sport or, you know, do something else. So I think that's really important for us that people honor that and respect that and create those boundaries.

I think it's in our role, especially in an agency like Pablo, you know, it can become challenging as you get more and more senior, you have more and more responsibilities. When the shit hits the fan, you've got to be there to pick up the phone and support the team and muck in and help out whenever you need to. So with that comes extra pressure and responsibility. And sometimes, you know, the boundaries can get blurred between work and play. And definitely over the years, I'll be really transparent with you, I've struggled with that, especially in the pandemic.

I think it was really hard when you physically didn't have a commute, you didn't leave the house without those physical boundaries between work and home life to really have them. And I think when all you had for a period when we literally had nothing else to do but work. And for me, you know, in the pandemic, I lived on my own. My gateway to seeing other human beings was work, right? You know, on a Zoom call or something like this. Aside from that, it was going to the supermarket. So I probably doubled down on work in that period.

And I think one of the things since coming out of the pandemic, I've really desperately tried to do is recondition myself. Because it's actually a long time, you know, a couple of years in that environment in the pandemic is a long time for an adult. And you do get kind of used to the way you're working and hours you might work or like how much commitment you put into your job. So I think coming out of it has been a bit of a battle for me to try and get that balance right again and go, no, need to cut off at this point or I've got plans, you know, tonight. So I can't do that and actually force myself to get those boundaries again.

And sometimes I probably can be probably because I do love my job. I can be a little bit of a workaholic. And I think as a leader, you really do need to I know it's corny, but you do need to lead by example. And so, you know, as much as I might like to put the extra hour or two in on something, I have to sometimes think, Harriet, like you're going to send an email, hit it on a timer for the next day. Youdon't want to be setting the example that it's do you know what I mean? Like stuff like that, little things, because you have to think, people do look up to you, and they do follow your lead in how you're operating. And going back to what I said at the beginning, it's really important here we create a space where people do have that balance. And everyone here works hard, and when they need to muck in, they muck in. But that should be the exception, not the norm. And I think we have a responsibility as leaders to set the tone and the standard for that, no matter what necessarily our own kind of personal preferences or inclinations might be.

Hannah, same question. I'll take it in two parts. So the pressure cooker effect of our industry, I think there is a very important thing that anybody that the people that thrive in our industry, what I have seen them do is love the problems that get thrown at you on a day-to-day basis. When things get pressurized, in my experience, it's usually when things are happening that you didn't expect, or there's feedback out of your control, or there is a budget. If you don't assume that that's going to happen, it will freak you out, and it will feel tiring, and the pressure will build. I think there is just something so liberating in going, our job is to solve problems with creativity. So you accept that the problems are going to come. They have to come for us to keep employed. Otherwise, there's no problem to solve, so we can back up and go home. So that is a part thing, which is as much psychological, I think, as anything, of going, the pressure cooker only builds if you start to fear problems and you start to think that problems are the enemy. As soon as you go, and it might sound mad, but I actually think it works. Okay, brilliant. There's another problem. I don't know how I'm going to solve it yet. Let's get to work. Let's figure it out. You learn to love. That was something that Celis Nabel taught me, learn to love the problems, because the problems are the things that clients bring you because they don't know how to solve them, and that's them trusting you with something that they don't know to take to somebody else. So that's the first thing, which I think is a bit of a reframe on the nature of what we do and therefore the spirit, with I guess which you approach it and the impact that then has on how you feel.

You talked about balance. I think when my career has been at its hardest, and I'll talk about this from the context of a balance of kids and work. When is it as hard as for me is when I'm putting a pressure on myself for that balance. I don't know what balance is meant to be, to be honest, Richard. I don't know what is good, what is bad. What I've learned is that I have a lot of control to impact it. I think when you feel like your balance is off, when I'm at my worst, I go a bit victim and like, oh, poor me. Everything's coming up. My inbox is out of control. My diary is out of control. You're a grown woman, Hannah. What are you doing about it? That's the, I think when things start to build up, it can get easy to let them drown you and to go quite victim and quite impotent, therefore. And what am I meant to do? If you don't run your diary, it will run you. Get back on top of your diary. If you are in your inbox firing out emails, you're going to get a lot of replies to emails and you're going to get buried again. So where are you spending your time? And I think I don't know what good balance is and I have regular moments of going, I can't be held up as the person that's got this figured out because sometimes it does tip. But my advice to people that are feeling in that tip is to stare at themselves in the mirror and go, you have a lot more control over this than you feel like you do when you're in the thick of it. Where do I get my energy? Why am I doing this? And what is distracting me and what is pulling me away from that? And how do I force myself to clear some time to get back on top of that or to create a different relationship with that? Exactly. Because there's always going to be moments where the balance feels off and the problems feel big and it feels overwhelming. And what Harriet gives me in our partnership and what we have across the management team are people that will go, right, handbrake up, come back around the table. We need to reset. What do we do? And let's go again.

Yeah, you both speak about your work with such a kind of self-awareness about the agency and you speak with it with such an infectious pride that this has been absolutely one of my favorite episodes of this so far. No, it absolutely has. I think you both so much for participating. I have to ask as we depart here, if one wanted to find out more about Pablo, where should they go? Go to www.pablolondon.com. That's the website. Also glad you do that. I'll just enjoy it. Or email one of us. So it's just firstname.lastname at pablolondon.com. Well, I appreciateyou both so much for taking the time to be on. This was truly incredible and thank you so much. Thank you for having us, Richard. Really, really appreciate it.>Thank you for having us, Richard. Really, really appreciate it.