The Lead by Emily K Thomas

Emily K Thomas
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The Lead is a conversation series exploring how decisions get made and why certain brands, people, and ideas become the ones that get chosen. emilykthomas.substack.com

  1. 17h ago

    Future Demand: Give Tomorrow a Reason to Choose You

    Why this conversation mattered A business can become very good at speaking to people who are ready to buy and still leave a much larger question unanswered. What are we doing for the people who will need us later? That was the question I wanted to explore with James Hurman. James is a co-founder of Tracksuit, founder and chair of Previously Unavailable, and a partner at New+Improved. He is also the author of Future Demand and The Case for Creativity, and has produced effectiveness research with Cannes Lions and WARC. Those credentials matter because he has worked on both sides of the argument: studying how marketing contributes to growth and helping build businesses that depend on it. What interested me was how often the conversation returned to something beyond marketing. We ask people to appreciate our work at the moment we need a decision. A purchase. A budget. A promotion. An introduction. But how much familiarity, understanding and evidence have we created before that moment? My point of view is that a reputation needs a longer horizon than the request it eventually supports. That applies to a brand, but it also applies to how we make our judgment visible at work. The opportunity is to give someone a reason to remember what we can contribute before they are under pressure to choose. -Emily THE LEAD by Emily K Thomas is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The LEAD Signals from the conversation Opportunity: Consider the people who are not ready yet James described an exercise he uses with audiences. First, he asks who is buying a smartphone now. Then he asks who expects to buy one over the next couple of years. The second group is much larger. It is an illustration, rather than a market-size study, but it makes his distinction between current and future demand easy to see. People can be outside a buying moment without being outside your future market. That changes the brief. A person considering a purchase may need pricing, availability or a clear reason to act. Someone who does not need the product yet may need a memorable idea, a useful association or an experience that gives the brand a place in their mind. For me, the corporate application is just as interesting. If you want to contribute to a strategic project six months from now, are you waiting for someone to open the role? Or are you already sharing useful observations, demonstrating judgment and helping people understand the problems you are good at solving? That does not guarantee an invitation. It gives other people more than a last-minute claim to base the decision on. Trust: Make your thinking understandable James talked about the challenge of explaining brand investment to people outside marketing. As he described it, asking a business leader whether they want “brand” can produce uncertainty. Asking whether they want demand in the future gives the conversation a clearer commercial purpose. The underlying work still needs evidence. Changing the name does not prove that a particular budget will work. What changes is the listener’s ability to understand what the work is intended to achieve. This is something I think we underestimate inside companies. People may reject a proposal because they cannot see how it connects to a decision they own. They may be protecting cash, managing risk or trying to understand a trade-off we have not explained. Before making the presentation more elaborate, try finishing this sentence: “This work helps us achieve ___ by changing ___, and we will look for ___ to understand whether it is working.” If you cannot complete that plainly, another slide may not solve the problem. Momentum: Judge what a person can build, then how they can grow with it When I asked James what he looks for in founders, he began with an important qualification: choosing successful businesses is difficult. There is no reliable shortcut to a portfolio full of winners. He then described looking beyond an attractive idea. Is there a meaningful market? Are customers already demonstrating demand? Can the founder bring people together and create forward movement? And can that person eventually grow beyond the early hustle into the leadership a larger company requires? That last distinction matters. The behaviour that helps someone start something may not be enough to help them lead it at the next stage. For anyone leading a team, the practical question is: Am I assessing the capability this person needs now, and the support they will need as the responsibility changes? Being familiar is not the same as earning confidence James challenged the idea that every brand choice is a careful comparison. His account emphasises familiarity, feeling and associations that people may not consciously examine. I think that deserves attention precisely because those signals are not always reliable. A name can feel familiar without the company being capable. A person can feel like a natural fit because their background resembles ours. The conversation included a second-hand hiring anecdote about parents’ occupations and school sports. I would treat that as a prompt to examine the filter, rather than a hiring rule. If the quality we want is collaboration, ask for an example of collaboration. If it is resilience, ask what happened when a plan failed and what changed afterwards. People can develop those abilities through many different lives. The useful discipline is to recognise how familiarity affects us, then ask what evidence supports the confidence it creates. That is a distinction I want to keep examining across these conversations: the signals that make something easy to choose, and the signals that make the choice well founded. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ My favorite part One of the passages I highlighted was James describing how he asked his planning team to explain a strategy in words a child could understand. That connected two parts of his work for me: making a commercial argument accessible and writing The Boy and the Lemon. A simpler explanation can expose whether we understand the idea well enough ourselves. It is a demanding test. Can we make the thinking clear without leaning on language that only our own profession recognises? I would use it before an important meeting. Explain the proposal in three sentences: What is happening? What do you recommend? Why should it help? Then add the necessary complexity: the evidence, the limits and the trade-offs. Clarity should make scrutiny easier. The habits behind opportunity James said The Boy and the Lemon grew out of reading Richard Wiseman’s The Luck Factor. He was interested in bringing its ideas to children through a story. The four themes he discussed were openness to opportunities, optimism, listening to intuition and finding something useful in setbacks. Wiseman’s own account describes a research programme with self-described lucky and unlucky people and sets out those four principles. I would use them as practices to consider, rather than a promise that the right mindset controls what happens to us. Access, resources and circumstances still matter. And intuition deserves a question: what experience is this feeling drawing on, and what might I be missing? The useful application is specific. Talk to someone outside your usual circle. Give a promising idea a fair test. Notice a concern before explaining it away. After a setback, write down what will change in the next attempt. James made the final point more concrete by describing a venture that had gone badly. His team spent time identifying what they had learned and what they would avoid next time. He did not pretend that failure felt good. The distinction I took from that is between describing a failure as a lesson and changing a decision because of it. The second one is where the value becomes visible. The deeper record (to make this practical for you) Here is a review I would use before asking for a bigger budget, an important opportunity or more visibility. 1. Name the future decision Who might need to choose us, for what, and in which situation? For a brand, this could be a customer entering the category later. Inside a company, it might be a leader deciding who should shape a new project. 2. Decide what should be remembered Finish: “When ___ happens, I want them to think of us for ___.” Make the association useful and specific. “We are excellent” gives someone very little to retrieve. 3. Put evidence behind the association What can people experience before they need to decide? A clear explanation, a well-run small project, a useful analysis or reliable follow-through can all make a claim more concrete. Illustrative corporate example: If you want to help lead a regional launch, start by sharing a concise account of a local customer problem and a testable recommendation. Give colleagues a sample of your judgment before asking them to rely on it for the whole launch. 4. Explain the work in the decision-maker’s language What outcome matters to them? What mechanism do you expect to contribute to it? What evidence would make you reconsider? Separate the activity you will perform from the change you expect it to support. 5. Make the next risk assessable James suggests writing down the worst thing that could happen and how quickly you could recover. I would add: who would bear the cost, what would recovery require, and which consequences could not be reversed? A small reversible experiment and a decision affecting someone else’s livelihood deserve different treatment. The aim is to make the risk specific enough to evaluate. 6. Turn the result into a changed decision After the test, record: What did we expect? What happened? What will we repeat, stop or change? Who needs to know? A lesson should alter what happens next. From James’s reading and recommendations The Luck Factor, Richard Wiseman The book James

    Future Demand: Give Tomorrow a Reason to Choose You

  2. 17h ago

    Don’t Let One Outcome Define Your Work

    Why this conversation mattered A project is cancelled after months of work. A proposal you believed in goes nowhere. A decision changes above you, and the thing you helped build never reaches the people it was meant for. It is easy to carry the whole outcome into the next room as a judgment about your ability. Before doing that, I think we owe the work a more precise question: What actually failed? That was one of the most useful parts of my conversation with Ruxandra Papuc. Ruxandra is Global Executive Creative Director and Partner at AIN’T and a Cannes Lions Creative Commerce juror. Her Cannes biography includes work for Vodafone, Coca-Cola and Mastercard. Those credentials matter because she brings experience of developing ambitious creative work for major brands, alongside the judgment required to assess other people’s ideas. She described a campaign that had been filmed and prepared for release, then cancelled on the day of its press announcement because of internal legal and ownership issues. The disappointment was real. So was the need to understand where the breakdown had happened. Ruxandra spoke about the value of someone outside that disappointment helping you see the situation clearly: “You did your thing very well, and your thing didn’t fail.” That is the distinction I wanted to stay with. A professional setback can contain several different stories: the quality of the work, the conditions around it, and what we do after it ends. Collapsing those into one verdict makes the next decision harder. We also talked about how responsibility is earned through a succession of opportunities, and why the material for fresh thinking often comes from outside our professional bubble. Together, those ideas give us something more useful than an instruction to keep going. They give us a way to decide what to carry forward. -Emily The LEAD Signals from the conversation Momentum Signal: diagnose the loss before making it your identity Ruxandra’s cancelled campaign is a useful example because the work never reached its intended public test. Its likely performance remained unknown. The cancellation itself could not settle that question. For someone inside a company, that distinction matters. A project can stop because the budget changes, an owner leaves or an approval process breaks down. It can also stop because the idea is weak, the execution missed the brief or the team overlooked a serious constraint. The response depends on which explanation the evidence supports. My application is to separate three things: The work: what can we assess about its quality and usefulness? The conditions: what allowed or prevented it from reaching its intended test? The response: what should we now change, preserve or stop? You might need to improve the work. You might need a different decision process. You might need to close the project and make something else. The point is to reach that conclusion deliberately, rather than letting disappointment answer every question at once. Trust Signal: responsibility is built through a process I asked Ruxandra how she had converted being chosen into greater ownership, influence or freedom. She brought the answer back to trust. Her account of judging creative competitions was a progression through different responsibilities, including shortlisting and later being in the jury room. The visible invitation sat within a longer history of participation. What I take from that is a practical question about professional ambition: What is the next responsibility someone has a reason to trust me with? Inside a company, wanting greater influence might mean seeking the opportunity to own a recommendation, lead a defined phase of a project or present the reasoning behind a decision. Then make the judgment visible. Explain what you noticed, what you chose, what happened and what you would change. An invitation creates access. What you do with the responsibility helps others assess where your judgment belongs next. That process does not make access equal or recognition inevitable. It does make the next step more concrete than waiting to be discovered. Opportunity Signal: go where your usual references cannot supply the answer Ruxandra’s closing advice was to look outside the industry bubble. Ordinary life, she said, is a source of inspiration, insight and relevance. Her follow-on distinction made the advice more useful: looking needs to be active. You can walk through a street and notice almost nothing. Or you can pay attention to the people, colours, movement and behaviour around you. I would apply that to a stalled brief before opening another folder of competitor work. Observe the situation the work is supposed to serve. Where does someone hesitate? What do they explain to a friend? What workaround have they invented? Which part of the experience demands more effort than we realised? An observation becomes strategically useful when it changes a question, an assumption or a decision. Bring that change back to the brief. My favorite part Ruxandra recalled posters from Rob Reilly’s arrival at McCann. One line stayed with her: “When one dies, bring another.” What I love about that line in the context of this conversation is the reminder that one idea does not contain the whole of a person’s creative capacity. A lost project can matter deeply without becoming the only work you are able to imagine. I highlighted her reflection that creative people are there to renew, to keep bringing something out of themselves. That feels especially useful in a working culture where we are asked to attach so much of our identity to the outcome. I would add one condition: learn before repeating. Making the next thing gives us an opportunity to use what the last experience revealed. Sometimes that means a new idea. Sometimes it means a clearer agreement, a smaller test or a more realistic boundary. The next project should benefit from the last one without being made responsible for repairing your entire sense of worth. The deeper record (to make this practical for you) Here is the review I would bring into a team meeting after an important piece of work stops or disappoints. Give the team one page with three columns: Work, Conditions and Next Decision. 1. Assess the work against the brief What problem were we trying to solve? What evidence suggested the idea could help? What did the execution demonstrate? What remains untested? Which criticism is specific enough to act on? Keep praise, disappointment and evidence distinct. A team’s belief in an idea is worth understanding, but it cannot tell us how customers would have responded to work they never encountered. 2. Identify the conditions that shaped the outcome Who held the decision? Were ownership, budget, approvals and constraints clear? What changed, and when did we learn about it? Which risks could we have identified earlier? Which factors were genuinely outside the team’s control? The aim is to locate responsibility accurately. A constraint outside one person’s control may still be something the organisation needs to address. A legal or operational issue deserves attention even when the creative work was strong. 3. Make one consequential decision Choose what the evidence now supports: Improve: keep the problem, revise the approach and define the next test. Reconfigure: preserve useful work but change the ownership, process, timing or route. Close: stop this version, retain the learning and release the resources. Name an owner and a review point. The discussion should change what happens next. Let me give you an example… A team prepares a new customer-onboarding experience, but the project is halted after a budget change. The team can still assess the clarity of the proposed journey and the quality of any prototype feedback. It may not know whether the new experience would improve retention. Its next decision could be a smaller test of one step, provided the business can support it. That is a more useful conclusion than either assuming the whole idea was a failure or insisting the idea was unquestionably right. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Turn the review into the next opportunity Ruxandra’s three ideas belong together. A more accurate account of a setback helps you see what you can still contribute. A defined responsibility gives you somewhere to demonstrate that judgment. Attention beyond your usual references gives you new material to work with. For this week, I would choose three small actions: Review one outcome you have been treating as a verdict. Name one responsibility you are ready to take, with evidence behind the request. Bring one observation from outside your professional bubble into a live decision. You may also need time to recover, a better boundary or a different environment. Renewal should be sustainable enough for you to keep doing the work. The question I am taking from this conversation is: What can I make next with a clearer understanding of what happened last time? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Explore Ruxandra’s work AIN’T Cannes Lions Creative Commerce jury profile Who should be in the next conversation? Who has a specific story about how confidence was earned, misplaced or rebuilt? Reply with a name and the decision you think we should examine. The Lead with Emily K Thomas THE LEAD by Emily K Thomas is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emilykthomas.substack.com/subscribe

  3. 3d ago

    How to Build a Brand That Belongs

    Why this conversation mattered A strategy can look coherent at headquarters and feel strangely irrelevant to the people it hopes to reach. The words have been translated. The visuals have been adapted. The presentation explains the opportunity. Yet the team closest to the customer can see something important that the original plan never considered. What happens next is a leadership decision. Does that knowledge get to change the strategy, or is the local team expected to make an existing answer work? That was the question I kept returning to with Siew Ting Foo. Siew Ting is CEO of Soul for Profit Advisory, former Global Chief Brand and Insights Officer at HP, and author of Building Brands with Soul. Her career spans HP, Unilever, Mars, Diageo and Fonterra. Cannes Lions’ speaker biography documents that experience across global and Asian markets. Those credentials matter because she has worked where a global ambition has to become a decision in a particular market. She brings an operator’s perspective to questions about culture, brand meaning and commercial value. In our conversation, she challenges the habit of treating Asia as the place where a strategy arrives to be adapted. Asian markets can also originate ideas that shape global thinking. The insight should be allowed to travel in both directions. We talked about the repeated “why” behind a useful cultural insight, the difference between attracting attention and earning trust, and the judgment required to balance immediate demands with a longer-term direction. Her written follow-up adds a revealing career choice: accepting an assignment in China, which she identifies as the decision that most changed her trajectory. She dates it to almost 15 years before our conversation. We did not establish an exact calendar year. What I find useful is the connection between proximity and judgment. Some opportunities change what other people see on your résumé. Others change what you are able to see. Listen for the choices beneath her language about soul: whose life the brand aims to improve, what the promise asks the business to deliver, and what evidence would show that it mattered. These are questions a founder or corporate leader can use well beyond a market-entry brief. -Emily Siew Ting’s Chosen Five Her written follow-up includes a book, a brand, an idea and a practice. The person recommendation was not supplied. 1. A person more people should know No recommendation was provided for this prompt. 2. A book: Building Brands with Soul Siew Ting selected her own book, which brings together her experience of leadership, purpose and brand building. It extends the question behind this conversation: how does the human meaning of a brand connect to the way a business grows? Explore the book through Soul for Profit Advisory. 3. A brand: e.l.f. Cosmetics She highlighted the connection between shared ownership, growth and accountability. There is a concrete policy behind that interest: e.l.f. Beauty’s 2024 proxy statement describes full-time employees receiving stock awards and being eligible for the same company-performance bonus plan. I would take this as a useful leadership question: what does your organisation ask people to care about, and how does its structure let them share in the outcome? The policy is one example to examine, rather than proof that ownership alone creates a particular culture. Source: e.l.f. Beauty 2024 proxy statement. 4. An idea: human-centred culture in the era of AI Siew Ting wants more attention on the human environment in which decisions are made. My application is to look at what your team actually rewards: curiosity, useful disagreement, attention to customers and responsibility for the outcome. Tools can change quickly. Those behaviours still need room in the working week. 5. A practice: “Learning how to unlearn constantly.” This is her direct written answer. It asks something demanding of experienced people: remain willing to revise an assumption that once helped you succeed. The LEAD Signals from the conversation Opportunity Signal: choose proximity that improves your judgment Siew Ting identifies the China assignment as a turning point. The useful question is what a move will let you learn that you cannot learn from your current position. For someone inside a company, that could mean spending time with customers, working alongside a different function or taking responsibility for a market you have only seen in reports. Those are my applications of her story. The value comes from what the experience changes in your understanding. Ask: which opportunity would make me better at seeing the problem? Trust Signal: attention opens the conversation; delivery gives it substance Siew Ting distinguishes the first moment of attention from the relationship that follows. She looks for an exchange of value and alignment of values. A brand also has to deliver through its products and services. That gives us a practical review question. After someone notices us, what do they encounter that gives them a reason to trust us? A founder’s strong point of view may earn a meeting. A clear recommendation, an honest scope and a reliable handoff give the other person something more concrete to assess. Momentum Signal: protect the ability to choose Siew Ting describes momentum as balancing what is needed in the short term with what must be preserved for the long term. She also talks about separating distraction from signals with meaningful business consequences. The application is to examine the decision before adding another task. What does this make possible? What does it interrupt? What evidence suggests that it deserves attention now? A busy team needs a way to answer those questions together. Emily’s (my) favorite moment I loved Siew Ting’s admission that slowing down did not come naturally. She describes herself as a type A achiever who likes to move. Over time, she built rituals such as journaling, meditation and breaks in her diary to create some distance from reactive work. That makes her advice more useful to me. She is describing a discipline she had to develop. A leader who wants better judgment has to make some room to exercise it. This is something I actively have to work on, so it resonated deeply. How about for you? The deeper record (to make this practical for you) The question I am taking forward is how an organisation turns local understanding into authority to change a decision. Here are four ways I would apply the conversation. 1. Give local knowledge a consequential job When a team enters a market, it can ask local colleagues for two very different things. One request is: help us adapt this campaign. Another is: tell us which assumptions in the strategy need to change. Both may be necessary. They require different levels of influence. If the team is only allowed to change language and imagery, its understanding of the customer has limited room to affect the answer. Before the next regional brief, write down three things: • What is fixed, and why? • What can the local team challenge? • Who can authorise a change when new evidence appears? This applies within a company too. Customer-support teams can hear a recurring concern long before it appears in a leadership presentation. Their knowledge becomes more useful when someone is responsible for bringing it into a decision. 2. Ask “why” until the answer changes the brief Siew Ting describes the discipline of asking why repeatedly to reach a cultural tension beneath a visible preference. My addition is to test the answer with evidence, rather than treating the fifth explanation as automatically true. Suppose customers repeatedly delay a decision. A team might describe that as a lack of interest. Further conversations could reveal uncertainty about implementation, concern about appearing inexperienced or a buying process the team has misunderstood. Those are possible explanations to investigate, not conclusions to assume. The insight should affect a choice. Would it change the offer, the information someone needs, the way a trial works or the point at which another person joins the conversation? If nothing changes, keep examining whether you have a useful insight or simply an interesting description. 3. Connect purpose to a choice people can observe In her written answer about confidence, Siew Ting says a brand should be anchored in purpose, clear about whom it serves and clear about the meaningful impact it wants to have on their lives. I would turn that into a short working brief: • We are serving these people in this situation. • We want to help them make this change. • That means choosing this approach. • We will examine this evidence to learn whether it helped. The third line is where purpose becomes demanding. What will the business prioritise? What will it stop promising? What will the team do differently? In the interview, Siew Ting connects differentiation to pricing power. That is a strategic aim she describes, rather than a measured result we established in the conversation. A leader still needs to examine whether a particular decision created the intended value. 4. Make experience available for revision Siew Ting’s comments on curiosity and unlearning belong together. Experience gives a person reference points. It can also make an old answer feel obvious before the present situation has been examined. Before a consequential decision, ask each person to name one assumption they are carrying from previous work. Then ask what would make them revise it. This is especially useful when AI is part of the process. A fluent synthesis can make an answer easier to read without resolving whether its assumptions fit this customer or context. My practical standard is to make those assumptions visible, check important claims and keep responsibility for the decision with the people making it. Siew Ting’s line about AI and judgment is her perspective. T

  4. 4d ago

    How to Make Every Detail Mean Something: Anselmo Tumpić on making your brand promise tangible

    Why this conversation mattered A brand can spend a great deal of money explaining what makes it different, then give people an experience that feels exactly like everyone else’s. The language says thoughtful. The onboarding feels rushed. The campaign says distinctive. The product could belong to any competitor. Somewhere between the promise and the experience, the meaning disappears. My conversation with Anselmo Tumpić kept bringing me back to that gap. What would change if we asked every important detail of a business to carry part of its story? Anselmo is the co-founder and Executive Creative Director of Studio Tumpić/Prenc in Rovinj, Croatia, and served on the 2026 Cannes Lions Design shortlisting jury. Before founding the studio in 2017, he worked at Fabrica, Benetton’s communications research centre, and at BBDO and Saatchi & Saatchi in Milan. His studio’s work has received recognition from Cannes Lions, D&AD and the European Design Awards. Those credentials matter because he has worked on both sides of a consequential creative decision: making an idea strong enough to stand out, and evaluating whether someone else’s work deserves a closer look. Source: Cannes Lions biography and 2026 shortlisting jury announcement. We talked about the two years he spent preparing for Fabrica, what he gained from working across disciplines and cultures, and why he eventually chose his hometown over a major creative capital. We also explored two packaging projects that make his thinking unusually clear: olive-oil bottles that become a miniature town, and a wine box designed to stay closed until the right moment . Then he sent me a principle from his late high school teacher, Ivan Obrovac: “Express the maximum with minimum means.” It gave me a way to connect the whole conversation. Simplicity takes work. A small number of details can carry a great deal of meaning when someone has thought carefully about what each one should do. If you lead a business, build a brand or present ideas inside a company, listen for the decisions behind the objects. Where does the promise become tangible? What does a person get to understand through the experience itself? There is a useful way to examine your own work here, even if you never design a bottle. Emily THE LEAD by Emily K Thomas is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Anselmo’s Chosen Five I asked Anselmo to share five things that shape how he thinks. These selections come from his written follow-up. 1. A person more people should know: Ivan Obrovac His late high school teacher gave him, and generations of students in his region, a foundation in visual arts and design. Anselmo remembers his instruction: “Express the maximum with minimum means.” It is a precise standard for creative work: ask how much meaning an idea can carry with the fewest necessary elements. 2. A book that shaped his thinking: no single book Anselmo credits direct experience, practical work and his professional journey. I appreciate the specificity of that answer. His education continued through making things, encountering different disciplines and discovering what an idea required in practice. 3. A brand getting something right: Rimac He chose the Croatian electric hypercar manufacturer for its ambition in helping build a new category. Rimac’s all-electric Nevera offers a concrete example of the work he admires. He also pointed to Mate Rimac’s broader ventures, including Verne in Zagreb. What interests me about this selection is the willingness to develop something consequential from a place people may overlook. Check this out to dive deeper: Rimac Nevera; Verne’s September 2026 Zagreb update. 4. An idea deserving more attention: Eurythenes plasticus Anselmo highlighted the 2020 project that connected a scientific discovery with the problem of plastic pollution. Scientists found a plastic microfibre in an amphipod collected nearly 7,000 metres below the ocean’s surface in the Mariana Trench. They named the species Eurythenes plasticus in reference to the plastic it had ingested; WWF helped bring the discovery to wider attention. For Anselmo, the power is in the lasting reminder. The message lives in the scientific name itself. My takeaway is a question for communicators: could the idea live somewhere more meaningful and enduring than another campaign placement? Related reading: WWF on the discovery and naming. 5. A practice that has helped his career: “To be persistent.” A short answer with a demanding implication. In the conversation, persistence meant working through the difficult distance between having an idea and finding the collaborators who could help make it real. Signals from the conversation Opportunity Signal: preparation before recognition Anselmo describes spending two years preparing for Fabrica before being accepted. The useful question for the rest of us is specific: which opportunity matters enough to prepare for before anyone invites you? Identify what you would need to demonstrate, then make something that gives people a reason to take you seriously. Trust Signal: feeling, followed by fit When judging work, Anselmo first notices his emotional response. Then he examines the idea more rationally, including whether it belongs to that particular client. I would bring both questions into a creative review: does this make someone feel something, and is that feeling connected to what this business actually offers? Momentum Signal: give the work a route to people International competitions help his small studio put its work in front of people beyond Rovinj. They also create exchanges with peers. The broader lesson is to choose credible places where the right people can encounter and assess your work. A strong project still needs a route into a relevant room. Emily’s (MY) favorite moment The wine box was my favorite example because it made patience part of the experience. For Franc Arman’s Teran Barrique project, the bottle sits inside a locked box. A QR-linked app shares information while the owner waits, then provides an opening code when the time is right. The design asks the customer to participate in the product’s story. I kept thinking about the difference between saying something deserves time and building an experience that gives time a purpose. Check out the youtube video on this project here! Croatian Designers Association, “It’s time for your time.” The deeper record: to make this conversation practical and useful for you! The question I am taking from this conversation is: how does a business make its positioning credible at the moment someone experiences it? Here are four ways I would use Anselmo’s thinking. 1. Turn an important claim into a concrete experience The wine project begins with something specific about the product: this particular wine benefits from waiting. The packaging makes that idea consequential, and the accompanying information gives the customer something useful during the wait. That is a more demanding brief than “make it look premium.” For a service business promising clarity, the equivalent might be a proposal that makes the decision easier: a defined problem, a clear recommendation and an honest explanation of the trade-offs. For a corporate leader promising collaboration, it might be a decision process that lets colleagues contribute before the answer is settled. Those are my applications, rather than Anselmo’s examples. The useful move is to connect the promise to something a person can actually experience. Write one sentence: “We want people to trust us for ___.” Then finish another: “They experience that when ___.” If the second sentence only describes your marketing, look further into the business. 2. Make your specific story do useful work For Famìa, the studio drew on Rovinj’s architecture. The olive-oil bottles resemble small houses. Put several together and they form a miniature town. The local reference gives the design a distinctive source. It also offers an interaction: people can arrange the bottles, collect them and bring a version of the town into their homes. Anselmo describes a benefit for the brand too: the packaging can create its own display arrangement. We did not establish sales or cost-saving figures in the interview. What we can examine is the design logic: one idea serves the story, the customer’s interaction and the way the product is presented. Project reference: Studio Tumpić/Prenc on Famìa. For a founder, the question is: which detail of your origin, method or expertise could make the customer’s experience more useful? A founder’s background belongs in a brand story when it helps explain a meaningful choice. A distinctive process becomes stronger evidence when customers can see what it changes for them. Specificity earns its place by doing something. 3. Protect both exposure and space Anselmo’s move to Rovinj could easily become a neat story about leaving a big city to become more original. His actual account is more useful. He says his earlier experience in larger creative environments was essential. When speaking to young people locally, he encourages them to go and experience other places before deciding whether to return. He values both the world that expanded his reference points and the quieter setting that gives him room to work. You can apply that without moving. Look at your week. Where do you encounter ideas, people or disciplines that challenge your own? Where do you have enough uninterrupted time to decide what you think? A full calendar of inspiration can leave very little room for judgment. Complete isolation can leave your assumptions untested. Build time for both. 4. Give human judgment something visible to stand behind Anselmo wonders whether the growing abundance of synthetic images will create greater appetite for human imperfection, sincerity and artistic expre

  5. 5d ago

    Make Work That Matters. Give It a Chance to Be Seen.

    Why this conversation mattered You can spend years becoming good at your work and still hesitate when an opportunity appears. You want one more project, one more credential, or a little more certainty before you put your hand up. Meanwhile, the work stays where it is, known mainly to the people who already know you. Pooja Manek brought a useful challenge to that tension: “How do I make ignoring me feel like a mistake?” The rest of her answer matters as much as the line. She talked about the effort of producing consistently strong work, learning through failure, and building the judgment to recognize an idea with potential. The standard has to exist beyond the introduction. Pooja is a Creative and Founding Member at Talented Agency, a Cannes Lion winner, and a member of the 2026 Cannes Lions Outdoor awarding jury. She also judged Writing for Advertising at D&AD in 2025. Her experience connects making work, evaluating it, and developing the people behind it. That makes her a valuable person to ask how promise becomes credible: she has to recognize quality in other people’s ideas while creating conditions for her own team to deliver it. Our conversation moved between individual ambition and the conditions that sustain it. Pooja described taste as something developed through making, failure, and repetition. She spoke about people who bring out the best in others, employee ownership, and client relationships strong enough for an idea to move forward through a sketch and a conversation. I heard a connection between those subjects. A reputation grows through the work people can see and the experience of working with the person behind it. Visibility needs something substantial to carry. Substance also needs opportunities to travel. If you work inside a company, the question becomes concrete. What would help someone trust you with the next brief, account, promotion, or difficult decision? This conversation offers several places to look: the quality of your observations, what you do with feedback, the initiative you take, and the people whose work improves around you. -Emily THE LEAD by Emily K Thomas is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Five ideas I’m taking from this conversation These are my interpretations and practical applications of the interview. 1. Let your interests become evidence of judgment. When Pooja described choosing talent, she wanted to know what people cared about outside work. What could they talk about with real energy and specificity? I mentioned organizing, flipping furniture, and interior design. She immediately connected those interests to a furniture account. Someone who notices the difference between cobalt and periwinkle might bring relevant attention to a brief that another person would miss. That exchange made her hiring philosophy tangible. An interest becomes useful when you can show what it helps you notice. She also pointed to the detail in The Lead’s branding, including the type and words, as something she could recognize before meeting me. My takeaway is to audit the work someone encounters first. Do its details demonstrate the care you say you bring? In your next interview or internal presentation, go one step beyond naming a passion. Explain an observation it has given you, the choice it changed, and where that understanding could help the business. Give the other person something to assess. 2. Build taste through practice you can learn from. Pooja talked about the gap between recognizing work you admire and being able to make work at that standard yourself. She referenced Ira Glass’s discussion of that gap and returned to the need to do the work. She also acknowledged that talking about this after earning recognition comes with privilege. There was a day zero. Failure was part of developing the resilience and instinct she now relies on. My application is to make repetition deliberate. Choose one part of your craft: writing a clearer brief, finding a stronger insight, or making a recommendation easier to understand. Compare what you made with a specific example you admire. Ask for feedback on the difference. Then make another attempt. “More” becomes useful when you can name what improved. When I asked for a logical test for a strong outdoor idea, Pooja could not offer a formula. She described a physical response, the feeling of recognizing potential. I would keep that honesty alongside the practice: experienced judgment can arrive before a tidy explanation. Then ask what the response is noticing and whether it holds for the intended audience. Pooja’s four talent criteria fit together here: obsession, high agency, her forceful refusal to accept mediocrity, and openness to feedback. Standards need that fourth part. Otherwise, devotion to the work can become devotion to defending your first version. 3. Give opportunity a place in your calendar. Pooja described “luck surface area,” an idea she encountered through Sahil Bloom. Applying, meeting people, and putting work into the world create more opportunities for an unexpected connection to happen. Her own account includes applying for See It Be It and being willing to try again if she had not been selected. The possibility of rejection was part of the decision. I shared my own practice: half an hour on Mondays devoted to shooting my shot. Reaching out can still feel uncomfortable. Giving it time in the calendar means I act before I feel completely ready. You can make this useful without turning your week into constant self-promotion. Choose one relevant person, program, or internal opportunity. Decide why you are a fit. Share one piece of work or observation that makes the connection clear, then make a specific request. Track what you attempted and learned. You can control those actions even when you cannot control the response. 4. Trust is visible in what people make possible for others. When I asked what turns attention into trust, Pooja spoke about secure people and David Brooks’s distinction between illuminators and diminishers in How to Know a Person. She values people who recognize what others can contribute and want to bring it forward. She connected that to developing internal talent and making Talented’s standards explicit through its handbook. We compared that with our own GAL Standard. For a manager, this is a practical question: does someone leave a conversation with you better able to contribute? That can mean a clearer brief, useful feedback, accurate credit, or responsibility matched with support. It can also mean explaining why an idea needs more work. Helping someone improve requires honesty as well as encouragement. Pooja’s description of pay and employee ownership adds another dimension. A workplace’s stated belief in people becomes more credible when its operating decisions give them security and a stake in what they help build. These were her accounts of Talented’s approach, and they deserve attention alongside the creative advice. 5. Make something the audience can use. Pooja’s audience test was one of my favorite parts of the conversation: why will someone care? Her example went beyond attracting attention. A piece of work might help a woman begin a conversation about marriage or equality. Sharing it with a friend or partner could make something difficult easier to express. That is a useful standard for anyone working in communications. The audience gains language, understanding, or a way to act. Before approving your next post, campaign, or presentation, complete this sentence: “After seeing this, someone can…” Then be specific. Explain a decision to a colleague. Raise an issue with a partner. Recognize a problem. Compare two options. Take the next step. If the sentence only describes what they will know about your organization, keep working on what it gives them. Signals from the conversation Opportunity Signal: Show initiative with evidence. Pooja described high agency as a mindset that can exist at any level. My application is to bring a considered next step: the problem you noticed, what you explored, and the help or decision you need. Initiative still includes knowing when to ask for expertise or approval. Trust Signal: Shared understanding changes the amount of explanation required. Pooja described work approved over WhatsApp after years of client relationships. A sketch, a concept note, and a call could be enough. The valuable detail is the history behind the short message. People already understood one another’s judgment. For a corporate team, shorter communication works when the decision, context, responsibilities, and risks are understood. Earn that shared understanding before assuming everyone needs fewer details. Momentum Signal: Put feedback into the next version. Pooja kept returning to being open to feedback. The practical signal is what changes afterward. Ask for one specific improvement, apply it, and show the difference. That gives a colleague or client evidence that working with you improves the outcome. Emily’s (MY) favorite moment The furniture exchange stayed with me because Pooja demonstrated her point while we were talking. I named an interest, and she could already see where that attention might become useful on a client brief. It reminded me to be more precise when introducing people. A broad compliment gives someone little to work with. An observation about how a person sees, thinks, or solves a problem can help someone else recognize where they belong. That is a valuable act of connection. Because you’re still here… Here’s The deeper record - to help you apply this to your life/ business Here is a simple exercise I would take from this conversation. Before your next opportunity, write four short answers: What do I notice? Name one specific observation your experience or interests help you make. What have I made? Choose a piece of work that demon

  6. 6d ago

    How to Give People a Reason to Care

    Why this conversation mattered Who gets heard in your workplace? The person with the strongest idea, the most confident delivery, or the most familiar way of presenting it? Those are different things. When we confuse them, we can give visibility to the wrong contribution and miss the person who understands the problem best. That is what stayed with me from my conversation with Felipe Braz Costa. Influence grows through the relationship between what we say, what we do, and how well we understand the people we hope to reach. For a brand or a leader, attention creates an opening. Our behavior determines whether people trust us with the next opportunity. Felipe is Executive Creative Director for EMEA at Edelman. His work has received recognition at Cannes Lions, the Clio Awards, and The One Show, and he served as a 2026 Cannes Lions PR Shortlisting Juror. That experience matters here: he develops creative work across markets and also evaluates other people’s ideas. He has to decide what deserves attention, support, and the chance to move forward. I wanted to understand the judgment behind those decisions. One of the most revealing stories began with a Spanish trainee describing the cute wild-animal content she consumed and shared. Felipe remembers the team recognizing that they were participating in the demand they wanted to challenge. That observation became part of his account of the work for AMPARA. We discussed the two connected campaigns, The Wild Algorithm and Ban This Profile, and the decision to use AI-generated wildlife content that people would be encouraged to report. Edelman’s published case describes Ban This Profile as an intervention aimed at reducing the circulation of wildlife-as-pet content. We also talked about the limits of certainty. Felipe said the team knew the campaign could fail. The client understood the risks and participated in the decision to proceed. That detail matters as much as the creative idea. For anyone building a career, leading a team, or growing a brand, the opportunity is practical: become more deliberate about what earns people’s confidence. Listen before making the recommendation. Look beyond the most polished contribution. Let a different perspective change the work. -Emily K Thomas THE LEAD by Emily K Thomas is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Five ideas I’m taking from this conversation These are my takeaways and applications of the conversation. 1. Trust is built when there is nothing immediate to gain. Felipe connected credibility to consistency: what you say, what you do, and how you treat people when there is no immediate benefit to you. That last part matters. The junior colleague who cannot advance your career still experiences your leadership. So does the supplier whose proposal you decline. Each interaction gives someone evidence of whether your stated values hold when the incentives change. In corporate life, make your standards travel across seniority. Give credit accurately. Close the loop after asking for help. Explain a decision respectfully to the person it disappoints. Clear boundaries belong here too. Reliability means making commitments people can depend on. For a brand, apply the same test after the sale: is the customer getting the care the campaign promised? 2. Listening should change the recommendation. Felipe’s experience across cultures and teams brought him back to understanding people before trying to influence them. My test for listening is simple: what did I hear that changed what I planned to do? Before your next proposal, ask the person affected what they are trying to achieve, what is getting in the way, and what an outsider might misunderstand. Then reflect that back before offering an answer. Imagine being asked to improve adoption of an internal tool. The brief says employees need more information. Conversations reveal that using it duplicates work. A better announcement cannot remove that friction. Listening has value because it can change the problem you agree to solve. 3. Familiarity can hide the idea in front of you. In our wider conversation, Felipe recalled a Ghostbusters promotion in Madrid’s subway: the sound of an approaching train, with no train appearing, followed by the film reveal. Sony Pictures España’s 2016 promotional film shows the idea. A familiar sound became the premise. Felipe connected it to his own experience of hearing trains and wondering where they were. He speculated about an outsider noticing the opportunity; the creator’s background was not something he knew. The useful lesson is to bring fresh observation into contact with local knowledge. Someone new may notice the ritual. Someone familiar with it can explain its meaning and where an idea might fail. For your next project, ask a newcomer what surprised them and an experienced colleague what everyone takes for granted. Explore where their answers meet. 4. Recognize the contribution across different working styles. I asked Felipe about recognizing creative signal across working styles. That question connects directly to his point about different backgrounds revealing possibilities a person might miss alone. My application for leaders: make it possible for people to contribute before the room establishes its preferred answer. Ask for a short written observation ahead of the meeting. Give people time to think. Invite the person closest to the customer or process to explain what the proposal misses. Then evaluate what each contribution changes: our understanding of the problem, the quality of the idea, or the risk we can now see. You can hold a high standard without requiring everyone to perform confidence the same way. 5. Give the observation room to become consequential. The trainee’s comment about cute wildlife content mattered because the team allowed it to challenge their own behavior. In Felipe’s account, that observation helped inform the AMPARA work. AI later helped execute an intervention. For a brand team considering a new tool, start by describing the behavior you want to change and why it makes sense to the person doing it. Then assess the technology. And keep the uncertainty visible. Felipe said the client understood that the campaign could fail. A serious proposal makes room for that conversation: what are we assuming, what could go wrong, and what would make us reconsider? Signals from the conversation Opportunity Signal: Make your thinking visible in useful work. Felipe recalled creating proactive ideas during his early months at Ogilvy in Spain, with many reaching the agency’s wall of ideas even though most were never produced. My takeaway is to create a small, relevant piece of evidence of how you think. That might be a better brief, a well-framed experiment, or an observation that changes a team’s next decision. He explicitly qualified the story: he was not telling everyone to work as many hours as possible. Trust Signal: Consistency across differences in power. Watch whether someone’s care and follow-through depend on who is in the room. The practical implication for your own reputation is demanding: make the experience of working with you dependable for people at every level. Every promise creates a future moment when someone will compare your words with your actions. Momentum Signal: Match the ambition to the people backing it. Felipe described the mismatch between a conservative client and an agency hired for bold work. My interpretation is that a team needs agreement about the kind of work it is actually prepared to support. Ask that question before the presentation, while the project can still change. Emily’s (MY) favorite moment The line about how we treat people when there is nothing immediate to gain is the one I most want to hold onto. From a PR perspective, visibility can help people discover you. Their experience of you gives them a reason to recommend you, involve you, and believe what you say next. Those decisions often happen in rooms you never enter. That is why I connect Felipe’s point about trust with his point about listening. Both ask us to take another person’s experience seriously, including when they have less power or see the situation differently. For me, that is a more useful standard of influence than how much attention someone commands. The deeper record (because my intention is to always make this applicable for you) Here is how I would put these ideas to work before your next important recommendation. Ask three people separately: someone close to the problem, someone from a different discipline or background, and someone who will live with the outcome. Use the same questions: • What are we taking for granted? • What would someone unfamiliar with this situation notice? • What would make our proposed solution difficult to use or trust? Write down where their answers differ before bringing everyone together. That gives you something concrete to investigate, without letting the first confident speaker define the problem. Then complete these sentences: • We originally thought the problem was… • We heard or observed… • That changed our recommendation by… • We will know it helped if… If the third sentence is empty, examine whether you learned something that supports the original plan or simply protected it from challenge. Both are possible. Be honest about which happened. This is my application of the conversation. It is a way to improve a decision, with room for evidence to change it. Near the end, Felipe suggested approaching disagreement by trying to move someone 10 percent rather than demanding complete agreement. Start with where the other person is. Make the next step credible enough for them to take. Influence becomes useful when understanding changes what we do. Who should be chosen next? Who has changed how you think about creativity, trust, or opportunity? Reply with

  7. Oct 13

    Be the Brand They Think of When It Matters

    Why this conversation mattered A brand can have a beautiful campaign, a recognizable name, and a product people admire. It can still be missing from the shortlist when someone needs what it offers. That gap matters. From a PR perspective, we work hard to create visibility and credibility. But the next question is more demanding: what does that visibility help people remember, and when will that memory become useful? My conversation with Madita Brandhorst gave that question substance. We talked about how brands connect to buying situations, why growth can require a wider invitation, and how to protect the identity people already recognize. Madita (MSc Psychology) is the Associate Director of Tracking Solutions at quantilope, where she leverages over a decade of research expertise to transform consumer insights into a powerful engine for brand growth. By combining consumer psychology with AI-driven automation, she helps global brands master mental availability, fuelling high-stakes decisions from brand positioning to Super Bowl campaigns. At quantilope, Madita is on a mission to make insights fun and actionable by using AI to eliminate the manual grind, freeing humans to focus on what truly matters: deep strategic thinking. In a landscape increasingly saturated by AI, she champions a future where technology fosters real human connection. Madita believes that understanding our perfectly imperfect human nature is the only way to truly meet people where they are – and a strategy that will outlast the algorithm. That experience matters to this conversation because she connects consumer psychology, real human evidence, and AI-supported research to the brand decisions teams make every day. Her work also includes a Cannes Lions session with Planted co-founder Pascal Bieri, exploring how a plant-based brand can build relevance with people who eat meat. That gives us a concrete example of the tension we explored: how do you grow your audience while keeping your purpose intact? We moved from mental shortcuts to Coca-Cola’s recurring occasions, Lindt’s recognizable cues, Taylor Swift’s expanding audience, and the risks of stretching a familiar brand into unfamiliar territory. We also discussed mascots, AI, and a leadership lesson that deserves as much attention as the marketing science: bring the curiosity you use to understand customers into the relationships you work within. The useful thread is this: people need a reason to connect you to a moment in their lives. Your job is to make that connection clear, reinforce it consistently, and check whether it exists beyond the meeting room. If you are planning a campaign, considering a new product, or trying to make your work more meaningful to the people it serves, this conversation offers a better place to begin. Emily K Thomas THE LEAD by Emily K Thomas is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Five ideas I’m taking into the next brand meeting 1. Make the choice easier Madita described a brand as a bridge from a need to a choice. People do not start every purchase from scratch. A previous experience, a recommendation, or a recognizable cue can help them decide. The implication for brand work is practical. Tell people when your offer belongs in their lives, and make it easy to recognize when that moment arrives. 2. Keep the identity. Expand the occasions. Coca-Cola came up as a brand Madita associates with Christmas, summer, friends, and shared enjoyment. Lindt came up through indulgence and its recognizable chocolatier. Those examples point to a useful distinction. A brand can carry several messages while keeping the cues that help people recognize who is speaking. 3. Give more people a way in Madita described Planted widening its message from carbon reduction for a vegan audience toward taste for people who eat meat. In her account, the mission remained important; the customer invitation became broader. The question to borrow: which people could value what we offer, but do not recognize themselves in how we currently describe it? 4. Let the story carry the brand Madita wants mascots to return. Tony the Tiger, the GEICO gecko, and the M&M’s characters were her examples of characters that can carry a story while identifying the brand. A mascot is one possibility. The wider lesson is to build recognizable cues into the work so the audience can connect the story to its source. 5. Stay curious when your view is challenged The phrase Madita returned to was “strong opinions loosely held.” She values people who have a point of view and remain willing to revise it. That matters in a brand meeting, a research review, and a conversation with a colleague. Confidence needs room for new evidence. THE LEAD: Signals from the conversation Opportunity Signal Madita described being trusted to move from a traditional research environment into a technology platform and help shape its development. Her opportunity came through people willing to see how her existing judgment could contribute in a new setting. Trust Signal She gravitates toward people who question things, including her own advice. Openness to challenge is a behavior you can observe: does someone ask for evidence, acknowledge a gap, and adjust when they learn something? Momentum Signal My interpretation of the brand examples is that expansion works best when new buyers and occasions can enter without losing the cues existing buyers recognize. This is a theme from the conversation, rather than a direct answer to our standard momentum question. Emily’s (MY) favorite moment One of the most useful exchanges was about Nivea. Madita used its move into cosmetics to explore the distance between a product’s quality and what people associate with the brand. I immediately connected Nivea with cream and post-shower care. That response made the question tangible: does the next product make sense within the meaning people already carry? For anyone building a portfolio, there is a meeting worth having before launch. Ask what customers think the brand is for, and what they would need to understand before the extension feels natural. The deeper record (because I want this to be useful for you!) Here are four ways to turn these ideas into decisions. These are my applications of the conversation, designed to help you examine your own brand and work. 1. Find the situation you want to be remembered for Being known is an opening. Mental availability asks whether a brand comes to mind in a relevant buying situation. “Category Entry Points” sounds technical, but the starting question is familiar: what is happening in someone’s life when they begin to need this category? In the conversation, I asked why some launches make people willing to pay a premium, even when money feels tight. Madita answered through the role of mental shortcuts. That exchange is a starting point for understanding choice, rather than proof that one mechanism explains every premium purchase. Price, product experience, access, and the customer’s circumstances still matter. For a skincare brand, that could be dry skin after a shower. For a meal brand, it could be a late finish at work and an almost-empty fridge. For a PR partner, it might be an upcoming launch that needs a credible story and the right media relationships. Those are different situations, even when they involve the same customer. Try this in your next meeting: • Write five situations that could create a need for your offer. • Name the pressure, goal, or feeling in each situation. • Ask potential customers which brands or providers come to mind, without showing them your name first. • Notice where your brand appears, and where it is absent. • Choose one relevant situation to connect more clearly to your communications. A few conversations can expose assumptions and generate hypotheses. They cannot measure your market or prove that a campaign will work. Use what you learn to decide what deserves a more structured test. This is also why I keep returning to the difference between visibility and usefulness. A feature, partnership, campaign, or founder story can earn attention. Give that attention a specific connection people can carry into their next decision. 2. Grow the invitation without blurring the brand The Planted example raises an important question about positioning. If the invitation speaks only to people who already share your mission, you may be overlooking people who would buy for a different reason. Someone can choose a plant-based meal because it tastes good without beginning from the same environmental priorities as its founders. Madita’s account of that shift is supported by quantilope’s published case study, which describes using consumer research to inform Planted’s strategy. It is a company-published case, rather than independent proof that messaging alone caused growth. I also raised the practical reality of stages. Early customers and a focused starting point can help a young brand learn what works. Madita agreed that starting small does not have to mean limiting the future. We also discussed Taylor Swift as an example of a recognizable identity reaching a wider audience. The point I would carry into a brand meeting is the possibility of development: what can evolve while keeping enough continuity for people to recognize you? Before expanding, ask: • Who could benefit but currently feels outside the invitation? • What need would make the offer relevant to them? • Can the product actually meet that need? • Which parts of the brand must remain recognizable? • How will we tell whether we reached new demand or moved existing demand around? That last question matters. Another flavor, line, or campaign gives a team more to launch. It still needs a clear job. 3. Make innovation easier to connect Madita described a conversation with a brand excited that its new packaging lo

  8. Oct 13

    Build a Life That Expands Your Creativity with Nadine Kriegelstein

    Why this conversation mattered There is a version of success we can picture so clearly that we forget to ask whether we still want to live it. The city we imagined moving to. The project we keep trying to fund. The career that made sense when we were younger. Nadine Kriegelstein and I talked about what happens when life gives you more information. A new place changes your perspective. A relationship changes what matters. Work you love introduces you to a wider world, while another idea asks for more than you want to give it. Those are decisions worth paying attention to. Nadine is Head of R&Studios at Das R&, a filmmaker and creative strategist whose work spans commercial film, factual television, and original formats. She began at Austria’s ORF at 17, worked as a floor manager for Eurovision, and created the Telly Award-winning film THE ALLIANCE: #SHEROES. In 2026, she served on the Cannes Lions Film Craft Shortlisting Jury. I wanted to understand how someone who makes and evaluates creative work builds confidence in it. Her perspective matters because she has experienced several kinds of selection: the first professional opening, client approval, international recognition, and the personal decision about which opportunity to pursue. We spoke about a meaningful film that traveled beyond Austria, the influence of living in New York, Manchester, and Amsterdam, and the commercial reality of making work for clients. Nadine also explained how meeting her husband changed her plan to build a life abroad. Later, she described pausing a startup because pursuing it would have required commitments she did not want to make at that point. And she was direct about her first internship: a family connection helped her get in. She then had to prove herself to stay. That distinction deserves as much attention as the inspirational parts of a career story. If you are deciding whether to move, take on a new project, or keep pushing an ambition, I would listen for what Nadine learned through experience. Then ask what your own decision is really asking of you. Below, I have pulled out three ways to make that question more concrete: broaden your inputs, separate access from ability, and examine the life a commitment would require. Emily K Thomas Nadine’s Chosen Five Nadine supplied these recommendations after our conversation. 1. A person: Nadia Murad Nadine named Nadia Murad as someone more people should know. Murad is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and an advocate for survivors of genocide and sexual violence. Her work is an important place to direct our attention beyond conventional professional recognition. Explore Nadia’s Initiative: https://www.nadiasinitiative.org/ 2. A book: Everything I Know About Love, by Dolly Alderton This is the book Nadine named as having shaped her thinking. Its attention to friendship, love, and growing up sits naturally alongside our conversation about the relationships that influence the lives we build. The publisher’s book page: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/306824/everything-i-know-about-love-by-alderton-dolly/9780241982099 3. An organization: Humans of New York Nadine chose Humans of New York as an example of getting something right. I see a connection with the kind of attention she values: listening closely enough for someone’s particular story to emerge. Explore Humans of New York: https://www.humansofnewyork.com/ 4. An idea: “Turn off your phone and be bored!” Her recommendation is wonderfully direct. For this week, try giving one small part of your day no assignment: no scrolling, no podcast, no need to turn it into a productive moment. Notice what you begin paying attention to. 5. A practice: curiosity and physical exercise Nadine wrote: “Staying curious, and never underestimating the power of physical exercise for your creative brain.” That is her own career practice, rather than a prescription for everyone. The invitation I take from it is to notice what helps you return to your work with a fresher perspective. Five conditions for confidence I asked Nadine to complete this sentence and she wrote: “A person, brand, or idea earns confidence when…” • They stay true to themselves. • They dare to take risks. • They own their mistakes. • They deliver real value and contribute to society. • They try something new. I like the combination of courage and accountability. Trying something new matters. So does taking responsibility for what happens afterward. Signals from the conversation Opportunity Signal: Access opens the first door Nadine said a director who was her father’s best friend helped her get her ORF internship. Staying required her to demonstrate what she could contribute. My takeaway: when a person is overlooked, ask whether they lack the ability or the chance to show it. Those require different responses. Trust Signal: Attention without a performance She described being drawn to people who can laugh at themselves and listen properly. My reading is that confidence can be felt in how someone makes room for another person, as well as in what they say about themselves. Momentum Signal: Work you still care about Nadine spoke about projects that remain meaningful years later. THE ALLIANCE: #SHEROES was one of those projects for her, and she described the international recognition it brought. I see meaningful work here as a source of stamina and a piece of evidence others can experience. It does not remove the need for access or commercial support. Emily’s (MY) favorite moment The detail I would keep is that Nadine can value living abroad and still value returning home. Travel expanded her creative horizons. Her relationship helped her make peace with building a career in Vienna. I think that is a useful way to understand ambition. You can learn from an experience without making it your permanent life. You can admire the path you did not take and still respect the one you chose. The decision becomes clearer when you ask what you want from an opportunity, and which parts of your life you want to protect. The deeper record What makes an opportunity worth pursuing once you understand what it will require? Nadine’s experience gives us a useful way to examine perspective, access, and personal fit before making that commitment. 1. Broaden the world your ideas come from When I asked what she most hoped people would remember, Nadine wrote: “That it is worth living somewhere else to broaden your (creative) horizons.” She described the inspiration and self-knowledge that come from being outside a familiar routine, speaking another language, and meeting new people. Her experience is a useful reminder to examine where your ideas come from. If the same meetings, references, and conversations supply every answer, you may be asking a narrow set of inputs to produce an unfamiliar idea. Living elsewhere was her route. It will not be available or desirable for everyone. You can still design a smaller experiment: • Attend something outside your usual professional circle. • Ask someone in another market how they would interpret the problem you are working on. • Watch a film, visit a place, or read work you would not normally choose. • Make time to observe before deciding how something could become content. Then write down one thing that challenged an assumption. If you work inside a company, bring that observation to a specific brief. Explain what it made you notice and how it might change the approach. The value is in the thinking you can contribute, rather than the novelty of the experience alone. 2. Ask which door actually needs opening Nadine’s internship story matters because it separates getting access from earning the next opportunity. A connection helped her enter ORF. Her work then had to justify staying. When you feel overlooked, try identifying the actual barrier: ABILITY: What do I still need to learn or practice? EVIDENCE: Can someone see the quality of what I can do? ACCESS: Who has the opportunity to encounter that evidence? FIT: Is this the right opportunity for what I want to contribute? These are my questions drawn from the conversation, not a formal framework Nadine claimed to use. For your next move, choose one barrier to address. Ask for specific feedback if it is ability. Make a useful example if it is evidence. Request a thoughtful introduction if it is access. Reconsider the target if it is fit. And if you already have influence inside an organization, ask whose work you have not had a chance to see. Create a small, meaningful opening for that person to contribute. Expanding access is part of the work for people already inside the room. 3. Examine the life the ambition requires Nadine spoke about a startup idea she still believed in. Making it happen at that point, she said, would have required leaving her job and committing her money and time. She chose to pause. That choice does not give us a rule for when anyone else should stop. It does give us a better way to examine the decision. Before continuing a demanding project, write down: • What would the next stage require? • What would I give up to provide it? • What evidence has changed since I first committed? • What would make this a better time to pursue it? • Which parts of my life am I unwilling to trade for it? Give the answers a review date. A pause becomes more useful when you know what you will reconsider, rather than leaving the idea permanently open in your mind. The part worth holding together Nadine values risk, curiosity, and trying something new. She also values her relationship, financial independence, and the life she has now. I do not read those as inconsistent. I read them as information about how she chooses. My observation from this case is that confidence is not only what persuades another person to back us. It also involves becoming clear enough about our own priorities to choose what we will back with our time. Work to explore Nadine asked us to sh

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The Lead is a conversation series exploring how decisions get made and why certain brands, people, and ideas become the ones that get chosen. emilykthomas.substack.com

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