Challenge Accepted

Managing a successful agency today is more challenging than ever. It requires a combination of category expertise, talent, and the ability to act at a seemingly ever-accelerating, often blistering, pace. Not only is the pace of business quickening, but also the cadence of building out campaigns has changed. Everything is on a fast track. Brand campaigns are often researched, created, and launched in a quarter. The time needed to build whole sites is weeks instead of months. It’s not just challenger brands working this way and not just small or independent agencies. Frank X. Powers, Elevate co-founder and managing partner, puts it this way, “If you want to survive and grow to serve clients better, to do better work than the next agency, you have to be smarter, better, more impactful, more creative—and now, faster.”

So, with that context as a backdrop, the fact that in 2022 the independent agency Elevate reached the milestone of surpassing $10M in billings for the second year in a row, with just over 50 employees in only their 7th year is remarkable for a from-the-ground-up independent agency.

The question arises: How do you manage the amazing growth and still create breakthrough creative and happy clients? According to Lorna Weir, Elevate co-founder and managing partner, that in itself can feel like a major accomplishment. “You must remain true to your principals, what got you here…so you add even more top talent, double-down on the agency model of senior leadership involvement that you began with…you adapt, but you never compromise. Even if more and more clients need us to do more of exactly what we do and now more urgently than ever before.”