Shannon Duncan, Chief of Staff for Marketing at DoorDash, explains how to build creative operations that scale with hyper-growth without becoming bureaucratic. She shares why understanding your team members comes before implementing any tool or process, how to use incremental changes to build trust while introducing new systems, and why internal creative studios need to stop being treated as free resources and start operating with “creative currency” that protects their capacity and positions their work as expertise.

Shannon Duncan is Chief of Staff for Marketing at DoorDash, where she previously built the company's creative operations from the ground up. She joined DoorDash in 2021 when the internal creative studio was just beginning to take shape - a few creatives, freelance project managers, no established processes - and transformed it into a strategic partner serving one of the most dominant players in food delivery. Before DoorDash, Shannon spent years in creative ops and project management at independent agencies, where she learned that the most important variable in creative operations is people…not tools or dashboards. Her people-first philosophy has shaped how she approaches everything from process changes to stakeholder management to building a culture where “1% better every day” is the standard.

• Why creative leaders need to earn team members’ and stakeholders’ trust before implementing new systems
• How to use the "1% better every day" philosophy to make incremental changes that stick without overwhelming teams
• Why in-house creative teams hit an "abuse state" when treated as free resources, and how to protect their capacity
• Why creative ops leaders need to understand business priorities beyond their own team to position their work strategically

• Take the free Creative Ops Assessment at www.infocusconsulting.net/creative-ops-assessment
• Connect with Jesse on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessekrinsky
• Have a creative ops challenge you're facing? Want to be a guest on the show? Reach out at jesse@infocusconsulting.net

Bill Shander, author of Stakeholder Whispering, explains how to shift from reactive execution to strategic partnership by uncovering what stakeholders actually need before starting work. He shares the Socratic method for guiding conversations without creating defensiveness, why bringing external expertise (not just creative talent) builds credibility with business stakeholders, and what CMOs can implement tomorrow to build cultures where strategic thinking becomes the default.

About the Guest

Bill Shander has spent 30 years bridging the gap between creative work and business strategy, specializing in data visualization and storytelling. He teaches organizations like the World Bank, multiple US government agencies, and major consulting firms how to transform complex information into compelling narratives. His book, Stakeholder Whispering: Uncover What People Need Before Doing What They Ask, addresses the fundamental problem that keeps creative teams reactive: stakeholders rarely know what they actually need, and most creatives don't know how to uncover it. Bill also teaches courses on LinkedIn Learning and speaks internationally on data storytelling, stakeholder alignment, and strategic communication.

Key Topics Discussed

• How to get stakeholders to understand and reveal what they actually need
• Why hitting pause before execution is one of the most important skills creatives can develop
• How CMOs can use "useful paranoia" to run weekly 15-minute sessions where teams question one underlying assumption
• Why AI executes orders perfectly but only humans can read context, body language, and ask the unexpected questions that lead to better work

Connect with Jesse

• Take the free Creative Ops Assessment at www.infocusconsulting.net/creative-ops-assessment
• Connect with Jesse on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessekrinsky
• Have a creative ops challenge you're facing? Want to be a guest on the show? Reach out at jesse@infocusconsulting.net

Why do creatives assume stakeholders don't care about good work, while stakeholders assume creatives are precious artists who can't handle feedback? That fundamental misunderstanding damages relationships, undermines creative quality, and keeps teams stuck in reactive, order-taking mode.

In this episode, Jen Perry, Executive Creative Director at Vagrants, shares what she learned by doing something most creatives never do: going in-house, then returning to the agency world. That dual perspective gave her rare insight into the pressures both sides face. She explains how to build genuine empathy with stakeholders, why information sharing is a core leadership responsibility, and what it takes to position creative teams as business partners instead of service providers.

About the Guest

Jen Perry is the Executive Creative Director at Vagrants, a creative studio in Boston. She spent 15 years at traditional network agencies including BBDO, Deutsch, and Hill Holiday before moving in-house to build and lead a creative team at a tech company. Unlike most creatives who go in-house and never return, Jen went back to agency life with a fundamentally different understanding of stakeholder pressures, business constraints, and what it takes to connect creative work to business outcomes.

Key Topics Discussed

• Why traditional agencies separate creatives from clients and how that stunts professional growth, especially when creatives go in-house
• The empathy gap: what creatives misunderstand about stakeholders and what stakeholders misunderstand about creatives
• Practical ways to build empathy
• Why information-sharing is a core part of creative leaders’ jobs

Connect with Jesse

• Take the free Creative Ops Assessment at www.infocusconsulting.net/creative-ops-assessment
• Connect with Jesse on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessekrinsky
• Have a creative ops challenge you're facing? Want to be a guest on the show? Reach out at jesse@infocusconsulting.net

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