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

Subscribe & Review

If you found value in this episode, please subscribe to Creative Ops Compass and leave a review. Your feedback helps other creative leaders find the show and shapes future episode topics.

Why do some in-house creative teams thrive while others get caught in an endless cycle of being brought in-house, then outsourced, then rebuilt, then eliminated again?

In this episode, Lisa M. Watts, CEO and Founder of CREE8, explains why infrastructure designed for velocity looks completely different than infrastructure designed for cost control. She shares practical frameworks for reframing conversations with IT departments, scaling distributed teams securely, and proving strategic value through metrics that actually matter to the C-suite.

About the Guest

Lisa M. Watts is the CEO and founder of CREE8, a cloud-native production platform built around a “Studio-in-a-Box” infrastructure designed to give creative teams visibility into their work, control over their assets, and the velocity brands now demand. Before founding CREE8, Lisa spent nearly 25 years at Intel, where she pioneered initiatives including the first VR esports league and Intel's first virtual CES booth. She's a member of the Television Academy (Emmys), Forbes Business Council, and Hollywood Professionals Association. Under her leadership, CREE8 won the 2025 NAB Show Product of the Year Award and has executed three strategic acquisitions to build an end-to-end platform for creative production teams.

Key Topics Discussed

• The IT department disconnect: why creative infrastructure needs look like "apples and oranges" to IT
• How to reframe infrastructure conversations from cost control to velocity and business outcomes
• Where technical infrastructure steals time from strategic creative work
• Why "velocity minus control plus AI equals chaos"

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

Subscribe & Review

If you found value in this episode, please subscribe to Creative Ops Compass and leave a review. Your feedback helps other creative leaders find the show and shapes future episode topics.

Why do some DAM implementations transform how teams work while others become expensive digital filing cabinets that nobody trusts?

In this episode, Phil Seibel of Aldis Systems explains why the platform is never the problem. The real difference between owning a DAM and having an effective DAM system comes down to governance, resourcing, and understanding your team's actual workflows. Phil shares practical frameworks for planning DAM implementation, avoiding the side project trap, and building systems around how people actually work rather than theoretical best practices.

About the Guest

Phil Seibel is a digital librarian with Aldis Systems, a media asset management company that helps organizations implement, optimize, and manage DAM programs. Phil brings a library science background to the technical challenges of digital asset management, focusing on user journey mapping, metadata governance, and building sustainable systems. At Aldis, Phil works with enterprise clients across industries to design DAM programs that align with actual workflows and deliver measurable ROI.

Key Topics Discussed

• The critical differences between owning a DAM platform and having an effective DAM system
• Why governance matters more than platform features
• The questions teams don't ask that they should about user journeys and workflows
• Resourcing options: hiring internally, fractional support, or full outsourcing
• The risks of treating DAM management as a side project

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

Subscribe & Review

If you found value in this episode, please subscribe to Creative Ops Compass and leave a review. Your feedback helps other creative leaders find the show and shapes future episode topics.

We've all heard the quote about insanity being "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." It's often attributed to Einstein, which makes it feel like scientific fact. But it's complete nonsense.

In this minisode, Jesse challenges this widely misquoted phrase and explores why in-house creative teams give up too easily on initiatives that failed once. From DAM system proposals to strategic positioning efforts, creative leaders often let one "no" define the future. But conditions change. People change. Your team's capabilities grow.

Jesse breaks down how to diagnose why past initiatives failed, identify when conditions have actually shifted, and determine when it's strategic (not stubborn) to try again.

• Why the "insanity" quote is factually wrong on multiple levels
• How in-house creative teams hold themselves back after one failed attempt
• The diagnostic framework: separating stakeholder readiness from solution quality
• Real client example: strategic positioning that failed two years ago but succeeded recently
• When you genuinely shouldn't try again (and how to know the difference)
• Three specific signals that conditions have shifted enough to warrant a second attempt

• Learn more about Jesse's work at www.infocusconsulting.net
• Connect with Jesse on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessekrinsky
• Have a creative ops challenge you're facing? Want to suggest a topic for the show? Reach out to Jesse at jesse@infocusconsulting.net

If you found value in this episode, please subscribe to Creative Ops Compass and leave a review. Your feedback helps other creative leaders find the show and shapes future episode topics.

Most creative leaders think asking for a smaller budget will help them get approval for a studio. They're wrong. In this episode, Lauren Jensen of Provost Studio explains why that approach backfires, and shares the frameworks she uses to help in-house teams navigate the complex process of winning studio approval. From deciding whether to build in the first place through execution and beyond, Lauren reveals why this is fundamentally a transformation project about people and relationships, not technology and equipment.

Lauren Jensen is Vice President of Growth and Partnerships at Provost Studio, a firm that designs broadcast studios and camera-ready branded spaces for major corporations including NASCAR, Atlanta United, and Fortune 500 companies. She helps creative teams translate technical needs into business language that resonates with leadership, and guides them through the organizational challenges of securing approval, building internal partnerships, and executing studio projects. Before joining Provost Studio, Lauren spent over a decade working at experience design agencies and led transformation initiatives at Disguise, a virtual production technology company.

• Whether building makes sense versus continuing to rent or outsource
• Why asking for too little budget is one of the biggest mistakes creative teams make
• Building authentic relationships with Facilities, IT, and other internal partners early
• Managing the studio approval process alongside day-to-day responsibilities
• Why studios should be treated as transformation projects, not just technical upgrades
• What happens after the build: preparing for unexpected demand and use cases

• Learn more about Provost Studio at www.provost-studio.com
• Connect with Lauren on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurendjensen/
• Follow Provost Studio on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/provost-studio/

• Learn more about Jesse's work at www.infocusconsulting.net
• 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

If you found value in this episode, please subscribe to Creative Ops Compass and leave a review. Your feedback helps other creative leaders find the show and shapes future episode topics.

Jesse speaks with Tim Bradley, founder of Pennant Video, about why in-house creative teams tend to play it safe and what that caution costs them over time. Tim shares insights from running a video agency that collaborates regularly with internal teams, revealing the dynamics that keep teams stuck in risk-averse patterns and the practical steps leaders can take to break the cycle.

Tim Bradley is the founder of Pennant Video, a mid-funnel focused video agency specializing in the critical trust-building phase of the buyer's journey. With expertise in helping brands communicate new positioning, support sales kickoffs, and capture customer stories, Tim works alongside in-house creative teams at inflection points where speed, focus, and objectivity matter most. He brings a unique outside perspective on what holds internal teams back and what makes creative partnerships genuinely productive.

• Why in-house teams are more risk averse than external agencies
• The compounding cost of playing it safe
• The case for protected time
• What to look for when evaluating agency partners
• Building strategic value through internal relationships and calendar visibility

• Learn more about Pennant Video at www.pennantvideo.com

• Learn more about Jesse's work at www.infocusconsulting.net
• 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

If you found value in this episode, please subscribe to Creative Ops Compass and leave a review. Your feedback helps other creative leaders find the show and shapes future episode topics.