CEO on the spot: eight questions with Omnicom Media Group’s Laura Fenton

No, but I have always been ambitious. I’m the third of four children and grew up in a busy household – if you wanted to be heard, you had to speak up. You had to do something really special or really noisy to get some attention. That really shaped my determination to stand out. 

Also, my dad came from a working class background and has the most incredible work ethic. When we were growing up, nothing was ever handed to us on a plate.

I definitely didn’t always know I wanted to be a CEO, but I always had this sense that I wanted to do something with my life. I didn’t know exactly what that would look like until I started working. The moment I landed my first graduate job I decided that I wanted to get to the top.

Leaders need to be able to create a compelling vision for what that organisation is trying to achieve and then communicate it regularly. They need to have a clear mission and find ways to weave that through everything they do. 

Good leaders really care. They should spend time understanding the people they work with. It is okay to show your vulnerability, but building really strong relationships with people can also enable you to be quite challenging with them. If you have built psychological safety in the workplace then you to push and provoke because, ultimately, people know it’s coming from the right place.

Finally, the best leaders will not simply give you the answer. I always try to give a rod, not a fish. It’s so easy when you’ve got the answer to cut to the chase as quickly as possible. The best leaders have a knack for helping people find the solution themselves. With the speed and pace of transformation in business today, one of the most important things a leader can do is build an empowered team. Funnelling every decision through a single person at the top of the pyramid is not sustainable because it’s impossible to move at the pace required.

People describe me as being calm in a crisis. Running an agency can be a rollercoaster – everything is service-based and contract-based, there are wins and losses, ups and downs. So people do describe me as a bit of a swan. Everyone knows that under the surface there’s a lot more going on. 

I see my role as someone who can help with a challenge, reframe things when they’re difficult and find a path through them. My colleagues generally say I’m open, honest and authentic – I try to create time for people – but I’m also decisive.

There are some things that are permanent and others that are important right now. We are definitely living through a moment of huge change and disruption. 

One of the questions I find really important is: does this person have a clear point of view on the future of our industry? No one’s got a crystal ball, but we need a level of clear thinking on what’s coming down the line and what we need to do about it. 

The other thing I look for is people who can simplify complex issues. Our role as media agencies is to go to clients and help turn media into a competitive advantage for their business. We can only do that if we can clearly and cleanly tell the story of what we do and what we add without getting lost in the depth and the detail. I will always try to stress-test someone’s ability to boil things down. 

And then, obviously, you’re always wondering whether you’d want to be stuck in a room with them on week seven of a pitch on a Monday afternoon. We should ask ourselves those questions, because that’s how teams really come to life. 

Behaviourally, there’s been an awful lot of change. For example, the way people search for information has changed. One of the big waves of digital advertising was search marketing. This is now being completely disrupted by search agents and generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT. 

We’re also finding that younger audiences look for information on social media first, before traditional search engines. This has big implications for how we operate. Social media has also transformed the way people consume content, as have the streaming services, which have totally disrupted the audio-visual landscape.

Also, AI is changing the way we do things day in and day out, enabling us to do higher-order work far more efficiently and effectively.

So the biggest challenge facing our industry is finding a way to stay one step ahead when the speed and depth of change is so great. The agencies that win over the next few years will be those that take a step back and plan ahead.

It’s funny, I came up through Omnicom Media Group doing outward agency roles, where achievements were pretty clearly signposted. I no longer have those big single moments in my role. Instead, it’s about helping power the success of the agencies. 

We have lots of moments of pride, whether it’s doing incredible work that’s recognised in the industry or winning a big new pitch, but now my role is one one step behind, congratulating and celebrating the agencies, rather than the other way around. So it ends up being a collection of proud achievements, rather than one single moment.

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups, by Daniel Coyle. It’s about how creative and high-performing companies, such as Pixar, achieved their phenomenal success and how they build and motivate teams. It explores the cultural codes and practices they put in place to codify psychological safety, empower staff and inspire people to go off and do these incredible things repeatedly.

As an industry, we talk a lot about data and tools and technology – and those are fundamental – but we must never lose sight of the fact that what we do is fundamentally driven by our people.

Progress over perfection. The media ecosystem is pretty live and it gives you plenty of feedback. You don’t have to sweat every single detail. Just do good work and get it out there. Embrace an experimentation mindset, because there isn’t always time to make everything perfect. Progress is what is fundamental – but I won’t say any more, as I don’t want to give too much advice to my competitors!