Growing agencies don’t have a talent problem. They have a delegation problem.
The founder built the thing, so the founder is still doing the thing. For creative shops, operations is what closes the gap between scaling past the founder and plateauing somewhere around 15–25 people.
I build the operating infrastructure that lets that founder step out of every conversation.
Designed to leave.
Most engagements end. Mine are designed to. My goal for every retainer is to leave the agency running better than it did when I arrived, and to hand the seat to a permanent operator on the team. Then I’m out.
End-to-end, plan for 6–9 months across 3 phases. The shape of how we collaborate can vary, and the memo output from the Diagnose phase decides where the journey goes.
Diagnose.
Three weeks shadowing the agencies. 1:1 interviews with everyone, joining stand ups, reviewing the numbers, the founder’s calendar. Then a detailed written memo: what I learned, what’s stuck, and what has to happen first to get the agency on track for efficient growth.
Build.
I (re)build the operating cadence, roles, reviews, forecasts, and pricing discipline. The unglamorous layer that keeps the work moving when the founder can’t be everywhere at once. At Celtra it scaled a 15-person studio to 45; at Ad Pros it cut goal-tracking from 40+ metrics to 9.
Transfer.
I hand the operating layer to its new permanent steward. My transfer covers documentation, decision rights, and the standing meetings I was anchoring. If the new owner is already there, it only takes a month. If not, I run the search and onboard them over 6–8 weeks. Either way, I leave behind a system that survives without me.
Erik operates with full transparency and takes ownership of hard problems without waiting to be asked. Any agency founder looking for an operator who can see around corners and execute at the same time should talk to him.
I’ve done this before.
2021–2023Celtra.
VP of Creative Operations. Scaled the studio from 15 to 45 people with zero voluntary turnover. Client NPS grew from a good baseline of 90 to a stellar 96.
2024MX.
VP of Operations. Authored the post-merger integration playbook and led a cross-functional task force to recover from historically low internal collaboration. Raised scores by 30 percentage points.
2025Ad Pros.
VP of Operations. Authored the AI-first transformation roadmap across all functional areas of the agency. Cut goal-tracking from 40+ metrics to 9 core KPIs.
Three stints as VP of Operations since 2021 at three different shops. 13 years as a Project Manager and Executive Producer before that. Independent consultant since 2024. Each seat produced decisions worth writing about. I’ve collected notes that go through them: what worked, what stuck, what I’d do differently.
A thirty-minute call. No pitch.
A read of the shop.
Let’s take 30 minutes for you to tell me about your agency and where you’re stuck. If there’s a fit, we’ll get together a second time for me to ask sharp questions and play back what I heard. You’ll walk away with my best advice from those two calls.
Book a discovery call →