Inspiring Futures - Lessons from the Worlds of Marketing and Advertising

Ace of Hearts is one of those rare new agencies that arrives with real heat around it. Not just because the founders come from serious places, but because it seems to answer a feeling a lot of people have right now: that creative companies have become too managed, too tired, too airless, and that something more alive is needed. Martin Beverly has come through AMV, Wieden+Kennedy and Adam & Eve, so he has seen three very different versions of creative excellence up close: the discipline of simplicity, the blur between strategy and creative, the power of pace, momentum and a distinctive creative handwriting.
What makes this conversation worth hearing is that it is not just another founder story. It is about belief. Belief in creativity. Belief in the people making it. Belief that a company can be ambitious without grinding everyone into dust. Martin talks about building Ace of Hearts around care, energy, shared success and a wider idea of what creativity can do, not as polish at the end, but as a force inside the business itself. He is very good on simplicity, on earning the trust of creatives, on what made John Lewis so powerful, and on why people do better work when they do not feel anxious, disposable or burnt out.
This is a must-listen because it feels like a small signal of something bigger: the return of hope, energy and creative belief in an industry that badly needs all three.

Australia’s indie agency scene feels on fire right now, and Hellions feels like part of that new wave.
With new work already out in the world for Figma and a fresh win with BISSELL, this is more than a start-up story. 
In this episode, Hellions co-founder Mike Donman shares his story, and in our conversation, five lessons emerged that could be valuable for anyone thinking of starting a new shop.
Create value, don’t extract it
Make the client better, not just busier.
Lose the grand reveal
Transparency and collaboration build trust faster than theatre.
Build a team with different strengths
The best founding groups are not clones. They’re combinations.
Make work that does something
Attention is easy. Consequence is harder and far more valuable.
Protect optimism
Cynicism drains creative businesses. Energy builds them.
This podcast is created and produced by Ed Cotton https://invernessconsult.com/

Nike's stock dropped 15% yesterday. Greater China is down for the sixth consecutive quarter. Their CEO told staff he's "so tired of talking about fixing this business."
This isn't a tariff problem. It's an identity crisis.
I sat down with Falk Fuhrmann, who has led strategy at TBWA, DDB, and Saatchi's for 25 years. Ran P&G's strategy across Asia and Greater China. Now runs Huí//Lüè, a brand consultancy in Shanghai with over a decade spent on the ground.
His take: Western brands learned all the right tactics in China — the platforms, the KOLs, the e-commerce playbook. But they optimised their way into meaninglessness. They can execute in the ecosystem but they've lost the thing that made anyone care.
Chinese brands aren't winning on national pride. They're winning because they understand their consumers better. BYD doesn't beat Mercedes because of patriotism. It beats it because it builds what consumers actually want.
And the deeper shift nobody's discussing on earnings calls: the psychological contract that powered Chinese consumption is broken. Before COVID, every middle-class consumer assumed luxury was inevitable. That assumption is gone. No Western brand has figured out what to say to a consumer who no longer believes tomorrow will be better than today.
The trade war makes headlines. The real war is for relevance.

What happens inside a $20 billion creative technology operation when AI changes the speed of everything? 
When designers start coding? 
When two-week sprints compress to one? 
And what does that mean for the clients who are trying to navigate the same transformation?
Bill Shea has spent decades building digital products inside Accenture Song, larger than any agency holding company in the world. 
In my conversation for the Inspiring Futures podcast, he talks openly about both sides: how the operation is reorganising around AI, and what he's seeing across the enterprises they serve. 
The collapsing role boundaries. The compressed timelines. The unexpected flywheel where speed isn't shrinking the work but multiplying it.
He also discusses where the real risk lies. 
The difference between human in the loop and human in the lead. 
Why brands are losing their own narrative to models they haven't engaged with. And why the companies that come through this won't be the ones that moved fastest, they'll be the ones that knew what to hold onto while everything else changed.

Lucinda is the founder and head of strategy at Sibling, a culture-led strategy studio.
In this episode, we track Lucinda’s unconventional path into strategy. 
Originally an aspiring journalist, she spent her early career in the editorial departments of London fashion magazines—at one point completing six months of back-to-back internships while living on her sister’s floor. 
Her career progressed through brand-side roles at ASOS, Farfetch (during its startup phase), and Stella McCartney, with a three-year stint in Berlin’s luxury e-commerce scene in between.
Lucinda explains why she eventually left the fashion world: a recurring tension where "the perfect image" was consistently prioritized over "the actual strategy."
We discuss how this background gave her a unique lens for identifying brand blind spots and why she views her Substack and research-writing habit not as side projects, but as the core of how her strategy is made. 
Lucinda argues for a version of the craft that is more cultural, observant, and human, and significantly less reactive.