Drew McLellan has worked in advertising for 25+ years and started his own agency, McLellan Marketing Group in 1995 after a five-year stint at Y&R and still actively runs the agency. He also owns and runs Agency Management Institute (AMI), which serves 250+ agencies small to mid sized agencies (advertising, digital, marketing, media and PR) every year, so they can increase their AGI, attract better clients and employees, mitigate the risks of being self employed in a such volatile business and best of all — let the agency owner actually enjoy the perks of agency ownership.

AMI is the only agency network that is run by an active agency owner. It offers:

• Public workshops for agency owners, leaders and account service staff
• Online courses
• Owner peer networks
• Private coaching/consulting for agency owners
• Annual primary research with CMOs and client decision makers about their work with agencies
• The highly praised podcast Build A Better Agency

Drew often appears in publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Agency Post, AdAge, CNN, BusinessWeek, and many others. The Wall Street Journal calls him “one of 10 bloggers every entrepreneur should read.” He also speaks at leading agency conferences and is often cited in agency centric content for his expertise in the industry. When he’s not hanging out with clients or agency owners and their staff, Drew spends time with his daughter and pondering why the Dodgers can’t seem to win a World Series. Drew has a Master’s Degree from the University of Minnesota but alas, he cannot remember their fight song.

After a diverse career in aviation and agency ownership, Vanessa Edwards founded Creative Performance Inc., to empower executives and managers in the marketing services industry.

Hailing from Portland, OR, Vanessa graduated from university with a degree in Philosophy. An amateur helicopter and fixed wing pilot since sixteen, she began her first career as a pilot for LifeFlight. It was here that she was first exposed to, and the learned the value of systems based training, integrated systems and the necessity of maintaining composure under life and death situations. She ended her piloting career in corporate aviation, as one of the youngest pilots ever type-rated in a triple engine jet.

Upon completing her MBA with an emphasis in Finance, Vanessa was recruited by a fellow classmate into becoming the CFO/COO for a digital agency experiencing rapid growth. She was tasked with finding a “middle way” that balanced the needs of finance/accounting, with that of creative, culture and the client. It was during this period that she first deployed Workamajig… with an emphasis on best practices, workflows and obtaining actionable data; tripling agency profit. The agency was acquired in 2010.

Over the last six years, Vanessa has built a consultancy focused on helping agencies through complex organizational change, deploying integrated systems and business intelligence (agency storyboards®) to improve decision making. As a Workamajig® partner, she has helped many of their largest and most complex clients achieve great success with the platform.

Coming from a background in the Arts, Jen has found that her ability to creatively solve problems helps her in her position as Director of Creative Operations at the 2017 #5 fastest growing company in Austin, TX.  Jen joined Threshold when it was a small startup, and through various roles she has helped the company grow into Threshold/Carve, an international integrated agency.