ArtsDesignExplicit

Awaiting Approval

Adam Jennings hosts a podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership

What happens when seasoned creatives finally speak without filters? Hosted by Adam Jennings, a design leader with three decades of experience, Awaiting Approval invites creative directors, design leads, and experienced makers to share the work they’re proud of, the lessons they learned too late, and the messy, human truth of leadership. Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production. Hosted and produced by Adam Jennings.

growwithadamjennings.substack.com

Play

Open in

25 episodes
weekly
Avg 1 hr 6 min
English

Episodes 25

Newest Oldest Longest

All20 Unplayed20 In progress0 Played0

Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.

S3 · E24
Thursday · 1 hr 11 min
Jess Campbell - Healing
Jess Campbell has always known that the best work comes from the most honest place. She grew up in a Jamaican household, surrounded by music she couldn’t quite name yet, was told to be a lawyer, but was quietly certain that wasn’t her path. Jess knew that storytelling was in her blood. She found her way to agency world, to IBM, to Fantasy Interactive, and eventually to a project that stopped everyone who touched it in their tracks: the Slavery and Freedom exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture for the Smithsonian. It was a monumental moment in her career, and for everyone else on the team. And somewhere in that experience she understood, for the first time with complete clarity, exactly what she was put here to do. This is the season finale, and it feels like one. We talk about what it costs to always care this much, about unlearning perfectionism one messy launch at a time, and about the solo trips she took as a younger woman that she only now recognises as the coming of age story she was writing for herself. We talk about boredom as a creative discipline, about what AI cannot automate, and about why the most important practice you can build is the one that gets you out of your own head and back to yourself. There is also a candle on the desk with something her Nana told her written on the lid. It is one of those things that has stayed with me long after we stopped recording. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E23
October 8 · 1 hr 14 min
Terri Williams - Trust
Terri Williams trained as a radio broadcaster, ended up writing buggy buying guides for Argos at twenty as a non-parent trying to imagine what a parent would want to know, and has spent the twenty years since growing alongside digital in a way that very few people can claim. She has been the person with the plan when everyone else had opinions, the translator between engineers and end users, and the one asking why when everyone else was already moving on. She is now Lead Martech Product Owner at Vodafone Business, and she has get shit done written on her notepad. That is not a metaphor. What comes through most in this conversation is how completely Terri gives herself to her work, and what that costs, and what it gives back. We talk about the CMS launch during COVID that she and her team poured two years of effort into in ten months, only to watch it get pulled at the last minute, and what she did the moment it happened. We talk about the difference between adapting and just surviving, about what it means to be an empath in a role that requires you to hold the line, and about why change is not something that happens to you but something you either lean into or get left behind by. There is also a two-year-old who says thank you, a degree in the downstairs toilet, and a house that is no longer a white box. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes.Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call.I’d genuinely love to hear from you.Want to support Awaiting Approval?Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show.And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E22
October 1 · 1 hr 13 min
Guy Vickerstaff - Craft
After going to Australia in his early twenties - because Alan Wicker said, through the magic of Sunday evening television, that it was the most optimistic place on Earth - Guy Vickerstaff was called by a place called home. He came back to Scotland and eventually found his way into advertising the long way round, via market research, a direct marketing client, and a junior typographer role where he quietly decided he could do better than what he was seeing and just started doing it. He is now Creative Director at Bright Signals in Edinburgh, still has a Pilot V7 on his desk, and still believes the industry is a wonderful place to be, which in the current climate is either mildly delusional or infectious. What this conversation keeps coming back to is care. Care about the work, care about the people making it, care about what goes out into the world with your name on it. We talk about the Bright Storm, the process Guy has built for unlocking ideas from unexpected people, about the Detect Breast Cancer Early campaign that he describes as one of the proudest moments of his whole career, and about the Scottish bullshit detector, which is highly attuned, nationally. We also talk about unlearning the pressure to always have the right answer, and what it actually gives a team when their leader is willing to say, honestly, I just don’t know. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E21
September 24 · 1 hr 10 min
Katja Alissa Mueller - Identity
Katja Alissa Mueller grew up in Switzerland, studied economics and law because it was the only option left by exclusion, lasted four years, and then walked into an internship at the main theatre in Zurich on what she describes as a complete whim. That year, she says, set up everything that followed, even though she had no idea it would at the time. She is now Head of Brand Design at Pliant, nineteen years into a career she has never once let go linear. What comes through most in this conversation is how much Katja has made peace with not knowing where she’s going, and how long it took her to get there. We talk about the red thread that connects stage design to brand storytelling, about the particular resilience of the people she mentors and what they quietly teach her in return, and about why a nonlinear career is not a liability but a form of creative leverage, if you learn how to defend it. There is also a Pomodoro timer, a very strong opinion on dunking biscuits in tea, and a restaurant called The Pomodoro Mansion that we may or may not be opening together. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E20
September 17 · 1 hr 27 min
Mikaela Calypso Dragon - Vision
Mikaela Calypso Dragon has never done things the expected way. She grew up in Saigon falling in love with TV adverts because there wasn’t much else to watch, ran away from home twice trying to become a creative, and eventually left Vietnam entirely for what everyone assumed would be a short trip to study in the UK. She never went back. She is now a Creative Director, working with some of the biggest brands in the world. This is a conversation about what it means to hold a vision so clearly that other people feel it too and want to help build it. We talk about the relationship between a designer and their audience, about what gets lost when you stop striving for the 1%, and about the long process of making peace with where you come from and bringing it back into your work. We also talk about passion projects, what it costs to make them, what they can give the community, and why it’s important to pay the people. There are also three sausage dogs, one of whom snores audibly and without apology throughout. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E19
September 10 · 1 hr 6 min
Roberto Rotondi - Patience
Roberto Rotondi grew up in Italy knowing he wanted to design, studied industrial design in Milan, and then spent the next two decades letting life take him somewhere he never expected. A redundancy became a move to the UK. A quiet nudge from his wife became the confidence to try. A manager in Taipei, who on his first day told Roberto that even native English speakers make mistakes and the only goal is to be understood, gave him permission to stop being afraid of his own voice. He is now Head of Product Design at Trinity College London, speaking a foreign language in front of you, something he says he could not have imagined fifteen years ago. This is a conversation about what happens when you stop trying to climb and start trying to grow. We talk about what it felt like to step back from a management role he wasn’t ready for, about what redundancy actually does to you the first time it lands, and about the particular kind of wisdom that only comes from having lived and worked in places that see the world completely differently. Roberto also draws with his daughter, quotes Ratatouille with full conviction, and has a very clean desk. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E18
September 3 · 1 hr 6 min
Julie Kennedy - Reinvention
Julie Kennedy learned to love design by walking the galleries of the V&A as a small child. She would walk around the galleries holding her granddad's hand, as he did his rounds as the Chief Warder. She went on to study sculpture, spend time dressing windows at Topshop during the IRA bombings, work at a tax office she hated, and eventually find her way to Yellow Pages, where she stayed for twelve years - by her own admission it was longer than she probably should have. Since then she has been the first UK designer hired by Amazon, helped build Betfair's design team, launched an e-commerce site for a 300-year-old building materials company that didn't believe builders wanted to shop online, and is now Associate Director of Product Design at PokerStars. What this conversation is really about is the accumulation of a career built through instinct, circumstance, and a hard-won refusal to be small. We talk about what it costs to hide the most important parts of yourself in job interviews, about the difference between a role that looks right on paper and one that actually is, and about the very specific freedom that comes with age and experience of simply caring less what other people think. There is also a Robin that visits the garden every day, a daughter's handmade Mother's Day coaster still on the desk, and one piece of advice from a manager at Amazon that Julie has never forgotten. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E17
August 27 · 1 hr 21 min
Oriana Gaeta - Belonging
Oriana Gaeta grew up in Naples and stumbled onto design when making album covers for her friends. She didn’t know there could be a career in this kind of work, it was just a thing she kept doing. It took a degree she dropped, a year in London at 19, and a second attempt before she finally found her way to design properly. Since then she has worked at some of the best agencies in the world, including R/GA and on brands like Nike and Adidas. She is currently CD at Doc Martens doing some of the work she’s most proud of. She also has a three month old puppy named Kira who ate a tissue during this recording. What comes through most in this conversation is how deliberately Oriana has built a life that works around and for her, not just a career. We talk about the difference between design and art and why that distinction actually matters, about instinct as a currency that compounds over time, and about the long, slow work of learning to let go of control. We talk about burnout with real honesty, about what it costs to push through it rather than stop, and about what recovery actually requires. And we talk about what it means to finally be proud of yourself, not for a project or a piece of work, but just as a person who has done the work and built something good. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E16
August 20 · 1 hr 28 min
Mark Iddon - Instinct
Mark Iddon is Senior Commissioning Editor for Comedy Entertainment at UKTV, which means his job, in its simplest form, is to decide what gets made and what doesn’t. He has spent over 20 years in television, moving from making things to deciding which things get made, and somewhere along that journey he has developed a very particular set of instincts about people, about ideas, and about the difference between winning an argument and winning the thing that actually matters. This is a conversation that goes somewhere unexpected and stays there. We talk about what it means to find the person in the room who cares more than you do, and why that is sometimes the best creative decision you can make. We talk about neurodivergence and the damage done by defining normal, about the gap between the bravado we perform and the person underneath it, and about the long, slow work of giving yourself permission to just be that person. Mark also has a grandfather’s watch on his desk, an unreleased album he won’t tell you about, and a very clear opinion on what the world would look like if we stopped calling things abnormal. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E15
August 13 · 1 hr 5 min
Emily Court - Authenticity
Emily Court is a freelance web and visual identity designer who works with solopreneurs, freelancers and microagency owners, and has built her entire practice around the idea that the client relationship should feel like a collaboration between equals, not a job interview she's perpetually trying to pass. She came to design via an unlikely route, through gift baskets, studio photography, teaching English in Korea, years of professional writing, and somewhere in the middle of all of it, a growing conviction that working for herself was the only version of work that was ever really going to fit. This conversation moves fast and covers a lot of ground. We talk about what it actually takes to go solo, not the inspirational version but the real one, about the repetitive uncomfortable things that separate people who make it work from people who don't, and about why saying yes to the wrong client out of desperation is almost always the most expensive decision you make. We talk about chronic illness, neurodivergence, the forty-hour work week as a form of polite torture, and why the most important thing Emily has ever built is not a website or a brand, but her own reputation, from nothing. And near the end, she says something about getting back up, over and over, that I think will stay with a lot of people. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes.Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call.I’d genuinely love to hear from you.Want to support Awaiting Approval?Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show.And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E14
August 6 · 1 hr 29 min
Michael Glass - Legacy
Michael Glass has spent 25 years refusing to settle. He taught himself design in the late 90s by opening Photoshop every single day and learning something new before he was allowed to close it. He went from managing bars in Australia to becoming the guy you called when you wanted something on the FWA. He spent a decade as the most senior design voice at Fantasy Interactive, one of the world's top 3 experience design agencies. He builds his own computers, runs a local AI trained exclusively on himself, and is currently renovating his bathroom ... which he started doing in the 45 minutes before this recording began. This is a conversation about what it actually means to push work as far as it can possibly go, and why good enough is the phrase Michael finds most offensive in the English language. We talk about how he learned to argue with a designer for two weeks straight just to show them what they were capable of, about the Picasso Museum in Barcelona and what it taught him about talent versus skill, and about what it really means to relinquish control, both to your team and to the tools that are starting to do more of the heavy lifting. There is also a lot of ADHD, a missing coffee, and a demolished bathroom wall. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call.I ’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval?Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E12
August 4 · 47 min
Awaiting Approval LIVE 2 - In The Room
This one is different. No single guest, no slow burn, no deep dive. This is Awaiting Approval LIVE 2, broadcast simultaneously across three cities on one night, with people thirsty for creative insight in each room and a Clipboard of Truth to test the mettle of each guest. What made it into this edit is worth knowing about. Kris on the most ridiculous feedback he has ever received, and what it actually takes for a purpose-driven agency to earn that label rather than just claim it. Gray on what he genuinely looks for in a creative hire that most people overlook, and what it means to lead a team working on a brand that will never be theirs. Sunny on the hardest truth about creative work that nobody wants to hear, on what it looks like when a brand is lying to itself, and on why the best solution is not always the beautiful one. And across all three rooms, a conversation about AI that nobody planned but that everyone in the building needed to have. Adam, in London, hosted Kris Samyui-Adams. San Francisco, with Amy Khan in the chair, hosted Gray Joyce. New York, with Maryam Cristillo, hosted Sunny Stafford. Three rooms, three conversations, one show. What you’re about to hear is a 45-minute edit of what was a two-hour event, which means you’re getting the highlights, the sharpest moments, and the questions that landed hardest. The full experience, the energy in the room, the signing of the Clipboard, the pin badge, the gold Sharpie, the moment Gray’s camera fell over mid-answer, none of that makes it into a podcast. For that, you had to be there. There will be another LIVE event later this year. Keep an eye on socials for the announcement. In the meantime, this is what it sounded like. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval?Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E13
July 30 · 1 hr 29 min
Lara Juriansz - Boldness
Lara Juriansz was born in Sri Lanka, grew up in Singapore, studied in Sydney, built her career in London, and is now Creative Director at TBWA Media Arts Lab in LA, working exclusively on ... well, let’s just say a very well known brand. She has said yes to almost every significant change that has come her way, not because she was certain, and not because she wasn’t scared, but because she has learned, repeatedly, that the floating feeling eventually settles, and that the benefits and lessons learnt that come after are almost always worth the leap. This conversation unfolds across two sessions, the first cut short by a power outage, the second picking up exactly where it left off, which feels fitting for an episode about boldness. We talk about what it means to be the permanent outsider and why that might actually be the best vantage point in any room. We talk about emotional attachment to work, about knowing when a painting is finished, and about the particular pressure of being a mother who is also a creative who also cares deeply about craft. And near the end, Lara says something quietly devastating about what 80-year-old you might most want you to remember right now, and it has nothing to do with work. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E11
July 15 · 1 hr 16 min
Recruiter Roundtable - Part 2
Over a thousand questions came in from the audience. Six recruiters came back. And within the first few minutes, Tom Scott, said what a lot of people in the industry are quietly thinking: we talk about it every single day, and it would be really nice not to for an hour. And so the panel voted to ban AI from the conversation. What followed was one of the most honest conversations this show has produced, about what the hiring market actually feels like right now, about money and how to talk about it, about nonlinear paths and how to make them work for you rather than against you, and about what it costs, personally and professionally, to do this job well. The panel is blunt, warm, occasionally funny, and very much on your side. Even when they're telling you something you might not want to hear. Full panel: Laura Baker, Meg Rye, Erica Fortgang, Same Gale, Tom Scott and Toby Thwaites If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you.Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E10
July 9 · 1 hr 34 min
Maria Nicholas - Service
Maria Nicholas grew up between continents, between cultures, and between disciplines, and has spent her career making that range work for her rather than against her. She came into UX from advertising and brand design, learned to code in a three-month bootcamp where she didn’t see the sun, and built her leadership philosophy around a simple idea: a good designer facilitates great decisions out of other people, they don’t arrive with all the answers. She is also, quietly and on her own time, the guardian of her father’s musical legacy, a project that took ten years and ended in a 508-page bilingual book she researched, designed, translated, and published entirely herself. This is a conversation about what it means to be in genuine service to others, to your users, your team, your collaborators, and the people whose stories you carry forward when they are no longer here to tell them. We talk about the difference between starting from yes and starting from no, and why yes, though is the more honest and more useful place to live. We talk about what AI can and cannot touch, about the heart skills that remain stubbornly, beautifully human, and about what it means to draw your own lines rather than waiting for someone else to draw them for you. Maria’s mother said it best, and it is worth hearing directly. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E9
July 2 · 57 min
Martina Hodges-Schell - Range
Martina Hodges-Schell has spent thirty years moving through design, from advertising in Germany at the dawn of the web, through Amazon and Yahoo in their early mobile years, to pioneering UX consultancies and a six-year run helping organisations build genuinely collaborative product teams. She is also an equine coach, working with horses as unfiltered mirrors for how leaders actually show up, beneath whatever they intend to project. It is an unusual range, and it turns out to be exactly the point. This conversation moves between the very grounded and the genuinely surprising. We talk about what a horse can teach a leader that a coaching conversation over coffee cannot, about the boulder you cannot see around until years later when the fog finally clears, and about what it actually means to be a recovering perfectionist when your entire career has rewarded exactly that instinct. Martina has a particular gift for naming the gap between what organisations say they want from uncertainty and what they actually do to squeeze it out of every process. By the end, you understand why she thinks of uncertainty not as a problem to solve but as the material she works with. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
July 1 · 5 min
An Invitation ...
Hey, it’s Adam. This is a short bonus episode because I want to talk to you about something I’m really excited about, and I think you might be too. On July 23rd, Awaiting Approval LIVE is happening again. Live, in person, in three cities at the same time: London, San Francisco and New York City. I’ll be hosting the London room. Amy Khan is hosting San Francisco. Maryam Cristillo is hosting New York. And each room has a special guest who’s going to face the Clipboard of Truth - rapid-fire questions, no prep, nowhere to hide - followed by questions from the audience. In London, our guest is David Sheldon-Hicks, CEO and Co-Founder of Territory Group. If you’ve seen Blade Runner 2049, Dune, Prometheus, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Batman, Star Wars or Avengers … David and his team designed the screen worlds inside those films. In San Francisco, it’s Gray Joyce. 25+ years across Google, Visa, YouTube, Samsung, Netflix, HP and Gap. Now CCO and Managing Partner at Thedas. And in New York, it’s Sunny Stafford. Creative and brand executive with 20+ years across Victoria’s Secret, BareMinerals, WholeFoods and 1-800-Flowers. Now a fractional CMO who believes the divide between creative and commercial teams is the most expensive myth in modern marketing. So, why am I doing this? Because this podcast has always been about what happens when creative leaders are honest with each other. And that works brilliantly in a recorded conversation between two people. But there’s something different about a room. About being physically present. About hearing someone answer a question they weren’t expecting, in real time, with 30 other people watching. I am planning to record the whole thing, and yes, it’ll probably become an episode. So you might be thinking, why not just wait and listen later? And here’s my honest answer: because it won’t be the same. The recording will capture what was said. But it won’t capture what it felt like to be in that room. The moment someone laughs before the guest has finished their answer because everyone knows what’s coming. The energy of watching someone genuinely think before they respond. The conversations you’ll have with the person next to you during the break. Those things don’t make it into the edit. And that’s really what this is about. It’s not just watching … it’s being part of it. If you come, you’ll meet the guest and the host in your city. You’ll be in a room with other creative leaders who care about the same things you do. You’ll have the chance to ask your own question. And every single person in the room gets an exclusive “I Was In The Room” pin badge that you cannot get anywhere else - not online, not afterwards, not ever. Depending on which city you’re in, there are other goodies too - in New York, for example, there’s chocolate and wine. Each city has its own thing. There are only 30 seats per city. Tickets are twelve pounds, roughly fifteen dollars. And if cost is a barrier, bursaries are available - just message me directly. We start in London at 7pm, hand over to San Francisco at 11am, then to New York at 2pm, before coming back to London to close the night. If you’re in one room, you’ll see and hear the other two cities live. And if you’re not in London, San Francisco or New York, there will be a live stream so you can still be part of the evening. But if you are in one of those cities - be in the room. BUY YOUR TICKETS HERE: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/awaiting-approval-live-4847406 Just click on the city of your choice. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E8
June 24 · 47 min
James Ferguson - Adaptability
James Ferguson has spent his career moving towards things that excite him rather than away from things that don’t. From a Scottish design agency at sixteen, to building Skyscanner’s design system, to shipping interaction work at Atlassian from the other side of the world, to leading product and creative design at OVO Energy, he has consistently backed his instincts and figured out the rest on arrival. This year he discovered improv theatre, threw himself in without overthinking it, and is absolutely loving it. What comes through most in this conversation is how much James believes in play as a serious thing. Not play instead of rigour, but play as the condition that makes rigour possible. We talk about what it means to celebrate failure out loud, about why not bringing your whole self to work earlier in your career is a kind of loss worth naming, and about what happens when you stop worrying quite so much about what everyone else thinks. There is also a peanut, or possibly a potato, that sits on his desk and occasionally gets held up to the camera in large meetings just to see who is actually paying attention. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E7
June 18 · 1 hr 6 min
Maryam Cristillo - Love
Maryam Cristillo grew up between cultures and continents, studied anthropology and art in the same breath, and has spent her career building creative teams at places like Victoria’s Secret, Naadam, and now Lindt, where she gets to do creative work on chocolate, which she will tell you is exactly as good as it sounds. She also runs a seventeen acre homestead in Maine with her husband, a hundred chickens, and two kids who roam the property wearing bells so she can hear where they’ve got to. There is a lot of love in how she talks about all of it. This conversation moves through some unexpected and tender places. We talk about a stutter she overcame with the help of a stranger her father introduced her to, about her mother scrubbing restaurant toilets to give her children a different life, and about a poster covered in ampersands that has quietly shaped how Maryam thinks about ambition ever since. We talk about leading creative teams with real care, about learning the difference between empathy that helps and empathy that overwhelms, and about why investing in yourself sometimes means stepping outside the four walls of wherever you happen to work. Underneath all of it is the same through line: people, properly seen and properly cared for, are the whole point. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
S3 · E6
June 11 · 59 min
Tamora Petitt - Clarity
Tamora Petitt has spent 25 years helping people find their way through complex experiences, from redesigning one of the internet’s most visited health tools to building UX teams from scratch, teaching over 200 career changers the craft, and quietly applying design thinking to everything around her, not just the screen in front of her. She started out as a dancer. That turns out to explain a lot. What comes through most in this conversation is how much clarity Tamora has about what the work is actually for. We talk about why the people commissioning the work need to be in the room long before the final presentation, about the difference between asking for approval and asking for alignment, and about what happens when you start treating the relationships around your work with the same care you bring to your users. There is also a redesigned symptom checker that is still live today, a six-year-old vocabulary change that reframes every stakeholder meeting it touches, and a lesson learned on the floor of a Target store that has never left her. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Showing 1–20 of 25 episodes