In this episode, you'll learn:

▸ How WildFi grew from a 4-person startup to a 300-person agency across 8 countries 

▸ Why "always in beta" is the philosophy that has kept the company growing for 17 years 

▸ The "Creative Performance" operating system that aligns all eight country offices 

▸ Why exporting your culture beats hiring local leaders when you open a new market 

▸ What makes someone ready to move from IC to leader (it is not the skill set) 

▸ The culture-fit-over-skill rule for promotions 

▸ How to handle the immediacy mindset of newer generations 

▸ Why they refuse to create roles for people, only for company needs 

▸ The mistakes each of them would refuse to repeat

🏆 Run an agency with a culture worth recognizing? 

Apply for our official agency culture recognition program at https://agencyworkplaces.com/nomination-form

Guests: German (Founder), Lil (Partner), and Mica (Strategy Director) of WildFi 

Host: Wesley Hoang, COO @Agency Workplaces

In this episode, you'll learn:

▸ Why technical work alone is never enough in creative industries

▸ The Foucault definition of power that reshaped how she leads

▸ Why approaching people outside meetings always beats confronting them inside

▸ The Brené Brown principle ("Clear is kind, unclear is unkind") that guides her communication

▸ The annual planning deck that turns a founder's vision into team-level goals

▸ Why team fit beats talent 100 percent of the time, even in creative

▸ The fake New Year's Eve in July her team threw to fight mid-year burnout

▸ The mistake she would refuse to repeat: being a people pleaser

🏆 Run an agency with a culture worth recognizing?

Apply for our official agency culture recognition program at https://agencyworkplaces.com/nomination-form

Guest: Irina Didier - Strategy Director @Ampfy

Host: Dr. Vo - CEO @Agency Workplaces

In this episode, you'll learn:

▸ Why they hired senior "builders" before junior "executioners" and didn't take a salary for 18 months

▸ The hiring philosophy that combines startup speed with corporate systems

▸ The HR manager who faked interview scorecards (and what they did about it)

▸ The light-accountability systems they built afterward, instead of resorting to micromanagement

▸ How they track 24 people across functions without micromanaging

▸ Why burnout comes from lack of clarity, not workload

▸ How a single team member's feedback led to company-wide health insurance

▸ How to tell an A-player "no" to a promotion without losing them

▸ The two mistakes both founders would refuse to repeat

🏆 Run an agency with a culture worth recognizing?

Apply for our official agency culture recognition program at https://agencyworkplaces.com/nomination-form

Guests: Natasha and Sam, Co-Founders of The Viral Group Host: Wesley Hoang, COO at Agency Workplaces

In this episode, you'll learn:

▸ Why alignment beats talent and process every single time ▸ How to build an internal agency that supports marketing across 93 countries

▸ The cultural proximity model behind hubs in Bangalore and Kuala Lumpur

▸ Why rewards work in private and criticism works in public in some cultures

▸ The 3-3 framework for structuring difficult accountability conversations

▸ The three mistakes leaders make as their teams scale past 15 people

▸ How to protect culture when speed is the goal

▸ Why AI will not replace agency teams, but it will replace the teams that refuse to use it

▸ The one mistake he would refuse to repeat after 30 years in agencies

🏆 Run an agency with a culture worth recognizing?

Apply for our official agency culture recognition program at: https://agencyworkplaces.com/nomination-form

Guest: Gaspar, Director of Global Operations at 121

Host: Wesley Hoang, COO at Agency Workplaces

In this episode, you'll learn:

▸ How a 120-person fully remote agency built a culture of trust without micromanagement

▸ Why your sick day policy reveals more about your culture than any all-hands meeting

▸ The situational interview questions that filter out candidates who only give textbook answers

▸ Why technical skills are not the entire part of a job

▸ How to lead two completely different teams on one shared foundation

▸ The difference between communicating and comprehending, and why the gap kills team performance

▸ How to have the hard conversation when a team member is not delivering, without losing trust

▸ The one mistake she would refuse to repeat from her early leadership years

🏆 Run an agency with a culture worth recognizing?

Apply for our official agency culture recognition program at https://agencyworkplaces.com/nomination-form

Guest: Kesley Smith, Director of Marketing and Business Development @Zoek Marketing

Host: Dr. Vo, CEO @Agency Workplaces

In this episode, you'll learn:

▸ How CarbonBox Media scaled from 15 to 70 team members in a single year

▸ Why Israel believes faith is the opposite of fear, and how that shows up in leadership

▸ Brandon's hiring conversation that filters out candidates who are just telling him what he wants to hear

▸ How to surround yourself with A-players smarter than you and why that's the only path to real scale

▸ The 90/10 standards-versus-autonomy rule that keeps the agency from drifting into bureaucracy

▸ The one personality trait no amount of coaching can change

▸ How they've gone 18 months without letting a single person go for lack of clients

🏆 Run an agency with a culture worth recognizing?

Apply for our official agency culture recognition program at

https://agencyworkplaces.com/nomination-form

Guests:

• Brandon Scott @CarbonBox Media
• Israel Alarcon @CarbonBox Media

Host:

• Wesley Hoang @Agency Workplaces

In this episode, you'll learn:

▸ The three transferable leadership skills she carried from corporate law into HR

▸ How a 100-person agency uses a custom AI agent to free its HR team from repetitive questions

▸ Why her leadership team meets monthly with a shared goal across departments

▸ How to balance welcoming new ideas with fiercely protecting your core values as you scale

▸ Three tips for delivering hard feedback in a culture that loves to celebrate

▸ The 30/70 rule for structuring feedback conversations so people leave aligned

▸ Where AI stops being useful and human leadership has to take over

▸ The one mistake she would refuse to repeat as a people operations leader

🏆 Run an agency with a culture worth recognizing? Apply for our official agency culture recognition program at:

https://agencyworkplaces.com/nomination-form

Guest: Katelyn Hoffman, Director of People Ops at Aloha

Host: Dr. Vo, CEO of Agency Workplaces

In this episode, you'll learn:

▸ Why "clarity over comfort" is the most important shift a new leader can make

▸ The advice he gives every newly-promoted leader before their first hard conversation

▸ How his team runs multiple sister agencies on one shared operating system

▸ The hiring process that uses personality assessments to put the right person in the right role

▸ How to break a "yes-man" culture using a deliberately ridiculous idea as a test

▸ Why he'd rather build leaders who eventually leave than build lifers who stay forever

▸ The one mistake he'd refuse to repeat if he had to rebuild his agency from scratch

🏆 Run an agency with a culture worth recognizing? Apply for our official agency culture recognition program at https://agencyworkplaces.com/nomination-form

Guest: Chris Fink, Partner at Fannit

Host: Wesley Hoang, Agency Workplaces

In this episode, you'll learn:

▸ How to know when your side hustle is ready to become your main hustle
▸ The Jeff Bezos "risk test" Eric used to push past the fear of going full-time
▸ Why his very first hire was about protecting his energy, not adding skill
▸ The two non-negotiables that hold his entire culture together
▸ The "kindness clause" Eric writes into every client contract, and what it actually says
▸ Why visibility, not productivity, is the real currency of any hybrid culture
▸ The early warning signs that tell him a team member is starting to slip
▸ The one mistake he'd refuse to repeat if he had to rebuild Digital Neighbor from scratch

🏆 Run an agency with a culture worth recognizing? Apply for our official agency culture recognition program at:
https://agencyworkplaces.com/nomination-form

Guest: Eric Ritter, Founder of Digital Neighbor

Host: Wesley Hoang, COO of Agency Workplaces