Awaiting Approval

William Barraclough has built a creative career driven less by formal pathways and more by instinct, curiosity, and a willingness to try things before knowing where they might lead. Now Head of Product Design for International Wealth and Premier Banking at HSBC, his journey spans skateboarding, DJing, restaurant work, early digital agencies, global brands, and leadership roles earned without ever studying design formally.In this episode, William joins Adam for a wide-ranging, thoughtful conversation about curiosity as a creative force. He reflects on growing up between cultures, finding creativity through motion, music, and experience design, and discovering design almost by accident through making flyers, editing video, and hacking together early digital work. From running a one-person studio straight out of the Job Centre to working at M&C Saatchi, Yahoo, and beyond, William’s career is a story of learning by doing and asking better questions along the way.William talks openly about leadership, self-doubt, and resilience. He shares what it was like inheriting teams in moments of change, the importance of reading the room, and the leadership lesson he learned the hard way when context was missed. He and Adam explore imposter syndrome, pressure, nerves, and why those feelings often signal that something meaningful is at stake, not that you’re doing something wrong.This episode is also about life beyond work. William reflects on community, mentoring, parenting, loss, and the importance of staying curious about the world around you. From food and travel to design education and career pathways, his perspective is grounded, generous, and deeply human.This is a conversation about staying open. About curiosity as a mindset, not a skill. And about building a creative life by bringing people together, staying positive, and continuing to learn long after you think you should have it figured out.In this episode, we cover:* Finding design without formal education and learning through making* How skateboarding, DJing, and motion shaped William’s creative instincts* Early digital careers, hacking ideas, and building confidence through experience* Leadership lessons learned from pressure, mistakes, and context* Imposter syndrome, nerves, and why fear can be a useful signal* The power of community, peer support, and creative networks* Why curiosity matters more than certainty in a fast-changing industry* Navigating career ladders, specialisms, and evolving design roles* Mentoring, design education, and opening doors for the next generation* Parenting, presence, and life outside work* Why optimism, kindness, and helping others still matter#AwaitingApproval #CreativeLeadership #DesignLeadership #LeadershipPodcast #curiosity #aidesign ===This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2026.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here: https://www.growwithadamjennings.com Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Sandra Gonzalez didn't take the expected route into design leadership. She started in engineering, moved into education, product, and front-end development, then taught herself UX by building her own mobile app startup, intentionally designed to give her hands-on experience as a mobile UX designer and help her break into a UX career. That same conviction runs through everything she shares in this conversation: you can design your own future, but you have to be willing to claim it.Sandra is the founder of UX for Change and the UX Director at Trustpilot, and this episode explores territory that's harder to find in most design conversations.We start with presence - and the quiet way our relationship with technology erodes our instincts, our communities, and our capacity for genuine connection. Sandra offers a grounded perspective on what it means to truly feel seen, why humans are wired for belonging, and how easily we mistake online networks for real support.From there, the conversation opens up. Sandra shares her evolution from trauma-informed design into regenerative experiences - including an event she hosted that used movement, music, and embodied practice to connect participants with the sun, soil, animals, and future generations before moving on to the design activities. What shifted in that room is worth hearing.We also talk about leadership and its responsibilities: tokenisation, knowing when you're not the right voice, and offering compassion to your past self instead of critique. There's a thread here about becoming the kind of ancestor you'd be proud to be - and what that demands of design leaders right now.Sandra closes with what she considers her most significant work, the one she is most proud of: the Responsible Design for Change Fellowship, built to train the next generation of design leaders in practices that scale impact through the people they'll go on to lead. She makes a compelling case that designers can no longer afford to be naive about the economy they work within - and that alternatives like doughnut economics, circular systems, and designing within planetary limits aren't fringe ideas. They're where the important work is heading.This is a calm, expansive episode. It’s practical in places, philosophical in others, and deeply human throughout.In this episode, we cover:• Moving from engineering into UX by building your own path• Why presence and community matter more than we realise• The difference between trauma-informed and regenerative spaces• Hosting embodied, earth-centred design experiences• The danger of mistaking online connection for real support• Tokenisation and knowing when to step back• Compassion for your past self• Designing within planetary limits• Doughnut economics and alternative economic models• Building the Responsible Design for Change Fellowship• What it means to become a responsible ancestor#AwaitingApproval #CreativeLeadership #DesignLeadership #LeadershipPodcast #light===This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2026.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here: https://www.growwithadamjennings.com Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Hiring in 2025? Brutal. Struggle. Chaos. Messy. Exciting.In this special bonus roundtable episode, Adam is joined by five leading recruiters and talent partners – Laura Baker, Erica Fortgang, Sam Gale, Meg Rye and Jared Tredly – for an unfiltered state-of-the-market conversation about what’s really happening in design hiring right now.This isn’t a tips-and-tricks episode. It’s a frank, human discussion about ghosting, burnout, toxic leadership, AI expectations, neurodiversity, layoffs and what candidates are actually up against. It’s also a moment of accountability – recruiters reflecting on their own practices, pressures and blind spots.One thing is certain; it’s clear these people care deeply about their candidates.The panel tackles the “ghosting” debate head-on. Where does it actually happen? Why does it persist? And what do candidates misunderstand about volume, systems and feedback? There’s honesty on both sides – including the uncomfortable truth that designers ghost too.From there, the conversation moves into burnout and what recruiters see when candidates are trying to leave environments that have drained them. When is it just “time for a change”? And when is someone running on fumes? The panel discusses coaching, emotional readiness, and why sometimes the best move isn’t a new job – it’s a pause.Toxic leadership becomes a major theme. The group agree: people rarely leave because of the workload. They leave because of direction, dysfunction, or the absence of psychological safety. So how do candidates spot red flags early? What “spicy questions” should they be asking in interviews?Of course, AI comes up. It had to. The recruiters unpack whether AI literacy is now a baseline expectation, what “future-ready” actually means, and how much is hype versus reality. Is AI experience mandatory? Or is problem-solving still the true differentiator?Neurodiversity is discussed with candour and care, including personal experiences from the panel. Should candidates disclose? When? How? The consensus is clear: transparency matters – but so does individual choice and context.And finally, the hard truth about layoffs. Senior leaders sitting on the market for 9–18 months. Juniors struggling to break in. The market contracting at the top and bottom while mid-level product designers move faster. The panel don’t sugarcoat it – but they also don’t remove hope.The episode ends with a predictive word for 2026. There’s cautious optimism. There’s realism. And there’s momentum.This is a rare behind-the-scenes look at the hiring side of creative leadership – messy, nuanced, human.In this episode, we cover:* Hiring in 2025 described in one word* Where ghosting really happens – and why* Why feedback is harder than it looks* Systems, scale and inbox overload* Burnout signals recruiters see immediately* Coaching versus placing – when to slow someone down* Toxic leadership as the number one exit reason* How to test culture in an interview* “Spicy questions” that reveal the truth* AI expectations – hype versus practical literacy* What future-ready actually looks like* Neurodiversity disclosure and workplace safety* Layoffs, confidence and market timelines* Senior versus mid-level versus junior realities* What 2026 might look like for design hiringIf you’re navigating the market right now – whether as a candidate, hiring manager, or creative leader – this one’s for you.===This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here: https://www.growwithadamjennings.com Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

By day Odeya Noble-Bougay is Director of Product Design at Aviv Group, but at heart she is a maker. Someone who thinks with her hands, listens deeply, and believes that creativity is as much about care and connection as it is about output. Her journey spans sound engineering, visual communication, early usability work, telecoms at massive scale, property tech, and leading large, pan-European design teams through constant change.In this episode, Odeya joins Adam for a gentle, reflective conversation about light – how it’s created, how it’s shared, and how leaders can help others shine. She talks about her lifelong love of making things, from pencils and paint to prototypes and systems, and why pen and paper still matter even in an AI-accelerated world. From walking by the canal with a cup of bitter tea to collecting pieces of discarded wood to paint on later, her creative practice is grounded, tactile, and deeply human.Odeya shares her career journey from sound engineering at a radio station to early startup life in the late 90s, scaling usability teams, leading 180 designers across Europe at T-Mobile, building product teams at Rightmove, and now shaping property platforms across multiple markets. Along the way, she reflects on stepping into leadership before feeling ready, thriving in chaos, and learning to systemise complexity long before design systems had a name.She also speaks candidly about moments that didn’t go to plan. From bold concepts that arrived too early for their market, to the painful impact of a truly bad manager and the long road back to confidence. Her advice is clear and compassionate. If something is draining the air from the room, leave. Protect your energy. Trust your instinct.This is a warm, thoughtful episode about leadership as illumination. About bringing people together, creating the conditions for clarity, and lighting one candle from another until the whole room is brighter.In this episode, we cover:* Growing up loving both art and engineering, and why that duality still matters* Starting out as a sound engineer and studying visual communication design* Early usability work and scaling teams in the late 90s startup boom* Leading 180 designers across Europe at T-Mobile during rapid handset evolution* Building and leading product teams at Rightmove and Aviv Group* Why chaos can be energising when it’s well-organised* Observing real users “in the wild” and what train journeys taught her about product truth* The ocean between concept and market, and why MVP should really mean “minimum lovable product”* Learning from projects that arrived too early for their context* Recognising harmful leadership and knowing when to leave* What healthy creative conversations feel like, and how to spot the warning signs* Designing for people in an AI-driven world and why human needs haven’t changed* Pride in moments of alignment, not individual outputs* Family, music, festivals, and the life that sustains the work===This is Awaiting Approval. A global charting design podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2026.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here: https://www.growwithadamjennings.com Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Hardy Sidhu is the Founder and CEO of Format-3, but labels have never sat comfortably with him. Designer, strategist, business builder, father, philosopher… Hardy has moved fluidly through roles and identities since entering the industry as a teenager, driven less by titles and more by a constant need to feel, question, and stay awake to the moment he is in.In this episode, Hardy joins Adam for a raw, expansive conversation about presence, discomfort, and what it really means to be alive inside your work. He talks about growing up working class in West London, building a career without formal qualifications, and learning early on that comfort is not where he does his best thinking. For Hardy, creativity lives in tension. In pressure. In chaos. And in the willingness to sit with both the good and the bad without trying to escape either.Hardy reflects on why every project should make you feel something, how anxiety, frustration, and uncertainty are not signs of failure but signals of engagement, and why honesty with clients and teams matters more than polished delivery. He shares the philosophy behind Format-3, from vetting clients as carefully as projects, to embracing chaos as a prerequisite for innovation, to protecting his team from burnout by choosing the right partners, not just the right budgets.This is also a deeply personal episode. Hardy opens up about therapy, self-acceptance, slowing down, and learning to stop chasing and start welcoming whatever shows up. He talks about presence as a daily practice, about listening to yourself as much as you listen to users or trends, and about why love, not ego or fear, is the only sustainable way to move through life and work.This is a powerful, unfiltered conversation about creativity, humanity, and staying present in a world that constantly pulls you out of yourself.In this episode, we cover:* Why every project should make you feel something, not just look successful* Understanding anxiety, frustration, and pressure as part of the creative process* Growing a career without qualifications and trusting your own path* Why Hardy actively seeks discomfort and avoids staying comfortable too long* The philosophy behind Format-3 and embracing chaos as part of innovation* How radical honesty with clients builds stronger partnerships* Vetting clients to protect team wellbeing and creative quality* Therapy, self-reflection, and learning to accept who you are* Presence as a practice and why slowing down changes everything* Listening to yourself as much as you listen to users, trends, or technology* Why love, not anger or fear, is the most powerful creative force* Letting go of approval, even from yourself===This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here:https://www.growwithadamjennings.com Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Angela Arnold has built her career by listening deeply. To herself, to others, and to the quiet signals that tell you when something feels right… or when it doesn’t.As Head of Product Design at Genomics England, her work sits at the intersection of craft, care, and impact, shaping experiences that matter in some of the most sensitive and complex human contexts.In this episode, Angela joins Adam for a thoughtful, warm, and deeply reflective conversation about creative leadership, instinct, and trust. She shares how curiosity and gut feeling have guided her decisions, from navigating uncertainty in design work to knowing when it’s time to pause, reframe, or take a leap into something new.Angela talks openly about losing confidence early in her career, finding her way back through learning-by-doing, and becoming a self-taught product designer through making, coding, and hands-on experimentation. She reflects on the mentors who believed in her, the environments that shaped her, and how working across agencies, finance, and not-for-profits eventually led her toward healthcare, where her work could have a more profound human impact.This is a conversation about grace under pressure. About patience, self-care, and staying true to yourself in an industry that constantly shifts. Angela’s clarity is calm and powerful. Her leadership is rooted in empathy. And her belief in thoughtful, human-centred design comes through in every story she shares.In this episode, we cover:* Trusting instinct and knowing when something doesn’t work* Losing confidence early on and rebuilding it through making and learning* Becoming a self-taught product designer through code, prototypes, and practice* The importance of asking “who is this really for?” in design critiques and leadership* Why alignment on outcomes matters more than perfect solutions* Understanding your strongest creative rhythms and working with them, not against them* Learning when to pause, reframe, or let go of an idea that isn’t serving you* Moving across industries and what each environment teaches you* Why healthcare design became a calling, not just a career move* Designing the spaces between decisions, where real change actually happens* Self-care, simplicity, and creating a joyful life outside of work===This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here: https://www.growwithadamjennings.com Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Joel Gill has lived several creative lives in one. Musician, engineer, global design leader, single father, mentor, and now Chief Experience and AI Officer at Experience Artisan. His story stretches from hiding in a school music room and becoming a session synth player & pianist in 1980s London, to shaping early digital at British Airways, to leading design inside megacorps like Shell, HSBC and S&P Platts—while also contributing his craft to teams across Barclays, WPP, Santander, Hyatt, Sapient, Hogarth Worldwide, Vodafone and many others. Through it all runs a single thread. Integrity. Show up. Experiment. Tell the truth. Look after people.In this episode, Joel joins Adam for a rich, funny, emotional and very human conversation about the real work of creative leadership. He talks about discovering design through music studios, building clickable prototypes in PowerPoint before UX existed, and being part of the early BA dot com team in the days before digital design really had a name. He shares how contracting across agencies, banks and tech companies gave him the scar tissue he now teaches his teams to embrace.Joel speaks openly about walking away when a place no longer aligns with your values, the difference between delivery and maturity, and why introducing Design Ops at scale became both a battle and a breakthrough. He also reflects on raising two boys alone while travelling the world for work, the people who shaped him, and the moment his son unknowingly reminded him what matters more than any job title.This is an episode full of integrity, humour, scar tissue, and heart. Joel’s stories are defining. His clarity is unmistakable. And his love for people, culture and craft comes through in every minute.In this episode, we cover:* How Joel went from session musician to early digital pioneer* As part of the early BA dot com team, he learned UX by hacking together prototypes in the days before the discipline really existed* Contracting across agencies and banks, collecting the scar tissue that shaped his leadership* Why he left HSBC and how he recognises when it’s time to walk away* Building design capability at Standard & Poor’s and later at Shell* Introducing Design Ops and why resistance taught him hard lessons* How to observe people, question everything and tell better stories* Why every job needs an exit strategy as much as an entry one* Raising two boys while leading global teams and what they taught him about presence* Visibility as accountability and why smiling is a leader’s most powerful currency* The three helium balloons he uses to measure his own growth: experience, expertise, enthusiasm===This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2026.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here: https://www.growwithadamjennings.com Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Venessa Bennett has built a career that mirrors the evolution of digital itself. She is now Global Director of UX at Dye & Durham, but her journey began in graphic information design, moved through early digital agencies, transport consultancies, comparison sites, and eventually into design leadership, where she found her true sweet spot. Her story is one of intentional growth, constant reinvention and learning how to listen to her instinct.In this episode, Venessa joins Adam for an honest, energetic conversation about the path from junior designer to global design leader. She shares how she first stepped into digital by accident, why she later circled back to it with clarity, and how she reshaped her skills every time the industry shifted. Along the way, she talks openly about the moment she realised she loved people leadership more than pure craft, and how her work in management has become a place of purpose, legacy and joy.Venessa also discusses the challenges that shaped her as a leader. She reflects on the painful lesson of a mis-hire, why understanding yourself is the foundation of any good career decision, and how empathy can be both a strength and a stumbling block. She and Adam explore the unpredictability of people, the changing expectations of design in an AI-driven world, and why designers today need product sense, business awareness and sharper soft skills than ever before.This is a wide-ranging episode full of clarity, growth and grounded wisdom. Venessa’s perspective is generous, practical and deeply human.In this episode, we cover:* Moving from graphic design into early digital work and rediscovering her passion for UX* Cutting her teeth in comparison sites and fast-paced in-house product teams* Shaping her skills around industry shifts from visual design to UX to design leadership* Why she thrives in the nurturing side of leadership and the legacy it creates* The difference between agency unpredictability and in-house depth* How knowing yourself early changes the trajectory of your career* The painful impact of a mis-hire and what she learned from it* Advice for juniors entering the industry and for designers out of work* The future of UX design in a leaner, AI-driven landscape* Why end-to-end thinking, service design and ethics will matter more than ever===This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2026.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here: https://www.growwithadamjennings.com Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of Awaiting Approval, Adam sits down with Hema Meta for a deeply honest, heart-first conversation about what it means to keep going when life and work both feel heavy. It is a quiet, powerful episode about bravery in the very ordinary moments - telling the truth about how you feel, asking for help, and staying soft in a world that keeps hardening its edges.Across the hour, Hema lets herself be seen. There are pauses, emotion, and a lot of reflection. It is not a polished “success story” as much as a real one. The kind you recognise in your own life.In this episode, we talk about:* How it feels to be asked real questions about your journey and find your mind going blank* The courage it takes to be vulnerable in public when you are used to keeping it all together* Why reflective conversations can hurt in the moment but heal in the long runYou’ll hear us explore:* The gap between the story you think you will tell and the story that actually comes out* How honesty about struggle can be more useful to others than a perfect highlight reelSmall, everyday acts of courage that quietly shape a creative careerIf you are going through a tough season, or you have ever felt exposed sharing your story out loud, this one is for you.===This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here: https://www.growwithadamjennings.com Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Anjali Gajera Patel has lived multiple creative lives across India, the UK and now San Francisco, where she is Director of Product Design at Ancestry. Her story spans advertising, freelancing during a global recession, self-taught UX, major in-house roles at Clorox, GAP and Kodak, and the cross-continental journey that eventually led her to one of the most loved consumer brands in the world.In this episode, Anjali joins Adam for a warm, honest and deeply human conversation about finding strength through shifting careers, immigration, recession, personal loss and the rapid pace of the tech industry. She shares how she moved from visual comms into product design, why she kept designing for free during the 2008 crash, and how she eventually built the experience and confidence that took her into global product teams.Anjali talks about the joy of creating products that genuinely improve people’s lives, the responsibility designers have when navigating business needs and dark patterns, and the moment she realised she needed to stop fighting for an advertising dream that wasn’t hers anymore. She also reflects on the Ancestry Pet DNA project she and Adam delivered together, why pivoting is one of her greatest strengths, and how Lego, long walks and loved ones help her stay centred.This is an episode full of resilience, optimism and honesty. Anjali’s energy is infectious and her outlook is a reminder that careers aren’t linear, dreams can shift, and you’re allowed to build new ones at any stage of life.In this episode, we cover:* Moving from India to the UK to the US, and rebuilding a career in each* Starting out in advertising during the 2008 recession and designing for free to stay sharp* Transitioning into product design without formal UX training* The difference between agency and in-house work, and why both shaped her career* What she learned from delivering the Ancestry Pet DNA product* Navigating business goals, user needs and the grey area between them* The power of pivoting and staying agile when projects shift* How Lego, fresh air and loved ones became essential self-care rituals* Letting go of one dream to make space for others* Why optimism matters, especially during a global downturn and rapid AI acceleration===This is Awaiting Approval. A globally charting design podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here: https://www.growwithadamjennings.comGrow With Adam Jennings is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Chris Nguyen has lived more creative lives than most designers ever get close to. He is the Founder of UX Playbook, former Head of Product Design at TrueMonkey, and previously UX Manager at Wizeline, where he helped grow the team from a dozen designers to more than forty.In this episode, Chris joins Adam for a fast, honest conversation about designing a career on your own terms. He shares how he went from dropping out of computer science and working in restaurants, to stumbling into a tech company in Vietnam, getting fired, freelancing, and eventually landing his first product design role in 2015. From there, the story takes him to Seattle, Mexico, Thailand and back to Vietnam, leading teams on products with millions of monthly users.Chris talks openly about walking away from his “dream job” with no backup plan, spending years launching many startups, and finally going all in on UX Playbook. Along the way he uncovers the pattern running through it all. He is at his best going from zero to one, helping designers turn ideas into something real, and encouraging them to build careers that actually fit who they are, not just the junior–mid–senior ladder they were handed.Adam and Chris also dig into what it means to listen to your own signals, why encouragement matters more than yet another tutorial, and how he and his sister were able to retire their parents after decades of 16 hour days in a family restaurant. This is a generous, grounded episode for any designer who feels stuck, burnt out, or unsure what comes next.In this episode, we cover:• How Chris went from dropped-out student to global product designer• Discovering design in a Vietnam tech company and getting fired into freelancing• Growing a UX team at Wizeline from 12 to 45 designers• Taking on a Head of Product Design role at Ascend Group and why it was not the dream job• Quitting with no backup plan and spending years experimenting with startups• The birth of UX Playbook and why designers are “his people”• Zero to one as a creative superpower and the trap of chasing every idea• Practical encouragement for designers struggling to find work in a tough market• Why making more things, and finding the play in your craft, still matters most===This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here: https://www.growwithadamjennings.com Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Cat How has built one of the most talked-about branding agencies on two continents. She is Co-founder and Executive Creative Director at How&How, D&AD Jury President 2026, and has been recognised among the 100 Women to KNOW in America and 100 Most Influential Creative Leaders in 2025.In this episode, Cat joins Adam for a relaxed, very human conversation about the reality of creative leadership. She shares how an English Literature degree led to design criticism, then to retraining as a graphic designer, moving across the world, starting multiple businesses, and finally building How&How into a global branding agency with studios in London and LA.Cat talks candidly about the highs and lows. From selling a first business and opening a Lisbon studio that later had to be sunsetted, to the joy of rebranding Wild Things, a vegan candy, that helped fast-track a founder’s five year plan into six months. Along the way she returns to a simple mantra that runs through her life and work: go big, or go home.Adam and Cat also dig into the tension between AI and craft, how to stay curious without losing your ethics, and why throwing great dinner parties is a legitimate leadership skill. If you care about brand, brave work and building community around what you do, this one will hit home.In this episode, we cover:* How Cat went from English Lit graduate to global branding ECD* The story behind How&How and building studios across countries* Sunsetting the Lisbon office and what it taught her about leadership* The Wild Things project and taking a health food product into skate culture* How AI is reshaping client expectations and creative practice* Why “go big or go home” is more than a design school slogan* The power of hosting and community outside workCat on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cat-how-0499b9149/ How & How: http://www.how.studio===This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam Jennings.Produced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner.© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here: https://www.growwithadamjennings.com Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Awaiting Approval Season 2 will premiere 4th December 2025.Yes, the podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership is back. With 17 brand new episodes, 16 brand new guests, and one familiar face from season one!This season I talk with design leaders from Microsoft, Ancestry, Elsevier, Lloyds Banking Group, Vodafone, BMW, Rightmove, Shell, British Airways, HSBC and many more.*You can find out more in the Season Two full trailer that launched today! Listen to it here or watch it on YouTube🎙 Awaiting Approval – Season Two Schedule* S2E1 : Cat How - Fearless| Thursday 4th December| Go big or go home. Lead with courage and curiosity.* S2E2 : Christopher Nguyen - Momentum| Thursday 11th December| Make, ship, repeat. Control what you can control.* S2E3 : Anjali Gajera Patel - Resilience| Thursday 18th December| Adaptability with heart.* S2E4 : Hema Mehta - Courage| Thursday 25th December| Finding calm in chaos.* S2E5 : Venessa Bennett - Growth| Thursday 1st January| Trust your gut and evolve with change.* S2E6 : Joel Gill - Integrity| Thursday 8th January| Lead with humanity, learn through experience.* S2E7 : Angela Arnold - Grace| Thursday 15th January| Trust yourself and stay open to change.* S2E8 : Hardy Sidhu - Presence| Thursday 22nd January| Find balance in chaos, lead with love.* S2E9 : William Barraclough - Curiosity| Thursday 29th January| Keep learning, stay human.* S2E10 : Odeya Noble-Bougay - Light| Thursday 5th February| Leading through empathy and evolution.* S2E11 : Recruiter Roundtable - Empathy| Thursday 12th February| A special design recruiter roundtable, with seven of the most highly regarded design recruiters.* S2E12 : Sandra González - Regeneration| Thursday 19th February| Design with conscience, lead with connection, and listen to your intuition.* S2E13 : Lucy Jackson - Discipline| Thursday 26th February| Reinvent yourself with honesty, instinct, and courage.* S2E14 : Dan Onufrishyn - Generosity| Thursday 5th March| Growth through giving back.* S2E15 : Lou Maxon - Care| Thursday 12th March| Kindness as craft.* S2E16 : David Sheldon-Hicks - Awareness| Thursday 19th March| Growth through reflection and presence.* S2E17 : Alberta Soranzo - Authenticity| Thursday 26th March| Embrace your messiness and lead with acceptance.So, a new episode - every Thursday.Simply search “Awaiting Approval” wherever you get your podcast fix (including YouTube).Let me know which episode you’re most excited about.*These organisations are not affiliated with the Awaiting Approval Podcast Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Bonus Episode – Season One Exclusive Cast Roundtable ConversationWelcome to this - a roundtable conversation with as many of the cast of Season One as schedules would allow. This is your once in a lifetime chance to sit in on a chat with exceptionally talented creative leaders from a myriad of disciplines including design, advertising, user research, user experience, product design, animation, industrial design, branding and even design hiring.And for those of you already tuned in to the Awaiting Approval podcast you’ll know this group has an unmatched pedigree, with client and partners names including Microsoft, Visa, Apple, Disney, Paramount Pictures, Saatchi & Saatchi, Expedia, LinkedIn, BP, Verizon, Twitter, Vodafone, Dell, Hasbro, Mattel and many more.So, without further preamble, and in alphabetical order, I’m very pleased to welcome to the table:Dr Chris ArnoldLaura BakerJane CookKevin FrankRashmi LopezKevin ParryRoger RohatgiBill SneboldCharmaine WylandDave ZaboskiThis is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam JenningsProduced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Bonus Episode – Behind the Mic with Adam Jennings, Creator and Host of Awaiting ApprovalWhat does it really take to make a podcast about creative leadership - without a production team, a marketing budget, or a safety net?In this special bonus episode, Adam pulls back the curtain on Awaiting Approval itself. Why it exists. Who it’s for. What it’s becoming. From a quiet idea shared with a partner, to charting in 12 countries and reaching thousands of listeners around the world - this is the behind-the-scenes story of how it all came to life.It’s a raw, honest reflection on what it means to start something before you’re ready. We explore the tension between perfection and progress, what leadership sounds like in 2025, and why “approval” is such a powerful concept - for creatives, leaders, and humans in general.This isn’t a pitch. It’s a pause. A moment to breathe, reflect, and reconnect with the why behind it all.This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam JenningsProduced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Roger Rohatgi - Chief AI Officer (Former VP Global Head of Design at BP, with past work with brands such as Verizon, Twitter, MTV, Motorola Solutions, Oracle and more)What happens when a motion designer turned creative director becomes one of the world’s leading voices in Human-Centered AI?In this episode, Roger Rohatgi takes us on a remarkable journey from lifeguarding and cleaning gas pumps to leading multi-agent AI systems and 86,000-component design systems at global scale. We talk about the messy human side of creative leadership - how putting on gloves with your team changes everything, the power of “designing together,” and how the UX of today is shaping the AI of tomorrow.This one goes deep: responsible design, Synthetic Humans, social TV, the importance of feedback, and the personal moment that made his dad proud.He also shares what it means to be “already approved” - and why that idea might just change your whole career.You can connect with Roger on LinkedIn hereI'll be releasing an end of season 'thank you' next week - but for now, I want to say a huge thank you to Roger for ending Season One of Awaiting Approval Podcast with such insight, and thank you to every guest and listener who has supported the show. And a very special thank you to Jasmin Egner who through her support, patience and invaluable insight has helped make this podcast what it is. We’ve built something special together.Keep your eyes and ears peeled for a special season bonus episode dropping soon!Special thanks on this episode to Steve and Stu at Mantis Broadcast for their last minute help on my audio for this episode, and to Sam at Curzon Cinema for letting me film the pre-roll insert there. This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam JenningsProduced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Jason Giles - VP of Product Design at UserTesting (ex-Ticketmaster, AT&T, Microsoft)From laying carpets by day and playing synths by night to becoming a VP of Product Design at UserTesting, Jason Giles’ journey is anything but conventional.In this episode, we dive into his early struggles with imposter syndrome, how a supportive culture at Microsoft helped him rise, and why he believes some of the best design leaders come from the most non-traditional paths. Jason reflects on leadership as an act of service, what it means to be truly people-first, and how a chance encounter in a UK office reshaped his understanding of company culture. Now leading teams at UserTesting, he shares the lessons learned from building products with empathy, fighting for inclusion, and always staying just uncomfortable enough to grow.You can connect with Jason on LinkedIn hereThis is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam JenningsProduced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Dr Chris Arnold – Author, Ethical Marketing Pioneer, Neurodiversity Champion (Former Creative Director and Board Director at Saatchi & Saatchi. Founder of Creative Orchestra and Dyversity Lab)What if your greatest creative strength was the very thing school told you was wrong?In this energetic, honest, and refreshingly unfiltered conversation, Dr Chris Arnold shares how being ADHD and dyslexic became his superpower - fueling a career that spans radical creative direction, industry-shifting PR stunts, and one of London’s biggest community arts festivals.We talk about his time at Saatchi & Saatchi, founding multiple agencies, why most creatives are actually “thought architects” - and the art of flipping a client from fear to bravery.This episode is packed with practical wisdom: how to sell big ideas, delegate with clarity, and stop waiting for permission. Plus: glue-based billboards, 21-foot condoms, and the real reason mediocrity wins (for now).It’s a bold call to arms for designers, creatives and business leaders to reject average, challenge the status-quo - and lead with purpose, not perfection.You can connect with Chris on LinkedIn hereThis is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam JenningsProduced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Lou Maxon - ECD at Maxon House (Acer, BMW, McDonald's, Lego, Lexus, Sothebys, etc)From crafting editorial layouts at Time Out New York to building immersive brand experiences for global giants, Lou Maxon’s career is rooted in curiosity, craft, and storytelling.In this conversation, Lou shares what it’s like to lead from a forest-bound studio on rails, why authenticity beats scale, and how his work has helped shape everything from sippy cup startups to sustainability campaigns. We talk about career pivots, design culture, the death of craft, and why the best creative leaders are more like conductors than commanders. This one’s a journey worth taking.You can connect with Lou hereThis is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam JenningsProduced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe

Kevin Parry – Stop-Motion Animator & Video Wizard (Clients include Disney, Laika and more)From hand-drawn frames to viral visual illusions, Kevin Parry has carved a unique path from the stop-motion stages of Laika to the scroll-stopping magic of social media.In this episode, Kevin reflects on learning animation with pencil and paper, creating one-to-two seconds of footage a day on features like Kubo and the Two Strings, and the rigging ingenuity that makes stop-motion breathe. We explore his early lessons in CG, the creative joy (and isolation) of working solo, and the moment he knew he had to call a redo on a weeks-long shot. Kevin shares his thoughts on AI-generated content, why clarity and wonder matter most, and what becoming a father taught him about creative success.You can connect with Kevin on LinkedIn here He’s also on Substack : Kevin Parry This is Awaiting Approval. A podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership.Hosted by Adam Jennings - a creative leader with three decades of experience leading teams and projects for global brands including Microsoft, Salesforce, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Ancestry, Dolby, BBC and many more - this show features honest, unscripted conversations with the leaders shaping design, storytelling, and innovation today.These are the conversations you don’t hear in keynotes. The ones about imposter syndrome, trust, failure, confidence, and finding your voice as a leader.Whether you’re just stepping into creative leadership or you’ve been at it for years, Awaiting Approval is your place to feel seen, challenged, and encouraged.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted by Adam JenningsProduced by Adam Jennings & Jasmin Egner© Cordial Fox Limited, 2025.Ready to level up your leadership with real, honest support?Join the next cohort of Supercharged Creative Leaders - my flagship four-week programme for creative leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a community that gets it.✅ Small groups (just 6 per cohort)✅ Weekly live sessions with me and your cohort✅ Async access to me and your cohort via a private Slack community✅ Invitation to join my alumni community once you’ve completed the programme.Previous attendees have gone on to win major pitches, land new roles, get promoted and step into leadership with more purpose and presence.🚀 Learn more and apply here Get full access to Grow With Adam Jennings at growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe