“Leading when the only constant is change ”

David Cohen is the CEO of Grid Worldwide, an agency that prides itself on being the “Make it mean something company”. And David certainly knows what it takes to make it mean something. Every approach David takes, puts people first, which makes him an empathetic leader. He makes it his mission to continuously ensure that the vision and objectives of the organization remain relevant and are obtainable, consistently driving from intentions into execution-able milestones. It’s a constant and delicate balance of meaningful creative product, culture, and profit. For David, there is no room for complacency and every day is simply a new day to keep forging ahead. His superpower is decoding complexity by finding practical solutions that enable progress. David is a master at deep diving into the detail and assessing things with a 360 lens (even if it means challenging a brief) and is always finding new ways of working and applying different perspectives.

“To stay ahead of culture and the competition we prefer to think about market dynamics rather than market competition.” says David. “Dynamics really affect the category as a whole and centre around your customers’ realities and challenges. When you focus on competition, you can often lose sight of what’s needed outside of the existing players and you can miss opportunities completely.”

“We focus on our product, our people, our process and really asses through each project how to evolve these to always deliver, and more importantly delight customers by creating the best possible experience.”

“What has always made Grid unique is our philosophy as the #makeitmeansomething company. It really talks to this shared ambition in our business to be more than just transactional. We engage clients as partners, we care deeply about their businesses and genuinely push every project to be greater than the brief suggests.”

“Ideas are still the most valued currency. Add technology and the ability to scale and automate to this, that makes us unique.”

“Brand building in the 21st century is all about a collective consistency across platforms and media. Ideas are still the most valued currency. Add technology and the ability to scale and automate to this, that makes us unique.”

“Platforms have certainly become the new buzzword in our industry, and similarly if you approach every brief as an opportunity to break conventions and create platforms you run the risk of driving your agenda over the clients’ needs. Every brief is really just the tip of a need that a business has,” says David. “Rather than solve the brief, we think about solving through the brief, but solving for the business. One click further into that is the Richard Branson idea that business is simply an idea to make other people’s lives better. When we engage any business, we must first come to appreciate the value this business offers, and then how we can help them enhance the value they provide. If we stay true to this simple principle the brand/business will certainly remain relevant and serve a clear purpose well into the future.”

Grid’s secret weapon is their ability to change and adapt. “One of our biggest achievements is organic growth on our longest standing clients. It’s a great feeling watching your client’s business evolve and grow because of changes you have made. And in turn how our clients’ needs have shaped our business” says David.

As part of Grid’s Philosophy to make every piece of work that they do mean something, is an operating system they call ‘Investment Creative’. “More than just a system, it’s our north star that keeps us honest and how we judge what value and growth we bring to our client’s business,” says David. They strongly believe once an idea is created, it must reach as many people as possible without breaking the bank and that can only happen with automation and scale. “The ‘Investment Creative’ model, like Grid itself, is constantly adapting and evolving. We create a set of distinctive assets and pour disruptive and breakthrough creative content into different formats that automate and execute across the customer journey.” As David will tell you, this is critical, as “this is how brands pitch up in the 21st century in an agile, adaptive and dynamic way. We believe this is our differentiator and will benefit not only our bottom line but our client business for years to come.” IE