Finance Forum: The Agency CFO Conference

From Panic to Profit: How SAENTYS Rebuilt Its Finances – and Its Focus

“Rather than stressing out about it, why don’t you get your head out of the sand, go to the client and go, I’ve got an idea?”

That’s how blunt Mike Lander is about agencies’ response to AI and procurement.

As an ex-procurement director and agency advisor, he’s seeing the same pattern everywhere: “Agencies are in denial – not about what’s going on, but about what they’re going to do about it.”

While agencies argue about AI on LinkedIn, procurement has quietly baked it into their processes. Requirements are AI-drafted. RFP processes are AI-scaled. Spend is AI-analysed. Even simple contracts are sometimes being negotiated by AI agents before a human ever gets involved.

At the same time, budgets are tightening, retainers are being switched to projects, and big networks are laying people off. “Unless you’re a specialist, bluntly, you won’t survive,” says Mike. “If you’re caught in that messy middle of ‘we’re a media agency’ – unfortunately, that’s a commodity.”

In this session, Mike will unpack:

• How AI-enabled procurement is really working behind the scenes – and why you’re seeing more RFPs.

• Why smaller agencies who never met procurement before are now getting “taken apart”.

• The 5% of agencies who are going to clients with AI-pilot commercial models – and keeping their fees and their relevance.

“If I can work this out in my kitchen in the Cotswolds,” says Mike, “surely agency leaders can too.”

If your FD is quietly panicking about procurement, or you’re sick of losing in late-stage RFPs, this is a session you can’t afford to ignore.

What Are the Real Financial Challenges Facing £1m+ Agencies?

“What do I see finance directors keeping them awake at night?”

That’s the question Jay Neale keeps coming back to.

And it’s not AI. It’s not tools. It’s not shiny dashboards.

“It’s things like predicting revenue and forecasting,” says Jay. “Which leads straight into pipeline.”

Then margin. Then staff costs. Then cash. Then the uncomfortable truth that delivery teams often care more about keeping clients happy than protecting profit.

From Jay’s perspective, finance teams are stuck between bringing discipline for better forecasting, and, on the other hand, teams just wanting to keep their clients happy.

That tension is where profit quietly disappears.

“Cash is king,” Jay says. “Especially if you’ve got high salary costs you’ve got to find every month.”

In this session, Jay will facilitate a panel discussion with a lineup of finance directors and CFOs to talk about this tension and what’s keeping them up at night. He’ll be joined by:

• Jason Blackman, a chartered accountant and consultant to agencies, with experience as CFO of Omobono.
• Becky Dainter, Finance Director at WAA Chosen.
• Kelly Jepp, Former CFO to many companies such as Mother, Special London, Creature London.
• Deborah Connolly, Fractional Finance Director from a wide range of agencies – Audience, Broadwick studio, CLOSER.

If you’re running, leading, or financially responsible for a growing agency, this session is designed to feel uncomfortably familiar – and genuinely useful.

How Can Finance Leaders Drive Growth Without Killing Creativity?

“My creatives can’t read percentages.”

That was one of Karla Smith’s biggest realisations as a finance leader inside a creative business.

It wasn’t that people didn’t care about performance. It was that finance was speaking a language the rest of the agency simply didn’t process. Spreadsheets, ratios, and abstract KPIs failed to land — not because they were wrong, but because they weren’t understood.

Over time, Karla began to reframe finance’s role. Less about control. More about storytelling.

At Ogilvy, this meant changing how data was presented — turning numbers into narratives, visuals, and context that creative teams and leaders could actually engage with. It also meant being far more intentional about which KPIs were used, and what behaviours they encouraged.

“People are making decisions incredibly fast,” Karla explains. “You’re never going to have all the information.”

The real challenge, then, isn’t perfect data. It’s giving leadership teams the right signals — the few metrics that genuinely guide growth, rather than drowning the business in noise.

In this session, Karla will explore how finance leaders can tell better financial stories, translate data across disciplines, and focus leadership teams on the levers that actually make a difference – without slowing the business down or killing creative momentum.