Agency Hackers NYC – June 2026

The Death of Silos (and What Replaces Them)

“Everybody asks for process… and then as soon as they get it, they’re like, ‘but why do I have to follow the process?’”

For Tim Smith, this contradiction sits right at the centre of how silos show up inside agencies.

At Chemistry, silos weren’t just a structural issue, they were a thinking problem.

At one point, they tried to solve it the obvious way: split digital out entirely. But as Tim shared, it didn’t fix the problem, it just moved it. 

So they brought everything back together, and started on the real work – figuring out what actually replaces silos.

At Chemistry, that means forcing earlier collaboration, bringing digital into strategy from day one, and shifting expectations across the board.

“Everybody has to stand up and be responsible to bring solutions,” shares Tim.

That shift hasn’t been smooth.

“I won’t say the pain doesn’t continue. It continues.”

But something has changed. People are more involved in the work because they have more “skin in the game.” And the work is starting to feel less like handoffs, and more like a shared effort to actually solve the problem.

In this session, Tim will break down what it really takes to move beyond silos. What changed, what didn’t, and what agencies need to put in place if they want collaboration to be real, not just something they say on a slide.

The Hidden Cost of Workflow Disconnection

Everyone’s chasing AI-driven insights – but fragmented, out-of-sync data makes that impossible. And for most agencies, that fragmentation is hiding in plain sight: disconnected tools, over-serviced projects, missed invoices, and no clear view of what’s actually going on.

Harv Nagra has been on both sides of this problem: as Group Ops Director at a pan-European agency, he lived the chaos before finding a better way.

In this session, he’ll walk through the hidden cost of workflow disconnection – and what it actually looks like when your operations are finally joined up.

The Human Side of Scaling Agencies

“AI is great for so many things,” says Laura Carrick from KOTO. “But you really can’t take away the human element of what it means to look for talent and resource teams.”

Right now, agencies are under pressure from every direction.

Teams are leaner. Clients want more for less. Freelancers are becoming a bigger part of the delivery model. And AI is changing what agencies expect from talent almost overnight.

But amid all the conversation around automation, efficiency, and tooling, many agencies are quietly running into the same problem:

How do you actually build a sustainable, human team?

In this session, Laura Carrick and Hannah Cantrell from KOTO will unpack what the ‘human side’ of scaling really looks like inside a modern agency.

“We talk about it all the time,” says Hannah. “If the designers didn’t have us, they would be like chickens with their heads cut off. They would have no idea what’s going on.”

Drawing on their experience across operations, resourcing, and talent management at KOTO, they’ll explore the messy reality of growing agency teams in 2026. Including: what AI can help with, what it absolutely can’t replace, and why agencies are rethinking the relationship between freelancers, full-time hires, and long-term talent pipelines.

“A big part of what both LaDawn and I do is creating sustainable relationships with people that AI could never replace,” says Hannah.

Account Management is the Growth Lever You’re Not Pulling

Most agencies think growth comes from winning new business. But the biggest opportunity is usually hiding in plain sight: the clients you already have. Poor communication, reactive account management, and unchecked over-servicing quietly chip away at retention, profitability, and growth.

Tiffany Molloy has spent years helping agencies fix exactly that. Through more than 400 agency partnerships, she’s seen how the right account management systems can transform client relationships from a cost centre into a compounding revenue engine.

In this session, she’ll share the practical frameworks agencies use to improve retention, uncover growth opportunities, and avoid the over-servicing traps draining their margins.

If a Key Leader Left Tomorrow, What Breaks First?

Most agencies think succession is a “future me” problem. It’s actually showing up today as bottlenecks and burnout.

For Karl Sakas, that’s the mistake many agencies make.

Leadership succession sounds like something you worry about years from now. When the founder wants to sell, when someone retires, or when the agency gets bigger.

But Karl argues that succession starts much earlier than that.

It shows up every time a team waits for one person to approve a decision. Every time only one person knows how to handle an unhappy client. Every time a senior leader gets promoted, but nobody takes ownership of the responsibilities they’ve left behind.

Karl has spent years helping agency owners increase enterprise value and build businesses that don’t depend entirely on them.

One of the frameworks he uses is Agency Optionality- a practical way to measure how dependent an agency is on its leaders, and their progress from Mandatory to Optional.

In this session, Karl will share the practical frameworks he uses to build stronger leadership teams and create agencies that are less vulnerable to bottlenecks, burnout, and leadership gaps.

“If a key leader left tomorrow, what’s going to break first?”

If that question makes you uncomfortable, this session is for you.