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Awaiting Approval: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Adam Jennings hosts a podcast about the messy, human side of creative leadership
What happens when seasoned creatives finally speak without filters?Hosted by Adam Jennings, a design leader with three decades of experience, Awaiting Approval invites creative directors, design leads, and experienced makers to share the work they’re proud of, the lessons they learned too late, and the messy, human truth of leadership.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted and produced by Adam Jennings. growwithadamjennings.substack.com
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- 3 weeks ago1h 11m
Jess Campbell - Healing
Jess Campbell has always known that the best work comes from the most honest place. She grew up in a Jamaican household, surrounded by music she couldn’t quite name yet, was told to be a lawyer, but was quietly certain that wasn’t her path. Jess knew that storytelling was in her blood.She found her way to agency world, to IBM, to Fantasy Interactive, and eventually to a project that stopped everyone who touched it in their tracks: the Slavery and Freedom exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture for the Smithsonian. It was a monumental moment in her career, and for everyone else on the team. And somewhere in that experience she understood, for the first time with complete clarity, exactly what she was put here to do.This is the season finale, and it feels like one. We talk about what it costs to always care this much, about unlearning perfectionism one messy launch at a time, and about the solo trips she took as a younger woman that she only now recognises as the coming of age story she was writing for herself.We talk about boredom as a creative discipline, about what AI cannot automate, and about why the most important practice you can build is the one that gets you out of your own head and back to yourself. There is also a candle on the desk with something her Nana told her written on the lid. It is one of those things that has stayed with me long after we stopped recording.If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes.Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call.I’d genuinely love to hear from you.Want to support Awaiting Approval?Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show.And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
- 4 weeks ago1h 14m
Terri Williams - Trust
Terri Williams trained as a radio broadcaster, ended up writing buggy buying guides for Argos at twenty as a non-parent trying to imagine what a parent would want to know, and has spent the twenty years since growing alongside digital in a way that very few people can claim. She has been the person with the plan when everyone else had opinions, the translator between engineers and end users, and the one asking why when everyone else was already moving on. She is now Lead Martech Product Owner at Vodafone Business, and she has get shit done written on her notepad. That is not a metaphor.What comes through most in this conversation is how completely Terri gives herself to her work, and what that costs, and what it gives back. We talk about the CMS launch during COVID that she and her team poured two years of effort into in ten months, only to watch it get pulled at the last minute, and what she did the moment it happened. We talk about the difference between adapting and just surviving, about what it means to be an empath in a role that requires you to hold the line, and about why change is not something that happens to you but something you either lean into or get left behind by. There is also a two-year-old who says thank you, a degree in the downstairs toilet, and a house that is no longer a white box.If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes.Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call.I’d genuinely love to hear from you.Want to support Awaiting Approval?Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show.And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
- Oct 1, 20261h 13m
Guy Vickerstaff - Craft
After going to Australia in his early twenties - because Alan Wicker said, through the magic of Sunday evening television, that it was the most optimistic place on Earth - Guy Vickerstaff was called by a place called home. He came back to Scotland and eventually found his way into advertising the long way round, via market research, a direct marketing client, and a junior typographer role where he quietly decided he could do better than what he was seeing and just started doing it. He is now Creative Director at Bright Signals in Edinburgh, still has a Pilot V7 on his desk, and still believes the industry is a wonderful place to be, which in the current climate is either mildly delusional or infectious.What this conversation keeps coming back to is care. Care about the work, care about the people making it, care about what goes out into the world with your name on it. We talk about the Bright Storm, the process Guy has built for unlocking ideas from unexpected people, about the Detect Breast Cancer Early campaign that he describes as one of the proudest moments of his whole career, and about the Scottish bullshit detector, which is highly attuned, nationally. We also talk about unlearning the pressure to always have the right answer, and what it actually gives a team when their leader is willing to say, honestly, I just don’t know.If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes.Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call.I’d genuinely love to hear from you.Want to support Awaiting Approval?Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show.And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
- Sep 24, 20261h 10m
Katja Alissa Mueller - Identity
Katja Alissa Mueller grew up in Switzerland, studied economics and law because it was the only option left by exclusion, lasted four years, and then walked into an internship at the main theatre in Zurich on what she describes as a complete whim. That year, she says, set up everything that followed, even though she had no idea it would at the time. She is now Head of Brand Design at Pliant, nineteen years into a career she has never once let go linear.What comes through most in this conversation is how much Katja has made peace with not knowing where she’s going, and how long it took her to get there. We talk about the red thread that connects stage design to brand storytelling, about the particular resilience of the people she mentors and what they quietly teach her in return, and about why a nonlinear career is not a liability but a form of creative leverage, if you learn how to defend it. There is also a Pomodoro timer, a very strong opinion on dunking biscuits in tea, and a restaurant called The Pomodoro Mansion that we may or may not be opening together.If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes.Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call.I’d genuinely love to hear from you.Want to support Awaiting Approval?Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show.And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
- Sep 17, 20261h 27m
Mikaela Calypso Dragon - Vision
Mikaela Calypso Dragon has never done things the expected way. She grew up in Saigon falling in love with TV adverts because there wasn’t much else to watch, ran away from home twice trying to become a creative, and eventually left Vietnam entirely for what everyone assumed would be a short trip to study in the UK. She never went back. She is now a Creative Director, working with some of the biggest brands in the world.This is a conversation about what it means to hold a vision so clearly that other people feel it too and want to help build it. We talk about the relationship between a designer and their audience, about what gets lost when you stop striving for the 1%, and about the long process of making peace with where you come from and bringing it back into your work. We also talk about passion projects, what it costs to make them, what they can give the community, and why it’s important to pay the people. There are also three sausage dogs, one of whom snores audibly and without apology throughout.If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes.Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call.I’d genuinely love to hear from you.Want to support Awaiting Approval?Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show.And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
- Sep 10, 20261h 6m
Roberto Rotondi - Patience
Roberto Rotondi grew up in Italy knowing he wanted to design, studied industrial design in Milan, and then spent the next two decades letting life take him somewhere he never expected. A redundancy became a move to the UK. A quiet nudge from his wife became the confidence to try. A manager in Taipei, who on his first day told Roberto that even native English speakers make mistakes and the only goal is to be understood, gave him permission to stop being afraid of his own voice. He is now Head of Product Design at Trinity College London, speaking a foreign language in front of you, something he says he could not have imagined fifteen years ago.This is a conversation about what happens when you stop trying to climb and start trying to grow. We talk about what it felt like to step back from a management role he wasn’t ready for, about what redundancy actually does to you the first time it lands, and about the particular kind of wisdom that only comes from having lived and worked in places that see the world completely differently. Roberto also draws with his daughter, quotes Ratatouille with full conviction, and has a very clean desk.If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes.Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call.I’d genuinely love to hear from you.Want to support Awaiting Approval?Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show.And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
- Sep 3, 20261h 6m
Julie Kennedy - Reinvention
Julie Kennedy learned to love design by walking the galleries of the V&A as a small child. She would walk around the galleries holding her granddad's hand, as he did his rounds as the Chief Warder. She went on to study sculpture, spend time dressing windows at Topshop during the IRA bombings, work at a tax office she hated, and eventually find her way to Yellow Pages, where she stayed for twelve years - by her own admission it was longer than she probably should have. Since then she has been the first UK designer hired by Amazon, helped build Betfair's design team, launched an e-commerce site for a 300-year-old building materials company that didn't believe builders wanted to shop online, and is now Associate Director of Product Design at PokerStars.What this conversation is really about is the accumulation of a career built through instinct, circumstance, and a hard-won refusal to be small. We talk about what it costs to hide the most important parts of yourself in job interviews, about the difference between a role that looks right on paper and one that actually is, and about the very specific freedom that comes with age and experience of simply caring less what other people think. There is also a Robin that visits the garden every day, a daughter's handmade Mother's Day coaster still on the desk, and one piece of advice from a manager at Amazon that Julie has never forgotten.If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes.Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call.I’d genuinely love to hear from you.Want to support Awaiting Approval?Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show.And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
- Aug 27, 20261h 21m
Oriana Gaeta - Belonging
Oriana Gaeta grew up in Naples and stumbled onto design when making album covers for her friends. She didn’t know there could be a career in this kind of work, it was just a thing she kept doing. It took a degree she dropped, a year in London at 19, and a second attempt before she finally found her way to design properly. Since then she has worked at some of the best agencies in the world, including R/GA and on brands like Nike and Adidas. She is currently CD at Doc Martens doing some of the work she’s most proud of. She also has a three month old puppy named Kira who ate a tissue during this recording.What comes through most in this conversation is how deliberately Oriana has built a life that works around and for her, not just a career. We talk about the difference between design and art and why that distinction actually matters, about instinct as a currency that compounds over time, and about the long, slow work of learning to let go of control. We talk about burnout with real honesty, about what it costs to push through it rather than stop, and about what recovery actually requires. And we talk about what it means to finally be proud of yourself, not for a project or a piece of work, but just as a person who has done the work and built something good.If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes.Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call.I’d genuinely love to hear from you.Want to support Awaiting Approval?Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show.And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe
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About Awaiting Approval
What happens when seasoned creatives finally speak without filters?Hosted by Adam Jennings, a design leader with three decades of experience, Awaiting Approval invites creative directors, design leads, and experienced makers to share the work they’re proud of, the lessons they learned too late, and the messy, human truth of leadership.Awaiting Approval is a Cordial Fox production.Hosted and produced by Adam Jennings. growwithadamjennings.substack.com
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