Operations & Organizational Design

I run
creative and client-serving
businesses, and I design
how they work.

Anton PerreauFor agencies, studios and in-house teams

Teams often grow faster than anyone can design them.

Teams often grow faster than anyone can design them.

Every new client brings new people, and the structure set at ten has to carry forty. Everything nobody owns lands on whoever can hold it, which is usually the same few people.

Where new people land

Everyone loses a day a week to meetings, approvals and chasing decisions. The few people holding it together lose almost three.

Client workLost time

Bain & Company; Perlow, Hadley and Eun (executives), Harvard Business Review, 2017

People do their best work inside clear boundaries they can see.

Not knowing what’s expected of you is one of the five biggest causes of burnout.

Know what’s expected of them.Don’t know what’s expected of them.

Fewer than half of employees (47%) strongly agree they know what is expected of them at work.Gallup, 2018 and 2025

AI now does in minutes the work teams used to spend hours on. Juniors did most of it, and it’s how they learned the job.

What you sell, who does it, how it’s priced, how anyone trains: all four are changing at once, in businesses that were never designed for it.

Great talent burns out in businesses designed by accident.

A business designed on purpose keeps its best people.

Organizational design gives everyone clear ownership and a way to get good, and gives your busiest people their week back. It starts with five questions.

A business that’s working can answer all five. Most can only answer two.

  1. What is this built to do?

  2. Who does the work when it gets hard?

    If the honest answer is the same few people, that’s the design.

  3. Where do decisions actually get made?

  4. What does this business reward?

  5. How does anyone get good here?

23%

The profit gap between the most engaged teams and the least.

Gallup Q12 meta-analysis, 2.7 million employees

That’s money for

  • Your own product, alongside the client work
  • The moonshot hire who changes the business
  • Equity for the people who built it with you
  • Pitching only for work you want
  • Walking away from the client that burns out your team
  • Six months of runway in the bank
  • A coach for every manager
  • Parental leave that beats the big companies
  • Hiring ahead of the work
  • Raises before anyone has to ask
  • A real bonus pool
  • An R&D budget
  • Pro bono work you’re proud of
  • A second office in a new city
  • An acquisition
  • A partner track
  • A new office that attracts great talent
  • An academy that turns juniors into your next leaders

I’ve worked in every corner of an agency.

From public relations to social media before it was a department, from digital all the way through to running the whole agency.

So I’ve sat in most of the seats I now design, including the ones where good work disappears into somebody else’s process.

Any team that serves clients, inside a company or out of one, has to work for those clients and its finances at the same time. I’ve been responsible for both, so what I design is something I’ve had to run myself.

Twenty years, three continents, companies of nine people and of several hundred. Today I work independently.

Download my resume

Download my resume

Tell me a little about yourself and I’ll send it over.

Leadership experience

  • Movers+Shakers2025–26
  • Battenhall2020–25
  • Tommy2017–20Warner Bros. · Paramount · Sony Pictures · CBS Films · Lionsgate

Earlier

  • Sony Pictures2015–16

Recommendations

Set clear expectations.

“He always set clear expectations… his trust in me and my colleagues to carry out his vision and get the work done — an underrated management skill.”

Austin PowellSr. Manager, Social · Podium Entertainment

Deep operational expertise.

“He combines deep operational expertise with a calm, thoughtful approach that inspires confidence in clients and colleagues alike.”

Rosie (Hoa) PhamFinancial Controller · Battenhall

Every opportunity to suggest improvements.

“He gives his direct reports and partners every opportunity to suggest improvements to processes that can benefit employees and clients alike.”

Keith O’BrienContent strategist · former Editor-in-Chief, PRWeek

Trusting his team and stepping in.

“He’s the kind of manager who stays deeply engaged, striking the perfect balance between trusting his team & stepping in where he can add the most value.”

Bruce McConnelHead of Social & Brand Content Marketing · Google

Shared decisions, clear vision, and conviction.

“He never saw leadership as top-down. Instead, he operated through shared decisions, clear vision, and conviction.”

John David IglesiasAssociate Vice President · Battenhall