interim & fractional leadership for creative agencies in motion
CONNECT
THE DOTS
TURNING COMPLEXITY INTO CLARITY AND CLARITY INTO MOTION. WITHOUT THE FULL-TIME PRICE TAG.
GROWTH THAT HOLDS. SCALE THAT WORKS. COMPANIES BUILT TO LAST.We get the call when
… your company is growing fast, but the operational infrastructure to scale hasn't kept up and you can feel where that breaks.
…there's untapped growth in your existing client base. More revenue, better margin, stronger relationships, by building lasting partnerships.
… there's more profit in the revenue you already have. Not from more clients or longer days, but from operational efficiency and sharper sight on where margin leaks, where the cost base has drifted.
…your client services team needs a temporary senior hand. A pitch just landed, a key person is leaving, or the right permanent hire is still in progress. The clients still need to be looked after. The work can't wait.
…you're navigating a restructure, a leadership gap, or a team that needs reshaping. You need someone senior enough to make the hard calls and steady enough to land them well.
If two or more of these feel like the room you're in right now - let's talk.Services
it starts with a call. From there, the work takes the shape it needs to take.-
For CEOs, founders and MT members of creative agencies. Mirror, challenge, pivot, cut through the noise — turning half-formed thoughts into actionable ideas, and questions you can’t take to your team into clear next moves. Honest, regular, peer-level sparring at the top of the business.
Typical engagement: 1 day a week, ongoing. Three-month minimum.
When the sparring reveals work that needs building, the partnership grows into one of three following engagements.
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For agencies that need their operations to work harder. Whether you’re growing on hustle and the systems haven’t kept up, finding more profit in the revenue you already have, or scaling capacity without scaling the cost base. The work is the same shape: ways of work, financial visibility, delivery rhythm, sharper teams, smarter tooling.
Typical engagement: 2–3 days a week, 6–9 months.
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For agencies that need experienced cover in client services — across account management, project management or both. A pitch has just been won, a key person is leaving, or the right permanent hire is still in progress. The clients still need to be looked after. The work can't wait.
Connect the Dots steps in to protect client relationships, maintain delivery standards and keep the team moving, for as long as it takes to find the right person.
Typical engagement: 3–4 days a week, 1–6 months
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For agencies opening new markets, offices, or departments where the integration is harder than the expansion. Operating model design, local leadership hiring, integrated ways of work, and the cross-office rhythm that makes one global agency feel like one business.
Typical engagement: 3 days a week, 9–12 months.
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For agencies in a moment that demands clarity and a steady hand: a merger, a restructure, a leadership gap, commercial pressure, or a team that needs reshaping. Reading the situation fast, holding the wheel, making and communicating the hard calls, and delivering the right outcome with judgement and care. For the people going, and the people staying.
Typical engagement: 2–3 days a week, 6–12 months.
About
TURN complexity into CLARITY.Connect the Dots is an Amsterdam-based interim and fractional leadership agency founded in 2022 by Susanne, with 18+ years of agency experience across global networks, boutique studios, and the early days of influencer marketing. She started her career in client services, project delivery, and operational management across top agencies in London and Amsterdam such as Tribal DDB, JWT, Razorfish London, Grey Possible, We Are Social London, IMA, MediaMonks. Over the past decade, she moved into senior leadership roles focused on leading teams through change management, scaling organisations and driving growth in fast-paced agency environments.
Born from that experience, Connect the Dots works with creative agencies at the moments where ambition has outpaced the organisation, the organisation needs to catch up with the market, or the right leadership simply isn't in place yet. Susanne is a natural perfectionist who has learned that perfection doesn't exist. What matters is a shared dot on the horizon, a clear vision that everyone works towards. Thinking clearly, moving fast and making decisions. Mistakes are how we learn. The risk of not acting is just as real as the risk of getting it wrong.
Four principles shape the work
People first. Behind every successful agency is a team that knows where it's going, feels supported in getting there, and is set up to do its best work. Building a company means building successful teams.
Strong client relationships don't happen by accident. They're built on trust, consistency and the right people looking after them. That's as true for the agency's team as it is for the clients they serve.
Judgement over comfort. Calling what's right rather than what's easy. Sometimes the right call is the uncomfortable one: restructuring a team, cutting what's weighing it down, or being the steady hand when everything feels uncertain.
Build what lasts. Whatever gets built, workflows, teams, tooling, operating models, should outlast the engagement. A fractional executive who creates dependency is a bad fractional executive.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY